4 ms·

Sounds like a pretty damning indictment of quarter-by-quarter short termism

• TulliusCicero 7y ago
  No, this sounds like an orthogonal issue. Plenty of public companies -- perhaps most -- are afflicted with quarter-by-quarter thinking, but deliberately pitting divisions against each other? That's much rarer behavior.
• bluGill 7y ago
  Short termism doesn't have to work that way. In this case it did, but short term thinkers who have the company in mind are willing to say X loses money so Y can make more. Grocery stores sell milk as a loss because people look at the price of milk and buy from the cheapest - then buy the high margin cereal, candy (or whatever is high margin) that more than makes up for the loss in milk. This can still be short term thinking, and yet result in the whole doing well over the long term.
  • astrodust 7y ago
    That's not short-term thinking, that's marketing: Spending money to get customers. Short-term thinking is letting your stores fall apart to boost profits, ignoring the exponentially long-term costs of a lack of maintenance.
• tehjoker 7y ago
  Sounds like an indictment of competition vs cooperative planning.