Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/02/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Can you imagine the noise at a shareholders' meeting if there was a LHSA/LUG buyout? Half would want to put Leica back to where is was when making 'the last decent body - the M3' and the other half would be screaming for autofocus, carbon fibre and wireless. But there never was a better time to organise a buyout by customers. The internet makes it possible. Are there any examples, of a buyout by customers/fans, not just by employees? Rick. On 23/02/2005, at 8:29 PM, Alex Hurst wrote: > Rick wrote: > >> I should be careful about what I wish for. Porsche was turned around >> by quite radically changing its approach to design and manufacturing >> and through appealing to what they described as the 'changing demands >> of it's customers'. I.e., more comfort and convenience, and more >> performance but not so raw please. > > That's precisely the point - surviving in today's competitive markets > is all about the ability to manage change, and Leica's current > management have proved pretty conclusively that they can't change the > company's products far enough or fast enough to succeed in current > market conditions. > > Any takeover of the company would also need an injection of new broom > management who are not so hide-bound by Leica's past traditions, and > can find a relevant market niche for new Leica products. > > There's no need for this necessarily to be at the expense of quality, > but there's no escaping that Leica's current production methods are > somewhere back in the 20th century rather than being firmly in the > 21st. > > FWIW, my personal take on the probabilities of various options are: > > Leica soldiering on under Hermes 20% > Sale to camera competitor/collaborator (Cosina probably) 70% > Sale to another, unrelated company 40% > LHSA/LUG buy-out 5% > Leica being put into liquidation 20% > > I'm sure other people will have radically different views, but I had > to start somewhere... :-) > > As many have already pointed out, there are no imperatives for > illustrious brands to survive simply on the basis of their glorious > past. What we need is a company looking 20 years forward, not 50 years > back. > > Best > > Alex > > > > -- > Alex Hurst > Waterfall > Nr. Cork > Ireland > > Tel: +353 214 543 328 (H) > +353 214 270 907 (W) > > Fax: +353 214 271 248 > email: corkflor@iol.ie > Also: corkflor.2@virgin.net (when in the UK, which isn't often) > Home website: http://www.iol.ie/~corkflor/ > Business website: http://www.corkflorists.com/ > > Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) public key available at: > http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371 > ID: 0x5BB72019 > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >