Column: CDK moves forward after ‘bad things happen to good companies'

"Sometimes bad things happen to good companies."

CEO Brian MacDonald said this during an Aug. 28 interview on the Automotive News "Daily Drive" podcast, referring to his company as well as the 1981 book by Harold Kushner, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," that explores what can occur in the wake of unexpected tragedy.

The "bad things" MacDonald referred to were significant: Two cyberattacks June 19 forced CDK to shut down its dealership management system for two weeks, affecting its 15,000 customers across North America.

During the discussion, MacDonald spoke extensively with Automotive News Executive Editor Jamie Butters about the attacks, their aftermath and the company's hope to move forward now that the attacks have been resolved and dealerships compensated at least in part.

Dealerships took financial hits from the sales slowdown, resorting to cumbersome pen-and-paper and third-party software workarounds to keep their businesses running. CDK also spent considerable capital to reboot operations and compensated dealer subscriptions for one month to help them address some of their extra costs.

MacDonald's interview gave readers some crucial updates. We learned, for example, that CDK has accelerated and increased its investment in IT operations and technology innovation since the attacks. MacDonald's comments came two days after CDK disclosed that the attacks did not appear to have involved the theft of any employee or customer data.

MacDonald talked about dealing with troubles as they come the best you can, and then moving forward. That's where his "bad things" comment came in.

"I used to try to teach my kids that sometimes, bad things happen to good people, and sometimes bad things happen to good companies," MacDonald said. "But it's how you recover and deal with it, right? And so during and after this event, what I said to our employees is, 'Look what happened. It's incredibly unfortunate for our dealers. It was a horrific event for them. It was a horrific event for our company. But I think we dealt with it as best as we could, and now it's about what we do going forward.' "

Going forward remains a work in progress.