Wolfgang Schnellbaecher

We were supposed to reduce the cost of big steel tracks, and we had a group sitting there of rather old buyers, basically telling us everything is optimal.

After 60 minutes, I was still in front of an empty flip chart, panicking a bit.

My colleague, however, was very cool.

He just turned around to the crowd and said, let's forget this exercise for a moment.

What would you do in the following situation?

You just get a new boss, he's younger than you, and he's firing you.

It's unfair, and the only thing you can do to strike back is in the next three months, when you're still in the company, increase the cost.

Do you have any creative ideas to increase the cost without just raising prices?

And now the ideas were flying.

We could buy two long tracks we have to cut.

We could buy two short tracks we have to weld together.

We could buy too many and we have to put on stock.

We could order too late, so we have to pay a fee.

We could pay too early to not have interest rates.

We could pay too late to pay a fine.

All of a sudden, the flip chart was full, and my colleague turned around again.

Are we sure we are really at the optimum in each one of these dimensions?

And when you're buying a car, you can do the same with your family.

What would we have to do to increase the price?

We could buy it in the spring.