OPINION
The More Things Change… W
Dominic Langan reflects on 37 years at Madison and 20 years as CEO.
hen I joined in 1989, there was no internet, no smartphones, no social media, no e-commerce, no “Dear Dom” posts on Bike
Trade Buzz and certainly no artificial intelligence. Every Monday morning I’d walk into the office to find rolls of thermal fax paper strewn across the floor, covered in handwritten customer orders. Many had no product codes, so our customer care team first had to decipher what the customer wanted before entering the orders into our very basic computer system. Only then could the warehouse begin picking. Since then, we’ve witnessed mountain bike booms, road
bike booms, e-bikes (yet to boom), direct-to-consumer brands, online retail, COVID, supply chain disruption, oversupply, marketplaces and now AI. Every few years something arrives that is supposed to change everything forever. Some things do. Most don’t. The longer I’ve spent in business, the more I’ve realised that
while technology evolves at incredible speed (and I’ve always embraced it), the fundamentals of building a great business barely change at all. I’ve watched companies come and go. I’ve seen retailers
thrive while others disappeared. I’ve worked with brands that have become household names and others that quietly faded
away. Looking back, their success or failure rarely came down to having the newest product or the cleverest marketing campaign. It almost always came down to getting the basics right. Trust still wins. In an age where you can compare prices in seconds and order products from almost anywhere in the world, trust has arguably become even more valuable. Retailers buy
from people they trust. Consumers buy from businesses they trust. Brands choose partners
they trust. It takes years to build and only moments to lose.
Relationships still matter. Technology has undoubtedly made business faster, but
it hasn’t made relationships any less important. If anything, they’ve become more valuable because genuine relationships are increasingly rare. After nearly four decades, I’ve learned that difficult
conversations are always easier when they’re built on years of mutual respect rather than months of transactional interaction. Long-term thinking still beats short-term gain. Every business faces pressure to chase the next sale,
the next promotion or the next quarterly number. Yet the companies I admire most have always been prepared to sacrifice short-term wins if it protects the long-term health of their business. The temptation to discount, overstock or compromise your
values in pursuit of short-term results has always existed and always will. That’s simply the reality of business. But value still beats price. I’ve never believed the race to the bottom is a sustainable strategy. Businesses that consistently create value through expertise, service and trust have always outperformed those chasing the lowest price. That was true in 1989, and it’s just as true today. People still make the difference. Warehouses are more automated than ever. Data is more sophisticated. AI will undoubtedly transform many aspects of our industry.
But none of those things replace great people. The best businesses I’ve worked with weren’t built because they had the smartest software. They were built because
www.bikebiz.com September 2026 | 17
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