(It is a totally fictionalized anecdote in the management and business field. Any remote resemblance to anything in real life will be a sheer coincidence)
It’s about Youngistan. It’s around the time when Youngistan- a developing nation- was making remarkable progress economically. Eyes of the whole world got focused on this country. It was fast emerging as the new and dominant player in the world economy.
The country had the highest population of young people on the earth, percentage wise (though the name Youngistan was given to this country hundreds of years before this phenomenon actually took place). The new generation people of the country were enthusiastic, entrepreneurial and creative. They desired to conquer the world. They were setting up for themselves lofty ideals to achieve.
One such young generation leader and dreamer was Yul Bright, the CEO of Auto Delight Corporation, one of the few automotive companies of Youngistan. The company was engaged in manufacturing and selling various variants of cars and trucks. He set out a brand new vision for his organization. He wanted the company to design a people’s car that everyone on the earth could afford. As per him every family on earth should possess a car just like everyone should possess a graduate degree and a mobile phone.
With the existing designs of cars and the price tags on them, it felt as if cars were meant only for some limited classes of human beings. And others who were not a part of those classes of human beings should not be able to afford to buy and maintain a car. It was one important strategy adopted by those shrewd people of the world who wanted to make sure that the class differences are maintained so that one class of people always remained superior to others and always ruled the inferior ones.
But CEO Yul Bright was made of different and brand new cerebral material. As soon as he took over the reins of Auto Delight Corporation, he started using his unique cerebral elements. He put forth his ideas to the heads of the departments of his company, “Our company will do a great service to the entire humanity of this earth if we can give to each family on the earth a right to buy a four wheeler which can be used for the entire family. That will increase the safe and fast mobility and therefore, comfort, effectiveness and efficiency of each family. It will also give them a sense of moving to places together as a family. It will facilitate growth of those people who are deprived of all of this because they cannot afford to buy and maintain the existing types of cars. If you agree with me, put together your minds to conceptualize, design, develop, manufacture and sell such a car. It should be damn good in efficiency, functionality, looks and most important- it should be easy on pocket- it should be dirt cheap. We will meet here in this conference room at the same time exactly after a week. Please share your ideas with me then.”
And then they met and set out the objective of giving such a gift to the people of the world. They set out a period of three years to achieve it.
Within one year, the blue prints of the wonder car were already shaped into a prototype. The prototype was thoroughly tested for all the standard and mandatory parameters in the company’s test laboratories and test tracks and also on the real roads against all types of terrains, loads and distances etc. The prototype was certified as fully capable and successful. It was ready to be mass manufactured.
Under the guidance of Yul Bright, the company decided to set up a brand new factory to roll out these cars. Around this time Bright made the formal announcements about bringing out such a car in the world market within next eighteen months. The press lapped up the news and it spread as breaking news in all kinds of media all over the world. The car’s price was fixed marginally more than a two wheeler’s price. It was declared as the cheapest car of the world that every family on the earth could afford to possess. It was termed as “car revolution” by the automobile experts.
That evening four sets of people got busy.
First set of people, obviously, consisted of the potential customers of the cheapest car and their families who got busy dreaming about possessing the car. Otherwise, they could have never dreamt of possessing a car in their life.
Second set of people were the politicians in power in each state of Youngistan. They started working out strategies to woo this project for their states. They were busy working out the allotment of land for this project in their state and offering various attractive business incentives to Auto Delight Corporation. Each head of the state wanted to have this new factory of the cheapest car of the world in his state. It would definitely benefit the people of that state and more important- also the politician and his political party.
Third set of people were the local automotive companies of Youngistan- the local competitors of Auto Delight Corporation. Their top bosses’ first thought was how to meet the competition thrown up by the people’s small car project and the second thought was soaked with sinister intentions of how to sabotage the project of Auto Delight Corporation.
Fourth set of people were the international players in the world’s automobile business. They too were busy thinking seriously. Their smooth sailing dominance of so many years was suddenly threatened by the advent of this cheapest car of the people. They were quite disappointed with themselves realizing why they could not think of such a project beforehand? And their line of thinking of how to meet the competition and how to sabotage Auto Delight’s plan was no different than the line of thinking of Youngistan’s other local auto manufacturers.
And the most sinister plan developed.
A smart top level executive of one of the local competitor companies started coordinating with all the interested agencies. We will call this smart top level executive “Mr X” in order to keep the secrecy. Willy-nilly, Mr X also became the leader of the crusade whose objective was to stall the cheapest car of Auto Delight Corporation. He contacted many multinational automobile company CEOs and also the CEOs of the local automobile manufacturers. Likeminded they already were and so, it was easy to form a cartel between them. A huge pool of money was created by the contribution of all the members of this crusade. There would be heavy expenses involved in this kind of sabotage and they soon got ready with the required finances. Mr X was also coordinating in a very secret manner with the political chiefs of various political parties of Youngistan. The plan could not have been executed without the active support and involvement of local politicians.
The central theme of the plan to be developed by the cartel was that every member of the plan as well as the participating politicians must get benefitted in enormous proportions either in kind or in cash. And the entire plan must be kept a top level secret.
The plan worked out with finesse and perfection.
As per the plan, the chief of one political party had a meeting with Yul Bright, the CEO of Auto Delight Corporation and invited him to commission his new factory in his state. He offered him as much land as he needed for the factory and also extremely attractive business incentives that no other state could even think of offering. In turn, the political chief of the state was enormously compensated in cash and kind for his this act of benevolence from the cartel’s common finance pool.
The construction of the factory started and was completed within fourteen months.
In this intervening period local and international automobile companies of the cartel had aligned themselves with each other to form alliances and collaborations and thus they got themselves organized to bring out their own small and cheap cars of the people. The competition among them was kept to the barest minimum. But they needed some more time to design and manufacture their respective wonder cars.
So around the time Yul Bright was ready to start rolling out the small cars from his newly commissioned factory, as per the master plan of the cartel, Mr X got the chief of the opposition political party in the state to start and lead an agitation against the production of the cars from the factory. The chief of the opposition political party was enormously compensated in cash and kind for leading the agitation from the cartel’s common finance pool. The opposition leader alleged that the land was forcibly grabbed from the residents of that place and allotted to Auto Delight Corporation under false promises of good amount of compensation against their lots of land and an assured employment to the members of the families who originally owned the lots of land. However, in reality none of this was happening; none of the promises were being executed. What was being offered to the local residents in lieu of the lots of their land was pittance. They wanted much more. Massive support to this agitation was bought by Mr X by paying very decent amounts to each of the thousands of agitators. Agitators under the leadership of the political chief of the opposition party became violent and physically manhandled many of the executives of the factory and made sure that they could not enter the factory premises. The work inside the factory came to a complete halt. Not a single car got produced.
Yul Bright got a shock of his life. He conferred with the political chief of the state to solve the issues and problems. It was state’s responsibility to deal with the local residents as per the agreement between the state government and Auto Delight Corporation. But Yul Bright found out soon that the state’s political chief’s approach towards solving this suddenly created problem became quite lukewarm; now he was not demonstrating the kind enthusiasm that he had displayed while inviting Bright to build his factory in the state. Yul Bright was highly disappointed by his reactions. The chief of the state said, “I am really very sorry Mr Bright. Someone in my administration has goofed up badly. In the larger interest of my state now, I may not be in a position to intervene as forcefully as I would have done otherwise.”
The agitation continued for two long months. Factory remained closed. Life of the executives of the factory was constantly under threat from the local residents- the agitators. Not a single car got assembled.
Having waited for two months without getting any satisfactory solution, finally Yul Bright took the toughest decision of his life- close this plant in this state and look out for another venue either in other states of Youngistan or even in any other country. He mentioned that it would mean delaying the project of the cheap wonder car by some eighteen months. He announced it formally. It was breaking news in the entire media of the world.
That evening members of the cartel were enjoying a gala party in a seven star hotel with abundance of finest wines flowing recklessly. Now they would be in position to roll out their versions of the cheap cars ahead of the cheap car of Auto Delight Corporation. They had bought sufficient time for it. Their businesses were saved; nah, their businesses would now flourish like nobody’s business.
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