8
Moving around the Table
Ron works in purchasing for a medium-sized merchandising chain that battles the Goliaths of the consumer electronics sector. A few years back, he was thrown for a loss when Walmart and its Asian supplier made an exclusive deal for clock radios, one of Ron’s critical categories, at a subterranean price point. Soon Walmart was dominating the market. Ron’s company was getting killed.
But Ron is resourceful, and he found a Taiwan manufacturer with a better price. Unfortunately, it was still 20 percent too high to compete with Walmart. Both sides wracked their brains to take out cost. Modify the performance specs? Go cheaper on packaging? Streamline shipping and logistics? Finally, the manufacturer said, “Look, if I ...
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