Re: It's still the old, 'cheap' stuff
> I suspect this hell has been caused by beancounters who don't understand their market. It's been coming for a long time.
I suspect the same thing. Far too many businesses have been squeezing everything they could possibly squeeze, in a process that has been hailed in glory and variously called "being efficient", "having a lean supply chain", "no-inventory model", "being able to rapidly adapt" and so on and so forth.
In reality, they were just basically bundling up the company's ability to withstand shocks, and selling it for a quick buck. If everyone does it, then entire value chains become like chunks of rigid materials stacked up one against the other: there's nothing elastic that can absorb the shock, so the shock goes right through the whole lot.
And when the shit eventually hits the fan, the managers who made those short-sighted decisions will be gone anyway. Even if they aren't gone, they'll just claim the shit was completely unpredictable, and they can't possibly be at fault, because after all if you see a trend for five years, it's guaranteed to go on forever, right? Right?
Unfortunately, taking short-sighted decisions really does boost your company in the short term. If all of your competitors do it, and the market manages to avoid shocks for a few years, eventually you will be forced to do it too, or get squeezed out.