The Goal

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it, I can almost see the stack of phone messages my secretary is bringing in my wheelbarrow.

Oh well. I lift my beer for a good long slug. And as I tilt my head back, I see them.

Out beyond the plant are two other long, narrow buildings. They're our warehouses. They're filled to the roof with spare parts and unsold merchandise we haven't been able to unload yet. Twenty million dollars in finished-goods inventory: quality products of the most current technology, all produced efficiently, all sitting in their boxes, all sealed in plastic with the warranty cards and a whiff of the original factory air-and all waiting for someone to buy them.

So that's it. UniCo obviously doesn't run this plant just to fill a warehouse. The goal is sales.

But if the goal is sales, why didn't Jonah accept market share as the goal? Market share is even more important as a goal than sales. If you have the highest market share, you've got the best sales in your industry. Capture the market and you've got it made. Don't you?

Maybe not. I remember the old line, "We're losing money, but we're going to make it up with volume." A company will sometimes sell at a loss or at a small amount over cost-as UniCo has been known to do-just to unload inventories. You can have a big share of the market, but if you're not making money, who cares?

Money. Well, of course... money is the big thing. Peach is going to shut us down because the plant is costing the company too much money. So I have to find ways to reduce the money that the company is losing...

Wait a minute. Suppose I did some incredibly brilliant thing and stemmed the losses so we broke even. Would that save us? Not in the long run, it wouldn't. The plant wasn't built just so it could break even. UniCo is not in business just so it can break even. The company exists to make money.

I see it now.

The goal of a manufacturing organization is to make money.

Why else did J. Bartholomew Granby start his company back in 1881 and go to market with his improved coal stove? Was it for the love of appliances? Was it a magnanimous public gesture to bring warmth and comfort to millions? Hell, no. Old J. Bart did it to make a bundle. And he succeeded-because the stove was a