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| Business question | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 1 2009, 02:07 AM (377 Views) | |
| brumdog44 | Jul 1 2009, 02:07 AM Post #1 |
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The guy picked last in gym class
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Simple business question: In a competing, true capitalistic market, a company that finds a better way to manufacture a product will not share this information with competitors...at least if they are smart. Correct? |
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| yawnzzz | Jul 1 2009, 07:28 AM Post #2 |
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Coach
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Normally, no. Some companies, like Toyota, have made a lot of money training other companies on their manufacturing techniques though. I've done consulting for several companies that have paid huge sums of money to be trained by Toyota, but I've never worked for any company that sells or gives away their manufacturing advantages. I have worked with people whose previous companies used to share information. Ironically, they worked for GM in Detroit and told me that all of the Big 3 would regularly share their secrets. After spending around a decade working in Detroit with this frame of mind, they were shocked when I told them that the current company we're all working for would not appreciate anyone ever calling up their leading competitor to either give or ask for advise. |
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| HoosierLars | Jul 1 2009, 11:23 AM Post #3 |
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3 in a row
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I think part of the Detroit sharing philosophy came from the days when they believed all that mattered was styling (and they guarded their clay models), and the mechanical aspects of the vehicles were considered mere details that somebody had to spend money on. This is part of the reason, IMO, they are fucked now. Edit: And I think this approach of favoring form over substance has permeated much of American society, and helps explain how an unaccomplished, inexperienced, teleprompter talkin' man like Obama can win the highest office in the land. Edited by HoosierLars, Jul 1 2009, 11:35 AM.
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| Mr Gray | Jul 1 2009, 11:27 AM Post #4 |
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Coach
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yes brum, unless they somehow have more to gain by sharing than they do by hording. |
![]() The body knows what fighters don't: how to protect itself. A neck can only twist so far. Twist it just a hair more and the body says, "Hey, I'll take it from here because you obviously don't know what you're doing... Lie down now, rest, and we'll talk about this when you regain your senses." It's called the knockout mechanism. | |
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| brumdog44 | Jul 1 2009, 11:51 AM Post #5 |
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The guy picked last in gym class
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There will be a parallel that I'm going to bring up later, but I want honest opinions on the topic first. In my opinion, if I am running a corporation that finds a way to produce more profit, there is no way in HELL that I'm going to share that with my competition. |
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| yawnzzz | Jul 1 2009, 11:55 AM Post #6 |
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Coach
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Could be. I personally think it has a lot to do with people in my field that do not have any loyalty. Anything I do for a company remains completely private, but the people that I was speaking of who worked for GM work for a much larger consulting firm (probably 50,000+ consultants), so they had consultants working for all three manufacturers. I never went into detail about who shared secrets, but my guess is the consultants shared with each other and that spread to employees of each company. |
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| Mr Gray | Jul 1 2009, 12:13 PM Post #7 |
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Coach
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brum, if you think there is a good chance that they competition will figure it out in time anyway, but you can profit from sharing the information in the short term, you would most likely choose to share it. Franchising is the greatest example of this business model. The franchisor knows how to do "something" very well and make money from it, but instead of expanding it on his own throughout the country and reaping all of the profits over the long haul, he chooses instead to share his secrets for upfront profits and give up quite a bit of the long term profit potential. |
![]() The body knows what fighters don't: how to protect itself. A neck can only twist so far. Twist it just a hair more and the body says, "Hey, I'll take it from here because you obviously don't know what you're doing... Lie down now, rest, and we'll talk about this when you regain your senses." It's called the knockout mechanism. | |
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| eelbor | Jul 1 2009, 01:09 PM Post #8 |
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Zen Master
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In my industry, it is easy to reverse engineer our products and process and changes to our products and process. It is much better to sell the improvements to our process for a profit, before they are taken without us making a dime. |
![]() "Liberal, shmiberal. That should be a new word. Shmiberal: one who is assumed liberal, just because he's a professional whiner in the newspaper. If you'll read the subtext for many of those old strips, you'll find the heart of an old-fashioned Libertarian. And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners." - Berkeley Breathed Meat is Murder. Sweet, delicious murder. | |
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| brumdog44 | Jul 1 2009, 03:53 PM Post #9 |
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The guy picked last in gym class
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In the parallel case that I will bring up later, it is not going to be easy to reverse engineer the product. In terms of loyalty, there are built in incentives for a worker not to share trade secrets because the profit that a company earns in comparison to other companies will be reflected in individual salary. |
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| Mr Gray | Jul 1 2009, 04:06 PM Post #10 |
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Coach
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you gonna get to it or what? :lipflap: |
![]() The body knows what fighters don't: how to protect itself. A neck can only twist so far. Twist it just a hair more and the body says, "Hey, I'll take it from here because you obviously don't know what you're doing... Lie down now, rest, and we'll talk about this when you regain your senses." It's called the knockout mechanism. | |
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| brumdog44 | Jul 1 2009, 04:18 PM Post #11 |
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The guy picked last in gym class
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You want it, you got it: Merit pay for teachers, as would currently be scheduled in Indiana, would be based on student improvement in comparison to other classrooms in the state. Let's say I'm a fourth grade teacher and I have a class of children at second grade level reading. In working with him, he improves to fourth grade level at the end of the year. Another teacher has a similar classroom of children at second grade level reading, but only is able to get them up to a third grade reading level by the end of the year. Greater merit pay would be given to the first teacher. Now, here's the rub: the first teacher will benefit in the future by not sharing any information with the second teacher in how to improve her students. School districts will also benefit financially by not sharing any effective techniques in improving their students' performances. When you make education about competition instead of being about actual improvement, you've turned into a business. I guarantee you that schools would absolutely LOVE for other schools to drop in their performance levels because it makes their individual school look better. I can tell you right now that even without merit pay in place, this is taking place in which schools do not share effective strategies with each other....if merit pay is in place, you will see this now happening at the individual teacher level as well. |
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| IUCOLTFAN | Jul 1 2009, 04:33 PM Post #12 |
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Coach
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And how does teacher #1 benefit from not sharing his information? He already got his reward with the merit pay..........does he benefit by keeping teacher #2's salary lower? |
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| brumdog44 | Jul 1 2009, 04:53 PM Post #13 |
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The guy picked last in gym class
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Because the amount of money in merit pay is set. There is going to be no distinguishment made in terms of overall state improvement -- if the reading level in the state goes up one grade level per year or two grade levels per year, it's still the same amount of money toward merit pay. In fact, an individual teacher is best off when the rest of the pool doesn't show much improvement...if you improve your students two grade levels while everyone else improves only one, you will recieve more merit pay than if you improved them two grade levels while everyone else improved them two grade levels as well. Think of it terms of cars: let's say everyone in America would own exactly one car (set amount). If you make better cars, you are going to get a larger portion of the market (profit). If you give your trade secrets away, you are guaranteeing that your competition is going to be eating some of your market portion (profit). |
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| HoosierLars | Jul 1 2009, 04:55 PM Post #14 |
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3 in a row
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Vouchers are the solution. Parents will be willing to pay the good schools more. |
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| brumdog44 | Jul 1 2009, 05:01 PM Post #15 |
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The guy picked last in gym class
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Bring that up in a separate thread...it has zero to do with merit pay. |
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