re: Triumph sales

[Jim Huber <jhuber@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>  From: Kevin Friel <kfriel1@xxxxxxxxxxx>, on 08/02/2000 07:25:
>  Fantastic. So when do we go racing?
>  Kevin


	Oooh, hopefully not very soon. As much as I'd love to see what a
Triumph-backed racing program could do, I'd rather they spent their time and
efforts on the machines they've sold to us and are going to sell to us. They
still have a few minor kinks to work out, and wonderful new products to design
and develop.
	I think they're doing very well for handling a 65% increase in sales -
that stretches a lot of resources very thin. There's also the unpredictability
of it: do you buiild up more infrastructure to handle the greater volume only
to have it decrease next season, or do you overbuild in anticipation of
increased growth, or shoot somewhere in between? Tough questions for executive
management. Guess wrong and the British motorcycle industry could go back into
the toilet in a hurry. I think they're probably planning to handle a tremendous
increase in sales. Isn't there a new, larger manufacturing plant about to go
online that's something like four times the size of the present plant?
	For what it's worth, I admire John Bloor for having the cajones to jump
into this fray. Making motorcycles is probably even less forgiving than riding
them. If you haven't read it yet, pick up a copy of Bert Hopwood's "Whatever
Happened to the British Motorcycle Industry?" It's one man's perspective, but
gives alot of insight into how not to run a company. I don't know how Europe
has fared since the seventies, but most American companies are still making
these same arrogant mistakes over and over and over again. The Japanese don't
seem to have the same handicap, though we tend to see them through rose-colored
glasses.

Mindless Ramble Mode off,

	"Jedi Dawg"  Jim Huber
	'00 blue ST  "Rhiannon"
	Spring, Texas, USA

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