[TheForge] rant concerning quality of products

[Andrew Vida]

GRAF wrote:
> Andy, This is simply my own observation of local businesses, but I 
> believe you are in error here.
> In the last two decades or so I have seen a distinct alteration in the 
> way things are being run,

	Agreed.

 > as the next gen of bosses have arrived with
> their freshly minted business administration degrees.

	When I did my MBA the one thing that was made clear to us was that the 
degree meant only one thing - that we had been initiated into a way of 
thinking and doing things that others do not have.  It is like any other 
training - one can train to be a machinist, but that does not guarantee 
that they will be a good one.  Attitude, smarts, experience, motivation, 
and basic talent all play a role in determining what sort of  person you 
will be regardless of the endeavors you may undertake.

	We were told that the degree was your foot in the door and nothing 
more.  Once in, it was up to you and not your credential to show them 
what you can do.  I find this to be eminently so.

> Companies that used to function on the theory that their success was 
> based on helping their customers make a good living and therefore remain 
> viable customers in the long haul, have gone to a model that treats 
> their customers as a nuisance at best. The customer is now useful only 
> to make an immediate profit.

	Perhaps I was not quite clear enough.  I have found that smaller 
businesses suffer from this a LOT less than larger ones - private less 
than public.  In any event, there are a lot of very well run companies 
out there that never get press because their skies aren't falling.

> "Just in time" is an example . Items that are critical to repairs, but 
> not often needed used to be stocked two or three deep so that when 
> needed the customer could get back up and running, generating profit and 
> coming back for other items, while not even considering going elsewhere 
> for supplies.

	We agree.  Just in time inventorying is REALLY sexy looking on the 
surface - that much is hard to argue against - but the everyday 
living-with-it truth behind it is not so great if your orientation 
toward your customers of one of thanks rather than annoyance or if you 
are taking only a partial view of your reality.  Seeing the inventory 
cost side of the equation in a vacuum results in a distorted view.  You 
have to look at the customer side as well, which I suspect is either 
intentionally or naively ignored.  One of the biggest mistakes made, 
IMO, by business these days in terms of attitude is the near-complete 
rejection of overhead, which is looked upon as some great enemy of the 
bottom line.  IMO it is not.  It is just another set of constraints that 
shapes the ways in which one does business.  So the question in this 
specific case comes down to what the company wants v. what the customer 
wants.  There is a happy balance in there and it underpinned the entire 
US economy for most of its lifetime to day.  Today, that has been 
abandoned in favor of squeezing 0.0000000001 penny more from the 
corporate asset base and THAT is the ONLY consideration within the 
general context of "what can we get away with and keep customers coming 
back".  That is a very sad change in mindset.

> I have no problem stocking parts that I have a reasonable expectation of 
> needing in a year or so. I am talking things that go wrong suddenly and 
> only once in a piece of equipments life. That is what distributors USED 
> to be for. They in theory, cover a base of hundreds ,if not thousands, 
> of these same pieces of equipment.

	Such expectation is, of course, ridiculous - but it serves to expose 
the company's base value system, which in this case doesn't show well in 
terms of regard for the customer.
> 
> Why is this? Could it be that some bean counter has decided, or been 
> taught, that the real value lies in the nickels and dimes that do not 
> turn over every quarter, and not in the customer base? Yeah, turn over 
> is important, but so is the return customer.

	Bingo - and that is where the balance point should lie, but it does not 
in many cases.

	Also, bear in mind that many companies behave as they do as matters of 
pure survival.  If they did not follow the lead of the WalMarts, they 
would literally die off.  One of the most profound problems with 
business as it exists today stems from the phenomenon of lowest common 
denominators.  Once Company A broaches  some new low in attitude and 
gets away with it, their competition are pretty well constrained to 
follow suit because if they do not, the dummies who comprise the buying 
market will flock to A for the lower prices.  This is PRECISELY what 
WalMart banked its success on, and it has worked like a charm.  Treading 
the noble path is great if you don't mind going out of business.  You 
can offer a product that is 10x better than the competition's and you 
will still go toe-up if your price is 3% higher.  Buyers are IGNORANT 
and STUPID on the whole - judging mainly on price with no mind to the 
longer view.  The clued-in buyers often comprise an insufficient 
proportion of a market to keep a company viable.  The niche-markets are, 
of course, a different animal, and you will find that those small 
companies are usually VERY customer oriented and very well run at least 
in terms of attitude.

 > Given the choice between a
> distributer that I can walk into , do business and be about my way, and 
> having to chase all over town, I will gladly pay a premium at the 
> first.. Short term paper profits vs giving a reason for customer 
> loyalty, is the contest and the wrong side is winning.

	This is because you are not an ignoramus and your attitude is what I 
would call "proper", for lack of a better term.  But the oceans of 
consumers out there - the WalMart Wanderers - have little to no clue 
about such things - they just want a low price.  They have been 
CONDITIONED to poor service, low quality, and tossing the damned thing 
when it fails.  And once again, it is our own fault.  The bait was 
thrown out there and the world gave it no second thought - YOMP!  And 
now we are paying for it in ways many never foresaw.