The short horizon

Background:
The owner of a small shipyard for expensive sailing vessels – so-called one-offs – realises that the exclusive yachts he builds must be larger and larger in order to remain sufficiently exclusive and competitive. In the area of 36 feet, where he was reasonably successful for a number of years – there are by now so many interesting standard vessels that in this segment the client is no longer prepared to pay more for a tailor made ship. The exclusive yachts are now reasonably saleable starting from about 45 feet. However, he is not able to make the necessary investments that building larger vessels requires. He decides to start producing much smaller yachts. These yachts, then, are so expensive – due to the beautiful but expensive way of production – that they become difficult to sell. He also has difficulty finding interested clients. The yard changed from one-offs to serial production. The choice in the segment of smaller vessels is enormous. He focuses this product at the upper end of this market. At the same time he develops – almost by chance, because he needed something like that himself – a wooden bathtub. It looks good and the production of these tubs fits his production process, but he has no idea who to sell them to or through which distribution channel.
 
The problem:
The Yard does not make enough money. Without a change the yard will die a certain death.
 
The analysis:
The entrepreneur has a short strategic horizon: already with a little backlash he changes his strategic concept without thinking about it properly. He acts impulsively, does not do research, calculates himself rich, but finds himself duped. So he does not manage horizontally/strategically.
 
The advice:
  • Ask yourself if you aren’t occupied with a hobby, rather than with a profession/company. Be conscious of the fact that you have to make a profit. Therefore do not accept your continuing struggle with concepts that are not profitable.
  • First think about what you actually want in life. How much money do you want to make? How much do you NEED to make? If you can not think of a realistic plan for your shipyard, then find yourself a job and consider building boats as a hobby for the weekend.
  • If you CAN develop a realistic concept that is sufficiently profitable, then stick to it. Detail it, make a simple sales plan, support that with Low Budget Marketing, and follow the results closely; take action if you don’t make your targets. In short: be stern to yourself, follow the results and adjust as soon as that is needed. Remain critical about the right of your company to exist: stop in time if it proves it doesn’t work.
 Jan Boeren
 

  • it's not a hobby

  • how much money do you need to earn

  • reason for existance

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Managing Vertizontally

Documents in English

Diez iez Vietnam

This book is about the story of life of prof. Adrie van Gelderen. I met him on one of my PUM missions where he was a local representative of PUM. Adrie told me he had a manuscript of his story of life and asked me my opinion about publishing it. I promised to read it and give my comments. And indeed I did: I told him that his book would not be a profitable cash cow, however, publishing your own literary thoughts will give tremendous satisfaction, it's fun to do and it's not expensive at all.

Now Adrie was seriously ill at that time and unfortunately he passed away before we could take his book into production. So we, being Adrie's friends, decided to publish the book posthumously and donate all the refunds to his 'affiliate-foundation'.

'Diez iez Vietnam!'  is written in English. A copy can be ordered by clicking the link.