Here is a not so vague description of what is going on. I work for a company that is part of a holding company. The HC has another company that offer the same service as our company. My coworkers and I were talking about whether the HC should buy a particular company that makes products used by some ourselves and our competitors. All of us except the one coworker came to the conclusion that the HC should purchase that particular company, and then refuse to renew any contracts they have with our competitors. I don't think it is ethically wrong to do that. You purchase the company and it is now yours. You should be able to sell your products to whoever you so choose - in this case we would stop selling to the competition. BTW, this certain product is the bread and butter of our competition because there is no way they could create and implement a timely backup plan if this went down.
And by "competition/competitors" I obviously don't mean the other company within the holding company. It is a company separate from the holding company.
Killer instinct can means just about anything depend on context. OP not implying about having balls to pull off trade/deals, negotiating, managing risk or dealing w/ peoples. He implying sabotaging opposition with "moves would affect our company's competition" necessary for "survival". Sound more like making excuse to justify greedy and cowardly action instead of doing business ethically.
Cohete Rojo, The other coworker seems a bit naive. The competition likely has the same idea. If the competition buys out that particular company and screws you over for product, then your company might have to do a layoff. He will be the first one to whine about how unfair the competitor is.
Sounds like a situation like that could end up getting you sued. If that employee ever leaves it gives them dirt on your company to use against you and make it a liability. Good move. Also, who is to say that information was accurate to begin with. Using a competitor's research can get you into trouble. IE new coke style.
I worked at a company that implemented new things almost every month... and I'd have to market the launches. I'd complain. I'd tell them they were half-assing everything -- and they were. Support wound up swamped with calls. Things never worked right. But they wanted to shoot first, ask questions later. One of the things they implemented, a landing page service for sales, was so idiotic that a VP left because he was pissed about it too. $100,000 later and after only offering the service for about 5 weeks the program was dropped. It lead to one $300 sale. Needless to say I left that sinking ship. You need an analytic mind in the board room or else you'll wind up playing pee-pee games. Assuming things instead of knowing things.
Yea, I agree. Killer instinct in what it takes to do well in business or anything is the ability to sacrifice time and things people want just normally, social life in some ways, so on. It is about time, commitment, dedication, drive, almost to an obsession. That said, that dedication and higher level of killer instinct and anting it bad can and i've seen plenty of first hand cases where it is achieved while the people are still incredibly principled and put ethics before hand. When I think of ethics or principles, I just hold myself accountable and a pride that I use, and I have lost money opportunities because of this, but the principles are more valuable. Yet I still have/can do well and ascend with the killer instinct of dedication, work ethic, and sacrifice
I'm all for a competitive drive for excellence, I don't mean that. I mean when you know you are compromising your ethics, you know you are a dick, money doesn't wash off that self loathing.
(1) You assume that the supplying company is for sale. (2) In response to (1) above you might think "everything's for sale". If the supplying company isn't actively shopping themselves and looking to be bought out, you'd have to throw a lot of money at them just to get their attention. (3) Let's take a leap here, and assume you successfully buy out the supplying company. Once you've bought them out, if you refuse to sell to your competitor (assuming this is legal - you'd better hire some attorneys to make sure of this) you eliminate a source of income for the company you just bought. So, in addition to the costs of purchasing the supplier, you also decrease your revenue stream. (4) Once you cut off the supply to your competition, you open an opportunity for a competing supply company to gain their business. And then what have you accomplished? Better hire Anderson or E&Y to do some market research to ensure that this is not an unwise venture. You can watch movies and think that things work like they do in The Godfather, and on some rare occurrances they are. But the truth is, business is more structured around risk analysis, cost-benefit reports, market research, revenue streams, future business projections, and balance sheets. Don't let "killer instinct" drive you into making an unwise and unsound business decision. If you want to buy a business, you'd better have a sound business plan based more on facts, figures, and proven business strategy. Not just "killer instinct". This is what I meant from my original post.
"Killer instinct" is too often applied by ambitious people who also happen to be dumb and if you've been in the world for any time at all, you know ambitious dumb people are some of the worst. They are too stupid to recognize they are dumb and not smart enough to see the ramifications (real and moral) of what they are doing and any success they have just increases their dumbness. I have no problem with smart/ambitious, dumb/unambitious, or smart/unambitious but the dumb/ambitious combo is a killer.
The company has already made a similar move by purchasing another company who makes a similar product. However, the product they supply to our company and our competitor is not as great as the other company.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mgSYF0QIcCw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Rocket River Learning slowly that value is nothing more than a perception being ACTUALLY better is not more important than marketing and making people THINK you are better
You can have a killer instinct and still do right by people, just be honest and forthright, sometimes folks don't want to hear it, but they will respect you for it all the same. DD
