Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> > > Those companies survive if they render outstanding quality, > > or a cult-object, or both, as in Leica's case. > > All Leica needs to do is make money on its current products. > If it does that, > it survives forever. There is no need to try to sell ten > million units of > anything. Twenty thousand cameras a year is plenty, as long > as each one is sold > at a profit (even a modest profit). > > Wasn't it right here that Mr. Maxwell and his hand-made > loupes were discussed? > Is he going bankrupt? Does he need to mass-produce a million > units a year in > order to survive? Nope. He just needs to make money on the > handful of items > that he produces. > > -- Anthony Unfortunately, Anthony, your view of what a company needs to do to survive is only valid if the company is privately held, and held by owners whose definition of profit is modest. If, like Leica, a company is publicly held, it exists not to produce a top-of-the-line product, but to make money for the stockholders - and if the stock holders don't like the profit picture, they bail. If Leica is to survive as a publicly held company it is going to have to figure out how to grow financially, whether that means producing an M7 that can sell more units than the M6, or whether it means turning out plastic point-and-shoots. I'm not in favor of this view of things, but it's called reality, capitalism, business life at the end of the 20th century - take your pick.