In practice the way to do things is to take a large firm and reconstruct it as a supply chain. Think like, say, a hypothetical car company. Instead of making

In practice the way to do things is to take a large firm and reconstruct it as a supply chain. Think like, say, a hypothetical car company. Instead of making your own engines, you source them from Engines R' Us. You might be ERU's sole customer but that is neither here nor there. If you have a bad year and need less production staff you just tell ERU "Hey, orders next quarter will be down by 60%. Plan accordingly." ERU might have to take drastic measures. Ah, the lamentable if inevitable realities of being a small business. The car company, of course, the car company would never fire the full-time employees.