Sublime

The road to hell is paved with the pursuit of volume. Volume leads to marginal products, marginal customers, and greatly increased managerial complexity. Since complexity is both interesting and rewarding to managers, it is often tolerated or encouraged until it can no longer be afforded.

Es gibt eine Seite der Renaissance, die wenig mit neuem Humanismus, behutsamer Wiederentdeckung des antiken Erbes und früher Aufklärung zu tun hat und einen solchen feldzugartigen Protest geradezu herausforderte. Diese kalte, auf reine Logik und Erfolg fixierte, gleichsam wertneutrale Seite der Renaissance setzt bedingungslos auf das Individuum und

The Grand Complication reveals another fundamental characteristic of luxury goods: as price rises into the stratosphere, the number of units available also seems to disappear into ever-thinner air.

How a price looks in relation to other prices can have a strong influence on a consumer’s behavior. An identical price of $10 can trigger widely different reactions, depending on whether it is the highest, lowest, or middle price in an assortment. Likewise, the number of alternatives in an assortment can exert a strong influence on customers’ choic

“Setting our prices is easy,” a marketing director at a safety products company once told me. “We just look at what the premium supplier in our market does, and come in 10 % below them.”

The best manager is often neither the most outstanding professional, the best business getter, nor even the best “financial brain.”