Corporate Roadkill
Here are two examples of companies headed for the graveyard. As Schumpeter said “Almost all businesses, no matter how strong they seem to be at a given moment, ultimately fail and almost always because they failed to innovate.”
Creative Destruction-Restaurant Division
The Casual Restauant business is in the midst of a price war.
The informal, sit-down restaurant chains that blanket the nation are fighting their most intense price war in years. Applebee’s is offering dinner for two for $20. Ruby Tuesday is handing out coupons for two entrees for the price of one. Chili’s, not to be outdone, is promoting some entrees for $7 or less.
Franchise owners “were very upset that we’re getting hammered here, we’re giving the food away,” Mr. Farro said. In contrast, he said, another promotion offering two-for-one entrees had worked well.
Taking on the I Phone
The Palm Pre has been hyped as the competitor to the I Phone, but it’s not going to happen.
So far, Palm is off to a slow start. Palm’s App Catalog has just a few dozen apps, even as Apple boasts that iPhone users can download 50,000 apps that do everything from receiving baseball videocasts to unlocking a rental car.
The payment system for the Palm app store — important if the company wants to charge for certain programs — is still under construction. And most crucially, Palm has yet to open its software development kit, the main set of tools needed to write apps, to most of the thousands of developers who have expressed an interest in creating programs for the Pre.
Maybe.
More likely though, their price war crushes the local players, the moms and pops that can’t withstand price competition.
We might end up with ONLY chains.
http://www.abc15.com/content/news/northeastvalley/scottsdale/story/Arizona-man-sends-idea-to-restaurant-gets-free/-IyOkTJmhki3g5bqJRI3wQ.cspx
Maybe.
More likely though, their price war crushes the local players, the moms and pops that can’t withstand price competition.
We might end up with ONLY chains.
http://www.abc15.com/content/news/northeastvalley/scottsdale/story/Arizona-man-sends-idea-to-restaurant-gets-free/-IyOkTJmhki3g5bqJRI3wQ.cspx
The most interesting question is what types of business will thrive in the next 5-10 years— people will always get rich but how they do it will change
The most interesting question is what types of business will thrive in the next 5-10 years— people will always get rich but how they do it will change
Not that hard. When the street traffic is down and out and all the little people ware watching each other’s backs, it comes down to robbing the rich and selling to the poor at a discount.
Not that hard. When the street traffic is down and out and all the little people ware watching each other’s backs, it comes down to robbing the rich and selling to the poor at a discount.
Oh Robin Hood waiting in the forest green,
Can you help us with Len’s fair dream?
Robbing the rich seems tit for tat,
Ask them how they really like that?
But then we all know society lets
The bad boy earn what he gets.
HeinLein’s Friday,
Life on the moon,
Maybe we’ll all live in Iran soon.
Oh Robin Hood waiting in the forest green,
Can you help us with Len’s fair dream?
Robbing the rich seems tit for tat,
Ask them how they really like that?
But then we all know society lets
The bad boy earn what he gets.
HeinLein’s Friday,
Life on the moon,
Maybe we’ll all live in Iran soon.
Oh Robin Hood waiting in the forest green,
Can you help us with Len’s fair dream?
Robbing the rich seems tit for tat,
Ask them how they really like that?
But then we all know society lets
The bad boy earn what he gets.
HeinLein’s Friday,
Life on the moon,
Maybe we’ll all live in Iran soon.
Living as far away as I do, I don’t know these businesses. But if I understand correctly they’re chains of casual restaurants currently fighting over customers via a price war.
If the core problem is people not eating out as often (I would think a predictable consequence of increased saving and decreased income) and a shrinking pool of customers to go round then it’s not really a failure to innovate at fault.
When your market disappears you might survive only by changing your business, but is moving onto a new business really innovation?
Living as far away as I do, I don’t know these businesses. But if I understand correctly they’re chains of casual restaurants currently fighting over customers via a price war.
If the core problem is people not eating out as often (I would think a predictable consequence of increased saving and decreased income) and a shrinking pool of customers to go round then it’s not really a failure to innovate at fault.
When your market disappears you might survive only by changing your business, but is moving onto a new business really innovation?
Living as far away as I do, I don’t know these businesses. But if I understand correctly they’re chains of casual restaurants currently fighting over customers via a price war.
If the core problem is people not eating out as often (I would think a predictable consequence of increased saving and decreased income) and a shrinking pool of customers to go round then it’s not really a failure to innovate at fault.
When your market disappears you might survive only by changing your business, but is moving onto a new business really innovation?
I had to eat, or starve, recently at some chain restaurants on a trip…a long one…from airport to airport. What struck me was the incredible technology that absolutely strips food of any flavor whatsoever. How is that even possible? It’s a real marvel of modern invention. The stuff kind of looks like food in a cartoonish sort of way, but they must have legions of phD. chemists working on how to reduce the Average Food Flavor Index…the AFFI…down to a number close to that of newsprint. I’m telling you, there are Nobel prizes for lesser achievements! Textural differences, too, are reduced so as not to challenge any denture wearers or any of those who have Princess and Pea Syndrome of the mouth. They really have managed to make soldiers’ MRE’s look like gourmet food from Chez Panisse. It’s really a remarkable achievement.
The last time I went into a Ruby Tuesday’s was in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The waitress didn’t know anything about the Rolling Stones song… Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday(‘s).
I had to eat, or starve, recently at some chain restaurants on a trip…a long one…from airport to airport. What struck me was the incredible technology that absolutely strips food of any flavor whatsoever. How is that even possible? It’s a real marvel of modern invention. The stuff kind of looks like food in a cartoonish sort of way, but they must have legions of phD. chemists working on how to reduce the Average Food Flavor Index…the AFFI…down to a number close to that of newsprint. I’m telling you, there are Nobel prizes for lesser achievements! Textural differences, too, are reduced so as not to challenge any denture wearers or any of those who have Princess and Pea Syndrome of the mouth. They really have managed to make soldiers’ MRE’s look like gourmet food from Chez Panisse. It’s really a remarkable achievement.
The last time I went into a Ruby Tuesday’s was in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The waitress didn’t know anything about the Rolling Stones song… Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday(‘s).
I had to eat, or starve, recently at some chain restaurants on a trip…a long one…from airport to airport. What struck me was the incredible technology that absolutely strips food of any flavor whatsoever. How is that even possible? It’s a real marvel of modern invention. The stuff kind of looks like food in a cartoonish sort of way, but they must have legions of phD. chemists working on how to reduce the Average Food Flavor Index…the AFFI…down to a number close to that of newsprint. I’m telling you, there are Nobel prizes for lesser achievements! Textural differences, too, are reduced so as not to challenge any denture wearers or any of those who have Princess and Pea Syndrome of the mouth. They really have managed to make soldiers’ MRE’s look like gourmet food from Chez Panisse. It’s really a remarkable achievement.
The last time I went into a Ruby Tuesday’s was in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The waitress didn’t know anything about the Rolling Stones song… Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday(‘s).
I’m with Rick, it’s bad food (to which I will add) in excessive portions, and frankly hard to mourn. Since they are too small to succeed let the market forces start culling.
There are still restaurants in Portland serving good food, and doing well enough that they do not have to give away the farm to get folks off in.
I’m with Rick, it’s bad food (to which I will add) in excessive portions, and frankly hard to mourn. Since they are too small to succeed let the market forces start culling.
There are still restaurants in Portland serving good food, and doing well enough that they do not have to give away the farm to get folks off in.
I’m with Rick, it’s bad food (to which I will add) in excessive portions, and frankly hard to mourn. Since they are too small to succeed let the market forces start culling.
There are still restaurants in Portland serving good food, and doing well enough that they do not have to give away the farm to get folks off in.
Too true, Rick. The saddest meal I ever ate was at a Dennys in Lubbock Texas on Christmas Day, 2000, in the middle of an ice storm. We were there because it was the only place open in all of Lubbock. We ate a couple of mouthfuls, and decided we could stand to lose some weight.
I learned I had celiac disease not long after that, which put paid to any of these chains, since it’s impossible to get anything from them – even the salad dressing – that doesn’t contain something made from wheat. I discovered you really don’t want to ask them for a list of the ingredients in the food at Applebees, Chilis or any of the big chains – if they can actually explain what’s present, it’ll put you right off any thought of eating.
Too true, Rick. The saddest meal I ever ate was at a Dennys in Lubbock Texas on Christmas Day, 2000, in the middle of an ice storm. We were there because it was the only place open in all of Lubbock. We ate a couple of mouthfuls, and decided we could stand to lose some weight.
I learned I had celiac disease not long after that, which put paid to any of these chains, since it’s impossible to get anything from them – even the salad dressing – that doesn’t contain something made from wheat. I discovered you really don’t want to ask them for a list of the ingredients in the food at Applebees, Chilis or any of the big chains – if they can actually explain what’s present, it’ll put you right off any thought of eating.
Too true, Rick. The saddest meal I ever ate was at a Dennys in Lubbock Texas on Christmas Day, 2000, in the middle of an ice storm. We were there because it was the only place open in all of Lubbock. We ate a couple of mouthfuls, and decided we could stand to lose some weight.
I learned I had celiac disease not long after that, which put paid to any of these chains, since it’s impossible to get anything from them – even the salad dressing – that doesn’t contain something made from wheat. I discovered you really don’t want to ask them for a list of the ingredients in the food at Applebees, Chilis or any of the big chains – if they can actually explain what’s present, it’ll put you right off any thought of eating.
“Marketing” vs. actually “living.” Everything bent toward creating a “product” that can be “branded” like a bum steer and “standardized” yet “differentiated,” with every step of the “production process “controlled” and “costed” and “managed.” “Features and benefits” thinking, driven by “career goals” of well-trained marketeers and their trainers. And with increasingly refined skills at driving pricing of less “elastic,” what do we call them (and why?), “goods” right up to and beyond the edge of what people can actually afford. Housing and transportation and yes, food, and health and health care, if they could figure out a way to sucker us into buying tap water bottled in plastic made from petroleum for $4 or $8 or $16 a quart because the more expensive stuff is “luxury,” they’d do it — oh, wait, that’s already a “mature market.” Or how about kiosks that dispense whiffs of “pure oxygen?” Oops, that’s already on the street.
The death of a thousand price points. Wages are flat, but prices go up and that’s just “inflation?” Like the 6% tax on every house sale involving a Realtor TM? Like the “fluctuations” of gasoline prices or medications, the big jump up (“a crisis in a Red Sea nation” or whatever) forcing the “consumer” to “adjust” by exercising his or her “market freedom” to stop buying the more expensive Real Food in favor of Dollar Store-Big Lots mac-and-cheese, so the profit margin increase in the inelastic commodity gets built into the family’s budget. Followed by a fractional drop in the price, a sigh of relief and gratitude from the consuming saps, and then a repeat of the same cynical cycle. Sez you, “That’s just the way it is.” Sez me, “We could do better but I know we won’t, and that to me is just one more expression of a species-wide death wish.” A mismatch between sustainability and species survival on the one hand, and the mental construct of “the market” and “market forces” and “manufacturing demand” and “hegemony,” as if that’s something people and their progeny can actually live off, of on the other. Like the military industrialists, creating and fomenting fear and hate, “manufacturing demand,” while busily warping the culture as a means to “attracting more capital” and “market share.” Or the “markets” for petroleum — us humans should for survival purposes have “substituted” or “conserved” a long time ago, but the “price point” of a barrel of oil is subject to the “needs” of a Saudi “mercantile prince” and the “greeds” of the few who have found the keys to the “futures game,” and are both happily “speculating” us up into gradual paralysis. But not before they take way more than a fair share of the “real food” and “real wealth” that most of the rest of us struggle to create.
It’s all about a totally chimerical “freedom” and “liberty” that the entire system of “manufactured demand” and “impulse purchase” shows to be just another vain illusion.
And it’s all good, we are told, because if we just get on board there’s this giant trough of Funny Munny we can dip into if we can escape that dreary small-town, home-grown life by somehow managing to accumulate the initial fare to catch that ride on the “Gravy Train.”
Whoops! Isn’t that a trademarked and copyrighted dog food brand?
“Marketing” vs. actually “living.” Everything bent toward creating a “product” that can be “branded” like a bum steer and “standardized” yet “differentiated,” with every step of the “production process “controlled” and “costed” and “managed.” “Features and benefits” thinking, driven by “career goals” of well-trained marketeers and their trainers. And with increasingly refined skills at driving pricing of less “elastic,” what do we call them (and why?), “goods” right up to and beyond the edge of what people can actually afford. Housing and transportation and yes, food, and health and health care, if they could figure out a way to sucker us into buying tap water bottled in plastic made from petroleum for $4 or $8 or $16 a quart because the more expensive stuff is “luxury,” they’d do it — oh, wait, that’s already a “mature market.” Or how about kiosks that dispense whiffs of “pure oxygen?” Oops, that’s already on the street.
The death of a thousand price points. Wages are flat, but prices go up and that’s just “inflation?” Like the 6% tax on every house sale involving a Realtor TM? Like the “fluctuations” of gasoline prices or medications, the big jump up (“a crisis in a Red Sea nation” or whatever) forcing the “consumer” to “adjust” by exercising his or her “market freedom” to stop buying the more expensive Real Food in favor of Dollar Store-Big Lots mac-and-cheese, so the profit margin increase in the inelastic commodity gets built into the family’s budget. Followed by a fractional drop in the price, a sigh of relief and gratitude from the consuming saps, and then a repeat of the same cynical cycle. Sez you, “That’s just the way it is.” Sez me, “We could do better but I know we won’t, and that to me is just one more expression of a species-wide death wish.” A mismatch between sustainability and species survival on the one hand, and the mental construct of “the market” and “market forces” and “manufacturing demand” and “hegemony,” as if that’s something people and their progeny can actually live off, of on the other. Like the military industrialists, creating and fomenting fear and hate, “manufacturing demand,” while busily warping the culture as a means to “attracting more capital” and “market share.” Or the “markets” for petroleum — us humans should for survival purposes have “substituted” or “conserved” a long time ago, but the “price point” of a barrel of oil is subject to the “needs” of a Saudi “mercantile prince” and the “greeds” of the few who have found the keys to the “futures game,” and are both happily “speculating” us up into gradual paralysis. But not before they take way more than a fair share of the “real food” and “real wealth” that most of the rest of us struggle to create.
It’s all about a totally chimerical “freedom” and “liberty” that the entire system of “manufactured demand” and “impulse purchase” shows to be just another vain illusion.
And it’s all good, we are told, because if we just get on board there’s this giant trough of Funny Munny we can dip into if we can escape that dreary small-town, home-grown life by somehow managing to accumulate the initial fare to catch that ride on the “Gravy Train.”
Whoops! Isn’t that a trademarked and copyrighted dog food brand?
“Marketing” vs. actually “living.” Everything bent toward creating a “product” that can be “branded” like a bum steer and “standardized” yet “differentiated,” with every step of the “production process “controlled” and “costed” and “managed.” “Features and benefits” thinking, driven by “career goals” of well-trained marketeers and their trainers. And with increasingly refined skills at driving pricing of less “elastic,” what do we call them (and why?), “goods” right up to and beyond the edge of what people can actually afford. Housing and transportation and yes, food, and health and health care, if they could figure out a way to sucker us into buying tap water bottled in plastic made from petroleum for $4 or $8 or $16 a quart because the more expensive stuff is “luxury,” they’d do it — oh, wait, that’s already a “mature market.” Or how about kiosks that dispense whiffs of “pure oxygen?” Oops, that’s already on the street.
The death of a thousand price points. Wages are flat, but prices go up and that’s just “inflation?” Like the 6% tax on every house sale involving a Realtor TM? Like the “fluctuations” of gasoline prices or medications, the big jump up (“a crisis in a Red Sea nation” or whatever) forcing the “consumer” to “adjust” by exercising his or her “market freedom” to stop buying the more expensive Real Food in favor of Dollar Store-Big Lots mac-and-cheese, so the profit margin increase in the inelastic commodity gets built into the family’s budget. Followed by a fractional drop in the price, a sigh of relief and gratitude from the consuming saps, and then a repeat of the same cynical cycle. Sez you, “That’s just the way it is.” Sez me, “We could do better but I know we won’t, and that to me is just one more expression of a species-wide death wish.” A mismatch between sustainability and species survival on the one hand, and the mental construct of “the market” and “market forces” and “manufacturing demand” and “hegemony,” as if that’s something people and their progeny can actually live off, of on the other. Like the military industrialists, creating and fomenting fear and hate, “manufacturing demand,” while busily warping the culture as a means to “attracting more capital” and “market share.” Or the “markets” for petroleum — us humans should for survival purposes have “substituted” or “conserved” a long time ago, but the “price point” of a barrel of oil is subject to the “needs” of a Saudi “mercantile prince” and the “greeds” of the few who have found the keys to the “futures game,” and are both happily “speculating” us up into gradual paralysis. But not before they take way more than a fair share of the “real food” and “real wealth” that most of the rest of us struggle to create.
It’s all about a totally chimerical “freedom” and “liberty” that the entire system of “manufactured demand” and “impulse purchase” shows to be just another vain illusion.
And it’s all good, we are told, because if we just get on board there’s this giant trough of Funny Munny we can dip into if we can escape that dreary small-town, home-grown life by somehow managing to accumulate the initial fare to catch that ride on the “Gravy Train.”
Whoops! Isn’t that a trademarked and copyrighted dog food brand?
Have A Cigar – Pink Floyd
“Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar. youre gonna go far, fly high,
Youre never gonna die, youre gonna make it if you try;theyre gonna love you.
Well Ive always had a deep respect, and I mean that most sincerely.
The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. oh by the way,
Which ones pink?
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy, we call it riding the
Gravy train.
Were just knocked out. we heard about the sell out. you gotta get an
Album out,
You owe it to the people. We’re so happy we can hardly count.
Everybody else is just green, have you seen the chart?
Its a helluva start, it could be made into a monster if we all pull together
As a team.
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy, we call it riding the
Gravy train.”
Have A Cigar – Pink Floyd
“Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar. youre gonna go far, fly high,
Youre never gonna die, youre gonna make it if you try;theyre gonna love you.
Well Ive always had a deep respect, and I mean that most sincerely.
The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. oh by the way,
Which ones pink?
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy, we call it riding the
Gravy train.
Were just knocked out. we heard about the sell out. you gotta get an
Album out,
You owe it to the people. We’re so happy we can hardly count.
Everybody else is just green, have you seen the chart?
Its a helluva start, it could be made into a monster if we all pull together
As a team.
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy, we call it riding the
Gravy train.”
Have A Cigar – Pink Floyd
“Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar. youre gonna go far, fly high,
Youre never gonna die, youre gonna make it if you try;theyre gonna love you.
Well Ive always had a deep respect, and I mean that most sincerely.
The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. oh by the way,
Which ones pink?
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy, we call it riding the
Gravy train.
Were just knocked out. we heard about the sell out. you gotta get an
Album out,
You owe it to the people. We’re so happy we can hardly count.
Everybody else is just green, have you seen the chart?
Its a helluva start, it could be made into a monster if we all pull together
As a team.
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy, we call it riding the
Gravy train.”
You folks are crazy… almost all these joints make a good burger.
You folks are crazy… almost all these joints make a good burger.
You folks are crazy… almost all these joints make a good burger.
“De gustibus non est disputandum.” Right up there with Cheetos.
“De gustibus non est disputandum.” Right up there with Cheetos.
“De gustibus non est disputandum.” Right up there with Cheetos.