New Umpire School

[Publius]

There is a predictable ubiquity of the order of operations by businesses which attempt to vertically integrate their suppliers.

1. Business becomes dissatisfied with either the quality or the cost of the inputs of their operations.

2. Business hires new management, who determine they can produce better inputs with a different business model, or by using their own people to better manage an existing model.

3. Business acts on its beliefs, ending the existing supplier relationships, or at least drastically curtailing them.

4. Business spends a ton of money in several rounds of failed attempts to produce better inputs than the specialists who theretofore provided them.

5. Business goes to great lengths, due to egos and internal politics, to deny those failures, sometimes lasting for years while the product languishes.

6. More new management is hired. Vertical integration attempts are scuttled, and a press release is issued, stating the company is going to "concentrate on its core operations."

'Twas always thus, and thus will ever be.