Motorhomes are overpriced.....discuss............

[colin]

I have (and still sometimes do) worked for a company that has often been accused of overpricing our work and taking advantage of being the only supplier of certain goods.

Just before the economic downturn we managed to get our hourly rate up to £40, and this was for a company and workforce acknowledged around the world as one of, if not 'the' best in our field. As for being the only supplier of certain goods, and overcharging for it, we dropped that as we couldn't continue to subsidise the prices. Sometimes from the outside you don't see what actualy goes on.

[Brian Kirby]

Sorry Bruce, but I think you have so overstated your case that you have veered of into the world of complete fantasy!

 

Business has to be about trust, otherwise there can be no business. If you don't trust those you treat with, what basis for business do you have?

 

The lurid picture you paint may be appropriate to drug dealing, but has no place in normal civil commerce.

 

For trust to exist there have to be ethics, and the ethics have to be common to the parties to the deal. A contract for sale of goods or services is based on the existence of the ethic that the contractor will perform, and the employer will pay. In other words, honesty. That ethic, at least, is fundamental. It has nothing whatever to do with clubs or armchairs. It is what you need before you sign contracts worth millions of pounds. If either party subsequently gets screwed, they are unlikely to conduct business again. Repeat business with trusted clients is the cheapest business you'll ever do. If trust cannot be described as a fundamental business ethic, I'm bereft of words.

 

Naturally, you will examine the contract with your lawyers to be satisfied as to its contents, but in the end, if you don't trust the other party, unless you are a fool, you don't sign.

[Guest pelmetman]

1footinthegrave - 2013-03-10 9:28 PM

 

pelmetman - 2013-03-10 9:12 PM

 

1footinthegrave - 2013-03-10 7:59 PM

 

I agree, then they could afford some of your £550 foot stools.

 

I aught to point out that £550 is if you just use a standard fabric.........leather would add another £200ish......but more if you wanted different colours ;-)

 

What an intriguing man of contrast you are, your rattle around in an old knacker of a motorhome,but flog £750 + foot stools. :D Perhaps you only sell a couple a year though. :D :D

Mind you if it all goes tits up, there's always spud picking for £25 a day.

 

To be honest since a London shopping site kicked me off as they changed the rules, and instead of a commission wanted pay per click 8-).............I'd only sold one stool via their site but unbeknownst to me most of our sales were coming from them, as people saw our stools and came direct............So just after I subbed the work out..... sales died a death *-)...........So I should really bite the bullet and bring the making back in house again, then I can afford the advertising :-S................but that means more work for me 8-) 8-)............So I won't be doing that :D

 

Besides pelmet making earns more than making footstools ;-).............

[rupert123]

BGD - 2013-03-10 9:29 PM

 

Brian Kirby - 2013-03-10 8:12 PM

 

BGD - 2013-03-10 3:18 PM.................A business is not some sort of social service.

It has to compete or die. Every day. And the biggest costs, usually by a mile, in volume manufacturing is employee costs. It typically costs a company about double your salary in other costs, to keep you nicely fed and watered.....and that cost burden remains whether the attends work or goes off sick or on holiday or maternity leave etc etc.

 

And as manufacturing businesses grow in other parts of the world, so the competition to sell consumer goods in the UK and western Europe gets tougher and tougher, because unskilled UK etc production employees are simply becoming prohibitively expensive now, compared to what they are actually prepared to do for all their ( relatively) massive pay and perks costs.

 

It is simply basic common sense for the owner of a business to put the actual low-skill production/assembly in a low cost economy. It would be business suicide not to.

All the other Dyson employees in R & D, business management, sales etc are still in the UK.....and they are still getting their UK pay and perks only because the business has done what it has to in order to survive against the massive and still increasing global competition.

................................

Whereas there is truth in what Bruce says, it is not, IMO, the last word on the subject. Of course a business is not a social service, but it is part of a society. It does business with that society. It draws profit from that society. It benefits from that society. If all businesses look only for minimum cost and maximum profit they will, IMO inevitably, eventually suffer in a globalised world.

 

The reasons for lower costs elsewhere have to do with many things, with relative currency values, with provision of health care and education, with the cost and availability of land, with access to investment capital, with availability of raw materials, reliability of energy supply, even government tax incentives, and so on. Labour costs are one consideration, but they cannot be the whole reason.

 

If production is to leave the developed world, unemployment will rise, and national wealth will fall. We are not going to convert Dyson's (or anyone else's) assembly workers into highly skilled and educated engineering R&D boffins. Yet, the cost of sustaining his cast off-labour falls upon us, his potential customers. So, we support the 600, while 100 get better paid jobs, and he gets increased profit. Who gains? The UK? I think not.

 

If sufficient firms follow suit (and many preceded Dyson on the same road, so it is rather unfair to single him out), the UK will be left with a growing number of its residents who, by degrees become permanently unemployable, because they lack the skills and education to take the jobs this model has on offer, and no-one wants them for what they are.

 

This is, by and large, a normal developed country, with similar social support facilities to those that other developed countries have evolved. These facilities have evolved for good reason, because we saw the social costs of not having them. They are expensive, and we have to earn the revenues to maintain them. It ill serves us to leave ourselves with a cohort of the unemployable who we support at our common expense, because some have chosen to employ others, elsewhere, to do the jobs they could do, simply in pursuit of profit for a relative few. Our economies will shrink, we shall lose the wealth to support these unemployables, and we shall lose the wealth to buy the products the outsourced labour produces. Who then gains?

 

We can export the jobs, but we cannot export the labour along with them. That is the problem that such moves do not address. If such moves continue unabated, beyond a certain point, we shall be forced to accept the abandonment of our social support facilities in order to survive. That, to me, is the final lunacy of the race to the bottom. One portion of the world getting richer while another gets poorer is hardly beneficial to the world as a whole. For all to benefit, all need to get richer, albeit that will inevitably vary in degree from place to place. We need that cheap foreign labour to start benefitting from the levels of social support that we presently have, and for us, and them, to be able to afford the goods they, and we, produce. Beggaring ourselves will not achieve that.

 

Of course, none of this has much to say about the cost of motorhomes in UK, except that for some reason motorhomes produced in a country with better social support facilities than ours, better roads and physical infrastructure than ours, and greater wealth then us, with better paid labour than ours, generally working a shorter week than ours, remain cheaper for us to buy in that country than they are here, and are apparently cheaper to produce in that country than we can achieve here. So, despite my misgivings about the longer term effects of Dyson and his ilk moving jobs to cheaper countries, that is probbaly not the answer to why we can buy cheaper motorhomes from Germany than we can from the UK, or why motorhomes appear overpriced in UK. Or is it, perhaps, that we are glimpsing the thin end of the wedge? :-)

 

 

Me and Thee and others can sit comfortably and debate the ethics of it as long as we like Brian.

 

Whilst we do so, actual, real, businesses are having to take the brutal decisions about their survival and future prosperity.

They don't have comfy armchairs. They are out there, in the trenches, fighting in a global marketplace for survival.

 

Business ain't about ethics my friends.

Ethics are for comfortably-off observers, who aren't directly affected if the company goes bankrupt.

 

Business is about business.

About risking everything; all your savings and borrowings.

Every single day.

To try, against all the odds, and the soothsayers, and the moralists, and the wise-after-the-event merchants, to make a decent return-on-your-capital employed that justifies all that day-after-day risk of losing the lot.

We can spout rhetoric about business policy. We can debate, in some gentlemen's club environment, about what should and should not be allowed, or encouraged, or frowned upon.

 

Meanwhile, a few thousand entrepreneurs are out there, actually DOING IT.

Fighting against all the economic and regulatory odds across the ever-more-rapidly-changing global marketplace; risking all that they have, day after day, to try to create wealth for themselves and their families.

 

 

 

Spot on Bruce. I have been self employed for most of my working life, somehow I doubt Brian ever has.

[Guest pelmetman]

Brian Kirby - 2013-03-11 12:03 AM

 

Sorry Bruce, but I think you have so overstated your case that you have veered of into the world of complete fantasy!

 

Business has to be about trust, otherwise there can be no business. If you don't trust those you treat with, what basis for business do you have?

 

The lurid picture you paint may be appropriate to drug dealing, but has no place in normal civil commerce.

 

For trust to exist there have to be ethics, and the ethics have to be common to the parties to the deal. A contract for sale of goods or services is based on the existence of the ethic that the contractor will perform, and the employer will pay. In other words, honesty. That ethic, at least, is fundamental. It has nothing whatever to do with clubs or armchairs. It is what you need before you sign contracts worth millions of pounds. If either party subsequently gets screwed, they are unlikely to conduct business again. Repeat business with trusted clients is the cheapest business you'll ever do. If trust cannot be described as a fundamental business ethic, I'm bereft of words.

 

Naturally, you will examine the contract with your lawyers to be satisfied as to its contents, but in the end, if you don't trust the other party, unless you are a fool, you don't sign.

 

Have we not all seen on the goggle box how the banks are rotten to the core........corruption and lying is all grist to their unsavory mill............ big supermarkets are only interested in screwing suppliers to produce at ever lower prices hence the dobin burger scandal....... *-).........

 

As for the lawyering trade who are waiting in the wings to feed of any unsuspecting small business.......who's employee hurts himself, or gets sacked.............because it will bound to be the employers fault *-)........

 

I have got it sussed...........just earn enough.....don't employ anyone.......and enjoy life B-) .........no point in trying to save the world that's a mugs game 8-)

[Derek Uzzell]

rupert123 - 2013-03-11 8:05 AM

 

Spot on Bruce. I have been self employed for most of my working life, somehow I doubt Brian ever has.

 

I would have thought most architects are self-employed...

[Guest 1footinthegrave]

Whilst your right about the supermarkets driving down suppliers prices, just ask yourself who is responsible for that

yes it's us,because we demand to buy a cauliflower for 70p, and that of course takes you full circle to why growers turn more and more to gangmasters and immigrants paid a pittance to pick their crops. So we're all part of the problem.

 

As for self employed, how many know that the "Big Issue" sellers are exactly that, opening up being able to claim working tax credits, and a raft of other "in work " benefits, and most of them are migrants who have exploited this loop hole.

 

I must confess I was self employed for many years as well ( discount for cash anyone ) but not selling the big issue I should add.

 

:D

[crinklystarfish]

Derek Uzzell - 2013-03-11 9:16 AM

 

rupert123 - 2013-03-11 8:05 AM

 

Spot on Bruce. I have been self employed for most of my working life, somehow I doubt Brian ever has.

 

I would have thought most architects are self-employed...

 

And aren't thick...

[Guest pelmetman]

1footinthegrave - 2013-03-11 9:20 AM

 

Whilst your right about the supermarkets driving down suppliers prices, just ask yourself who is responsible for that

yes it's us,because we demand to buy a cauliflower for 70p, and that of course takes you full circle to why growers turn more and more to gangmasters and immigrants paid a pittance to pick their crops. So we're all part of the problem.

 

As for self employed, how many know that the "Big Issue" sellers are exactly that, opening up being able to claim working tax credits, and a raft of other "in work " benefits, and most of them are migrants who have exploited this loop hole.

 

I must confess I was self employed for many years as well ( discount for cash anyone ) but not selling the big issue I should add.

 

:D

 

There's my next career move ;-).............International "Big Issue" seller B-)

[Brian Kirby]

rupert123 - 2013-03-11 8:05 AM..................Spot on Bruce. I have been self employed for most of my working life, somehow I doubt Brian ever has.

I have had something of a hybrid existence Henry, which it seems you may not have. So, who is to say whose experience is the more valid? Besides all of which, this was an O/T digression to debate whether ethics can/should exist in business: not about my, or your, personal experience. Neither, FWIW, was it about the relevance of one's personal experiences to one's wider opinions.

 

If you, Bruce, and a few others, are seeking to claim that your personal experience makes you experts on the value of ethics in business, while at the same time deriding their place in business, you do somewhat weaken your standpoint, as you will clearly have no actual experience of working in an ethical business environment.

 

On the other hand, I have always had to work within an ethical business environment, because, had my colleagues, across a broad range of specialisms and skills, adopted Bruce's diktat on ethics, we should have had no clients at all. To be able work as I have worked, mutual trust was, and is, essential. Our clients had, and have, to trust us to place their interests before our own. Their liabilities, were we to do otherwise, could bankrupt them, and others besides.

 

I regretfully conclude that whereas you may have some grasp of the ethics of the second-hand car market, or it's equivalent, you have little understanding of what is wrong with that market, and why it is so widely mistrusted by the public, and would fail lamentably were you to try working in a market where trust and confidence are of the essence. Sorry.

[Mrs T]

Talk a lot about ethics if you like but unless you have had to survive in a self employed manner like Bruce and others and ourselves, you have little knowledge about the realities of living.

 

That gentlemen, is why parts of the economy are suffering, because those arranging the organising have never had to exercise their minds as a self employed person has to.

 

Mrs T

[snowie]

Mrs T - 2013-03-11 12:43 PM

 

Talk a lot about ethics if you like but unless you have had to survive in a self employed manner like Bruce and others and ourselves, you have little knowledge about the realities of living.

 

Mrs T

 

I'm as aware as anyone of "the realities of living"

 

In many private sector and public sector "professional" offices ethics translates to "integrity".

I valued my "professional integrity" very highly, Mrs T and I continue to consider it an important personal character attribute.

Having worked for others and also been self-employed it was no less valuable in either situation. Pleading special circumstances for "business" as a whole is misguided; and wrong,

regards

alan b

[Guest 1footinthegrave]

I like the ethics of companies that make a loss, but somehow manage to pay themselves bonuses for failure, and the total rip off that are limited companies that take the customers cash then pocket it before declaring bankruptcy, then in so many instances start up again with a couple of name changes. >:-) or asset strippers doing the same dodgy deals like the defunct British car makers at Longbridge did.

[t5topcat]

so...................... are they overpriced..................................or not :D

[Guest 1footinthegrave]

t5topcat - 2013-03-11 1:48 PM

 

so...................... are they overpriced..................................or not :D

 

They may well be, they may well be not, who knows :D Somebody buys just the same ;-) Like Pelmetmans £700 foot stools. (lol)

 

Recently saw the same ten year old IH van conversion that I have for sale at £21,000 :-S

 

I guess a ten year old Ducato van would be worth £500 tops. :D :D

[Guest pelmetman]

1footinthegrave - 2013-03-11 1:23 PM

 

I like the ethics of companies that make a loss, but somehow manage to pay themselves bonuses for failure

 

Just like the public sector then >:-)

[Guest 1footinthegrave]

pelmetman - 2013-03-11 2:19 PM

 

1footinthegrave - 2013-03-11 1:23 PM

 

I like the ethics of companies that make a loss, but somehow manage to pay themselves bonuses for failure

 

Just like the public sector then >:-)

 

Don't get me started you naughty man.

[rupert123]

Brian Kirby - 2013-03-11 12:22 PM

 

rupert123 - 2013-03-11 8:05 AM..................Spot on Bruce. I have been self employed for most of my working life, somehow I doubt Brian ever has.

I have had something of a hybrid existence Henry, which it seems you may not have. So, who is to say whose experience is the more valid? Besides all of which, this was an O/T digression to debate whether ethics can/should exist in business: not about my, or your, personal experience. Neither, FWIW, was it about the relevance of one's personal experiences to one's wider opinions.

 

If you, Bruce, and a few others, are seeking to claim that your personal experience makes you experts on the value of ethics in business, while at the same time deriding their place in business, you do somewhat weaken your standpoint, as you will clearly have no actual experience of working in an ethical business environment.

 

On the other hand, I have always had to work within an ethical business environment, because, had my colleagues, across a broad range of specialisms and skills, adopted Bruce's diktat on ethics, we should have had no clients at all. To be able work as I have worked, mutual trust was, and is, essential. Our clients had, and have, to trust us to place their interests before our own. Their liabilities, were we to do otherwise, could bankrupt them, and others besides.

 

I regretfully conclude that whereas you may have some grasp of the ethics of the second-hand car market, or it's equivalent, you have little understanding of what is wrong with that market, and why it is so widely mistrusted by the public, and would fail lamentably were you to try working in a market where trust and confidence are of the essence. Sorry.

 

I worked for BP for two years and companies do not come much bigger than that, when I left it was my own choice, in fact they tried to talk me out of it. As well as this I have sold cars both second and new, owned a car spares business, owned a hotel, a restuarant, block of flats, this until recently, several retail shops, in fact still own two that I lease out ran an outdoor pursuits company with another bloke, oh yes in the early eighties had a motorcycle retail outlet, plus a few bits I have probably forgotton, that lot hybrid enough for you Brian. Ethics have nothing to do with what I said and indeed they do have a place, customers must trust you or as you say will not come back, however ethics and trust are not quite the same. A company only has a single objective, to make a profit, it has to do anything to maintain this profit, its only real aim to make money for its owner or its shareholders. If a company does well it benifits all if not it benifits no-one, pretty obvious. You and others might not like or accept this, well get over it. It matters little whether the company is BP of a one man band, the same basics apply. When you have only been an employee it is almost impossible to see this and you can afford to get on 'your high horse', working for yourself you cannot. This does not mean you still do not have to do the best by your customers, of course you do and it is a pure nonsense for you to suggest otherwise. Working for a company you can afford the ethical bit but as sure as hell your boss will not see it that way if it places the company in jeopardy. What right does anyone have to criticize someone as driven and far seeing as James Dyson, he built the company from scratch, and his employees where only as faithfull as their next pay packet. Incidently my brother works for Rolls Royce, one of the great British manufacturing companies you seem to think do not exist. Anyway up the workers all together comrades.

[Guest 1footinthegrave]

Why would you make such a sweeping statement about James Dysons workforce, some employees are very loyal to their companies you know. >:-)

[BGD]

1footinthegrave - 2013-03-11 3:26 PM

 

Why would you make such a sweeping statement about James Dysons workforce, some employees are very loyal to their companies you know. >:-)

 

 

 

Firstly, it is not their Company at all, it is a Company for whom they currently CHOOSE to work for.

 

Secondly, they are patently not "loyal" to their Company per se at all.

They are simply loyal to the pay and perks that they get in exchange for turning up (except when taking holiday, or going off sick) at a company owned by other people, funded by other people, with share capital being risked by other people.

 

 

 

Let's test your theory then: the company you work for is now making increasing trading losses, losing sales and market share to cheaper-priced competitors products. You're the MD and major shareholder.

You explain to your production employees that in order for them to help the Company to survive, you are going to have to get their agreement to cut their pay immediately by 25%, and then by a further 3% each year in future, Company sick pay is being removed so that only SSP is payable for going off sick from now on, and the Final salary based company pension scheme is being stopped with immediate effect. Accepting these cuts should, you hope, see the Company survive for another 5 years or more.

Now, let's see how very loyal to that Company those production employees are.

 

 

If you think about it for a while, you'll grasp that it really ain't that specific Company entity that employees are loyal to. It is the effort/reward bargain that it provides: the package of pay and perks that they keep receiving in exchange for not resigning.

It's really not the name above the shop at all; it's what you get for continuing to choose to keep working as an employee in that shop, rather than resigning to go work for a better effort/reward bargain in another shop.

It's really about becoming, and remaining, comfortable with your role and duties; so the effort/reward bargain gets better and better for you over time, as your job become easier for you to do, whilst you get more pay as time rolls along for doing the same job.

 

 

[rupert123]

1footinthegrave - 2013-03-11 2:26 PM

 

Why would you make such a sweeping statement about James Dysons workforce, some employees are very loyal to their companies you know. >:-)

 

Because it is true. Complete loyalty to a company does not exist, what employee with half a brain would not leave his company if offered another job with a better package if it suited them. He would not give a thought to 'does the company need me', it would be thanks very much I am off.

[Guest 1footinthegrave]

rupert123 - 2013-03-11 4:04 PM

 

1footinthegrave - 2013-03-11 2:26 PM

 

Why would you make such a sweeping statement about James Dysons workforce, some employees are very loyal to their companies you know. >:-)

 

Because it is true. Complete loyalty to a company does not exist, what employee with half a brain would not leave his company if offered another job with a better package if it suited them. He would not give a thought to 'does the company need me', it would be thanks very much I am off.

 

No it's not true, you just say it is, and at the end of the day a company, or even someone who employs just one person is reliant on that employee giving of their best, that's a major part of success for any venture. Both my wife and I did just that before we retired, and made extremely good profits for our employers, we were very much appreciated as being loyal and hard working. The likes of Richard Branson would be nowhere without a good workforce, conversely neither would his employees have a job but for him, so it is very much a two way street, to say otherwise quite frankly is an insult to employees who every day are committed to their job, and loyal to their employer, and try in most cases do the very best they can. Unlike the public sector where it seems no one is accountable to anyone.

[Brian Kirby]

Mrs T - 2013-03-11 12:43 PM

 

Talk a lot about ethics if you like but unless you have had to survive in a self employed manner like Bruce and others and ourselves, you have little knowledge about the realities of living.

 

That gentlemen, is why parts of the economy are suffering, because those arranging the organising have never had to exercise their minds as a self employed person has to.

 

Mrs T

So, you are quite happy for a client not to pay you for services rendered? And you are quite happy also not to pay others for services they render you? Or don't you consider that an ethic? Come on, we're not exactly discussing the difference between blasphemy and apostasy here, ethics in business aren't that esoteric.

[Guest pelmetman]

Brian Kirby - 2013-03-11 6:30 PM

 

Mrs T - 2013-03-11 12:43 PM

 

Talk a lot about ethics if you like but unless you have had to survive in a self employed manner like Bruce and others and ourselves, you have little knowledge about the realities of living.

 

That gentlemen, is why parts of the economy are suffering, because those arranging the organising have never had to exercise their minds as a self employed person has to.

 

Mrs T

So, you are quite happy for a client not to pay you for services rendered? And you are quite happy also not to pay others for services they render you? Or don't you consider that an ethic? Come on, we're not exactly discussing the difference between blasphemy and apostasy here, ethics in business aren't that esoteric.

 

Big business is more than happy to allow their suppliers to wait months to be paid *-).............It's a shame big businesses such as banks are not so keen on waiting to be paid ;-).................but life was ever thus for us lowlife self employed oikes :D.........now that big business has got UK PLC up to its neck in the doo doo...... the powers that be expect us to help dig them out of their hole >:-)...............well I ain't planning on going back to work full time (lol) (lol).................

[Brian Kirby]

rupert123 - 2013-03-11 4:04 PM

 

1footinthegrave - 2013-03-11 2:26 PM

 

Why would you make such a sweeping statement about James Dysons workforce, some employees are very loyal to their companies you know. >:-)

 

Because it is true. Complete loyalty to a company does not exist, what employee with half a brain would not leave his company if offered another job with a better package if it suited them. He would not give a thought to 'does the company need me', it would be thanks very much I am off.

Which just illustrates your lack of experience I'm afraid, Henry. I don't blame you for that, but basing what sounds like a "life view", on only what you know from your own experience, is liable to give a wildly distorted outlook. In your preceding post you said, apparently without any sense of irony "however ethics and trust are not quite the same". While that is true in the narrowest, dictionary definition, sense, it is a bit difficult to see how one could trust a person one that perceived as without ethics.

 

If you employ someone to do a job, you have to be able to trust them to do it. You will of course need to monitor them until you gain that trust, and you will need to reassure yourself that they will not end up poaching your clients etc. But, you can't spend all day watching them either. If they are good, and honest, they will work well and earn your confidence and trust. You can them allocate them tasks knowing that they will carry them out conscientiously and well without supervision. You will come to trust their work ethic. They will put in the hours necessary to meet deadlines, and the effort necessary to satisfy your clients. They will see your client as their client, and work accordingly. They will, of their own volition, arrange their holidays to suit work commitments, and they will have regard to your costs in doing so. If they do not do these things, you have employed the wrong people.

 

This is not mere theory, it is the environment in which I have always worked, and reflects the attitudes of those with whom I have always worked. I am sorry if your experience has been otherwise, and I am aware there are dishonest, lazy, unmotivated people, as you seem only to have experienced. I don't know why that should have been, but it is emphatically not a basis for inferring that all who are/were employed by others are dishonest, lazy, and unmotivated, as you seem to be doing.

 

But, it seems to me we digress yet further form the point.