THE INTERVIEW | JIM GOODALL
Pewag’s primary specialisation is engineered chain products, such as snow chains, forestry chains, lifting/lashing chains, tyre protection chains and conveyor systems for various industrial applications.
conglomerates and online marketplaces, as well as the team that focuses on the smaller shops. I love that in many ways this is still a small and personable industry in many ways and that the business is about the relationships you can build. “One thing that I would change across the industry is to introduce more modernisation. I am a big tech guy and when I came on board we did not have a CRM. For example, we could not easily get hold of a full customer list, so there was a great tech opportunity and now we focus a lot on building out customer portals and going beyond where most of the industry is at – many orders are handwritten, scanned and emailed, or even faxed to us.” One key challenge, however, is recruitment.
There are not enough skilled people to meet the needs of rigging companies. It is hard to find sales teams with experience, crane operators and technicians. There are simply not enough people who want to do this work, and this is where modernisation could really help. For tech-savvy younger generations, a tech upgrade could make the industry more appealing. “There is a swing coming. People need to use
computer technology even if they don’t have a computer at home, which a surprising number of people do not. They may just use a phone.
30 Summer 2026 |
ochmagazine.com
I feel that I am ahead of the curve in terms of technology use, but then I am constantly looking at things from a five to ten year perspective.” That long-term strategic view is being challenged by the increasingly unpredictable times in which companies have to operate. Geopolitical factors and sudden economic fluctuations make it hard to predict the future, but companies still have to figure out the best way forward. “Unpredictability is a real challenge,” says Goodall. “The news changes by the hour and when you are a long-term planner that presents some problems. There is a foggy outlook for the next five years and that comes on the back of a challenging year. Tariffs are a crazy thing, and they came in all of a sudden and no one was sure what to do.”
At first, pewag rerouted all inbound freight to Canada to avoid paying millions of dollars in tariffs and so began the ‘Canada drip’ of steel coming into the US as and when it was needed. “Then tariffs on steel were reinterpreted and
redefined, and we have had to learn a lot very quickly about international trade and customs,” says Goodall.
Perhaps the only certain thing in the industry’s
future will be more consolidation, particularly as more venture capital money comes in. New
products, more automation and an increased focus on safety systems will also be key trends, as the industry takes more opportunities to remove workers from dangerous tasks working near a load. “That is a good thing for the industry. We
are not replacing workers, just moving them away from the danger zones. Automation is not so much about replacing people. I don’t think manual labour will go away in my lifetime.” It seems this is an industry that will remain firmly based on people, the relationships they form and the culture of the companies that work within it. Those things are firmly in Goodall’s wheelhouse, which is why pewag USA has become an exemplar for the rest of the company. “Culture drives performance, not the other way
around. Everything I have done has focused on the culture of the company and taking a positive approach internally to whatever is happening in the world rather than slipping back into the culture the way it was. We are pushing more practices back to the parent company in Austria and we have become the example of how distribution should be run. It is all about getting away from entrenched thinking.” Goodall may not have grown up in this industry, but he clearly understands how it works.
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