Oops, they did it again (aka, Buffet sells themselves. Again)

SteveSklar said:
Automotive in the 1990s. The company I worked for in 2005ish we were paying (including benefits) $18ish per hour per employee in our texas plant, $8 ish per hour per employee for our Mexico plant (in visual sight of the US plant) and $0.25 per hour per employee for our China plant. We closed our UK, Australian and German plant already due to too high of production (labor) costs. Why ? our competitors were sourcing most of their products from China and we were last to do so.
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This is also a bit of "adapt or die" or, if you prefer, business evolution. I think some of the big problems with two of the big three auto makers in the US (Chrysler and General Motors) had during the "financial meltdown" a few years back is that they didn't or couldn't adapt. It's not like they didn't have warning.

It's probable that China will start having labor problems in a few years. There is a rising middle and upper class in China, ATM, and the folks on the low end of the class scale will notice this. It'll be like the founding of labor unions in the US, during the first half of the 20th century. Of course, it'll be a little different, as they don't have a government that's that tolerant of labor unions and protests ....

It does make me wonder hat's going to happen in India. I haven't heard too many comments in the form of, "I called tech support and talked to this Indian guy ..." recently.
 
GM & Chrysler had issues. But Ford was lucky in that they sold/borrowed before the financial crisis hit. They even used the blue oval & their HQ as collateral to build up cash to reengineer the company, though they did see financial turmoil come too.

Ford was lucky, they had a good leaders with excellent forsight.
 
I'm curious on the strategy of the Buffet Group.

Buffet severely lacks the marketing needed to move Keilwerth and their other subsidiaries forward. Sales makes profits. Lack of sales makes closing things down. Buffet has a marketable name. Everyone else in the group, less so.

By stating that they are going to by other companies in the arena it makes you wonder what other companies and why ? Most other companies are either very vertical market like Edwards trombone, or Backun clarinets.

Maybe Cannonball or Antigua .. but this would be best served if they just work with a Taiwanese or Chinese supplier like they already do for keywork and other keilwerth saxes.

Thus this move perplexes me except for a cash infusion for continued operations. If they fail, it becomes cement filler.
 
Regarding Indian call centers...

...I recently went through a hell on earth with Embassy Suites/Hilton's 800 reservation line. I was attempting to reserve two rooms at a hotel in Pensacola Beach FL, and called the 800 line. I was promptly connected with "Claudia".

Claudia, reading from a script, attempted to understand what I was (at the end) spelling out for her letter by letter, but she was clearly out of her depth. Her heavily accented English was barely capable of understanding terms like "reservation", much less US geographic locations.

By the end of the conversation, I had two rooms in the wrong hotel, on the wrong day (which was clearly my fault - I was looking at the wrong month on the calendar).

I learned all of this when the conformation email arrived, some twenty minutes later.

Back to the 800 line. I read back the conformation number and was promptly reconnected to "Claudia"! Our conversation twisted and turned so much that I my head was spinning with all of the motel names and details that she threw at me. By the end of this epic production, I had two rooms booked in a total of three hotels in the greater Pensacola area, but none of them at the correct motel (a spectacular location, overlooking the ocean).

To compound all of this, I only received one conformation email for one of the hotels. At that point, I got the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

This time, I called the motel directly, got the night manager, and was able to book the rooms that I desired. I asked her if she could cancel the other rooms, but she said that all of that was only done through the 800 number, and that she could only cancel stuff for the locations in her chain.

She was able to give me a comprehensive listing of the Hilton properties in and around Pensacola, so I called each of these locations to first check if they had the missing pair of rooms, and (if they did) to cancel them. The missing set of rooms was found out at the Pensacola airport.

So far, I've only had to pay for the two rooms that I wanted. My fingers remained crossed...

When I get a foreign call center, I always ask at the end of the call where the call center is located. India seems to be the main location, but I've dealt with folks from the Philippines, Panama, Costa Rica (a HP computer issue - the very nice young man there met my daughter for supper at her hotel (she's a computer program administrator for a turnkey firm that is ramping up a big account down there)), and Taiwan.

Some won't share where they are located. And, most such calls are still handled by folks here in the US of A.
 
clarnibass said:
A while ago there was a very interesting film about an Indian call center for an American company, showing how it all works from the "inside".
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2006, Outsourced. A pretty funny movie.

having actually assisted in setting up outsourcing in India, Philippines, China, etc the one thing that I always came away with is that "they can speak english" but "they do not understand english". Many in a call center can hold a conversation if it follows the breadth of what they were taught. Start using slang and they are totally lost.

sometimes it's just best to ask to talk to their supervisor ... sometimes
 
There has also been a situation comedy on the topic, although the Indian workers made up a minority of the plot issues, most revolving around the American staff that was sent there to run it. I watched a whole segment of one show before putting it on the "do not watch" list.
 
In a project, I worked with Indian-Indians who were supposed to "take over" the business once the process has been established.

Well, it's not that they weren't competent or anything like that (quite in the contrary) - there was a cultural barrier, something that happens to be there regardless of the background of either party. An American will never think like a Swiss. A Swiss will never think of things somone from India is thinking of, and so on.

We have a common language (more or less, maybe except Texans), we have common targets, but we lack the ability to master the unspoken word across cultures (or ethnic backgrounds, or whichever way you want to call it). What we haven't learned is the finer ways of communication, like a glance, a grimace, a gesture. It just doesn't work unless one restricts oneself to a minimum set of written words. No more slang, no more idioms, no more irony or sarcasm. Just plain old "we also have product xyz. I can make you a very good price".

People buy from people they like, that's the old motto. "and from people they understand and who understand them" one is tempted to add.
 
SteveSklar said:
2006, Outsourced. A pretty funny movie.
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I looked that up. I didn't mean that one. I guess there are several films. I didn't mean the series either. I was talking about a documentary film showing an actual call center in India.

Ben, now that you're getting Swiss :) do you know the show Mega Factories? It is one of the best (most of the time) and there was an episode about Victorinox and the Swiss army knife, showing how it's made etc. Very cool.
 
Thanks for the pointer, Nitai.
Unfortunately, Nat'lGeo isn't available on cable here, I'd have to find another source. Meh.
 
tictactux said:
... An American will never think like a Swiss ...
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Chocolate ?

I think us American's think of chocolate too much :p

have you ever played with a "chocolately" tone ?
Maybe we should design and manufacture, instead of wood, a chocolate clarinet ?
 
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clarnibass said:
I looked that up. I didn't mean that one. I guess there are several films. I didn't mean the series either. I was talking about a documentary film showing an actual call center in India.

Ben, now that you're getting Swiss :) do you know the show Mega Factories? It is one of the best (most of the time) and there was an episode about Victorinox and the Swiss army knife, showing how it's made etc. Very cool.
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I saw that show too - they may have it through iTunes and podcasts. It was pretty neat to see how they make the knives. Except my "champion" I bought back in 1984.
 
SteveSklar said:
Chocolate ?

I think us American's think of chocolate too much :p

have you ever played with a "chocolately" tone ?
Maybe we should design and manufacture, instead of wood, a chocolate clarinet ?
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The American definition of chocolate, particularly milk chocolate, is different from the Swiss one.
 
tictactux said:
... We have a common language (more or less, maybe except Texans), we have common targets, but we lack the ability to master the unspoken ...
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ouch for Texans. Ever heard of the Floridian term "pregnant chads" ? A few years ago the US was engulfed in a new language related to "chads", ironically from someone directly related to someone who lives in Texas and is a former US President.
 
Ever since reading my first Carl Hiaasen book, I see Florida with different eyes...
 
This was a very informative and interesting read, guys. Thank you for taking the time to share.

As it happens, I really personally like Keilwerth and would be just as sad if this was bad for them as if i wasn't a dealer. I actually don't use money I don't have to buy things (crazy talk!) so its not like if they go under I will be in trouble any more than I am selling a vintage horn that I bought for cash from a maker who no longer exists. But I would be upset if one of the last old-timey saxophone makers- one who survived the great depression, WWII, and being on the wrong side of the curtain at the wrong time- were to go under for reasons that could be fixed if they were owned by someone who actually gave a @%$# about saxophones.
 
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