"Let's not sell the physical iron...."

I stayed up until 3am to finish reading It's Not Luck, a manufacturing thriller in which a fast-thinking manager races against the clock to save three ailing companies from disaster. Against all odds, he comes up with one miraculous solution after another for near-instant turnarounds. And he doesn't even wear a cape.

The third and final story about Pressure-Steam, Inc sounded oddly familiar - even though I don't even know what pressure steam is. Our hero asks his VP Sales what it takes to increase business. The answer, as expected, is to reduce prices. The boss nods in agreement. The economy is tough and prospects are under a lot of financial pressure. What else can we do to help them out?

The VP Sales doesn't have quite as much empathy for his customers. Those weasels! "If we listen to them, they'll try to put all their financial burden on us. You know that some of our clients want us to give them spare parts on consignment. Can you imagine such guts?"

But the boss seems curious rather than outraged, so he jokes that maybe the company should offer all equipment on consignment? As a matter of fact, if we want to be really popular... "Give them everything. The best would be if we own and run the customer's need for pressure steam for him. This is ridiculous!"

But it's not. In the end, the company is saved by "selling not the physical iron but the real thing that the client wants - where he wants it, when he needs it, in the amount that he needs".

It's Not Luck is the second in a series of Theory of Constraints books by Eliyahu Goldratt. I heard about them from Dmitri, who found out about them through Vladimir. They're a fun read - especially if you work at or do business with 3Tera or Amazon Web Services :)

Comments

[Storagezilla]

I thought you were off finding yourself? Happen to be there all along?? ;-p

[Isabel Wang]

I've found more similarities than I expected between hosting and other businesses - but I'm still looking for what I'm looking for :)

[Bert Armijo]

I business is a spellbinding novel, does that make 3tera the detective agency tracking down the lost money???

[Isabel Wang]

Well... our hero does sell his companies for a few hundred million more than expected - all from finding lost money through utility pricing :)