The Covid-supply chain debacle, and the short-term thinking that has created shortages of nearly everything, except for exculpatory excuses. This “perfect storm” offers daily reminders that knucklehead behavior does not trigger punishment, despite the laws regularly treated as irrefutable in the economics courses I took. Here are a few laws rendered inoperative just now.
Ridiculous, Knucklehead Decisions Generate Measurable
Harm to Company Profit and Employee Career Trajectory
Simply
put, I cannot catch a break in this economy.
I live near State College, Pennsylvania “centrally located in the middle
of nowhere.” Under the best conditions,
the supply chain to edge towns sometimes breaks down. But with Covid as an excuse, empty shelves
have increased and car rental companies cannot honor their “reservations.” No one gets punished in the marketplace, or suffers
from a poor performance evaluation. In
many instances, the lowest priced options have evaporated, but a higher priced,
possibly higher margin alternative is available. Better pick up two or more, just like the
mindset of consumers in the former Soviet Union.
Right Now is a Great Time to Make Shoplifting Harder Even
if It Adds 20 Minutes for Customers to Checkout
The
local Walmart recently reduced by about 50% the number of self-checkout
terminals. The installation of three
large television screens makes me think some genius senior manager thought
greater surveillance by cameras and employees will cut product shrinkage. I am sure the manager expects to receive a
bonus for saving the company millions.
Maybe
not. The time it took me to check out
and pay increased by 20 minutes and the thought crossed my mind that I should
abandon my cart and leave. Walmart loses
a sale and an over worked employee has to restock the shelves with my now
abandoned products. Additionally, the
possibility exists that significant numbers of Walmart customers will vote with
their feet and shop somewhere else, like the Aldi that just opened nearby.
The
economic rules, that consumer behavior and revenue streams matter, seem to have
evaporated. There is a great likelihood
that no one at Walmart will detect the problem, or remedy it if
identified. The shoplifting obsessed
executive will not suffer for having been “pennywise and pound foolish.”
What impact would any group of
boycotting consumers have against Walmart, or for that matter any of the legacy
or low cost airlines that make every effort to goose revenues by reducing the
value proposition of service? Is
Southwest Airlines going to suffer in the marketplace by failing to calibrate
employee availability vis a vis upside incentives to restore service schedules
to their pre-pandemic levels? Will
Enterprise stop overbooking reservations, because a significant number of
bookings cannot be honored?
The customer may not always be
right, but are we as expendable as it seems right now?
