Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/08/14

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Subject: Re: [Leica]Non-Leica-Made Electronic M?
From: Dominique PELLISSIER <pelliss@droit-eco.u-nancy.fr>
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 16:56:31 +0200

A 16:34 13/08/98 -0700, vous avez =E9crit :

>From: RBedw51767@aol.com
>Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 12:59:08 EDT
>Subject: Re: [Leica] Non-Leica-Made Electronic M?

It has been my observation, during the past year or so, that Leica has
become more aggressive with new products and marketing.  This is good,
however the quality of some of their products have become questionable
(personal bad experience with R8 winder).  I also noticed that the
Tri-Elmar was very rough and did not always change the frames in the
eyepiece.  I attribute these things to growing pains of quality
concessions.  Many outstanding products suffer these same problems as
inflation affects manufacturing costs.

>Bob


Comment : Bob, there is no inflation in Germany. The high level of produc=
t
costs in the Leica Camera Group has 2 causes. Firstly, the "volumes" are
too weak, i.e. they made each year a theorical maximum of 10,000 M ; 10,0=
00
R8 ; 20,000 lenses (I think reality is well below these amounts).So the
unit costs are high providing the high level of past investments. On the
contrary german car manufacturers have applied since  a few years a
politics of "volumes". See Mercedes for example.
Secondly, they have a problem with the number of commercial employees whi=
ch
is a fixed cost whoever the level of production. I read  in the last repo=
rt
(1st quarter of the new fiscal year) 70% of the employees are commercial
employees:1,130 individuals to sell 20,000 bodies and 20,000 lenses !
Reducing the number of commercial employees would be a good measure for t=
he
future of Leica.
They also can keep the employees (The "kick them out" policy is far from
the Ernst Leitz tradition) and develop new products made in Japan, as the
JPY is depreciating more and more. I guess they want to follow that way
with the minilux, the digilux (good idea), and maybe the new Mlux.

Dominique