Cat is back: an icon that once seemed headed for the dustbin, Caterpillar has made an impressive turnaround. Here's how.
Chief Executive (U.S.) › Nbr. 2005, March 2005
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Cat is back: an icon that once seemed headed for the dustbin, Caterpillar has made an impressive turnaround. Here's how.
Every time he glances out the windows of his seventh-floor office atop Caterpillar headquarters in Peoria, Ill., CEO Jim Owens takes in a very satisfying panorama: Hundreds of yellow bulldozers and other humongous Cat pieces are rebuilding Interstate 74 through town and across the Illinois River, in the largest highway reconstruction in downstate history. They spend all day crawling back and forth across his view.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Hundreds of sites like it around the world are teeming with more Cat equipment than ever before. "We're sitting on the sweet spot as a company right now," Owens says. "We're well positioned with our products and in our markets. The competition is good--but a lot more fragmented than we are." Caterpillar once seemed destined to join the Midwestern industrial scrap heap, succumbing to Japanese competition the same way the U.S. automobile industry is in the process of...See the full content of this document
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