jeff

Well, At Least It Can’t Be Any Worse Next Year; The Trade Show Schedule

Billabong, Trade Shows

The box on this page contains, as most of you are no doubt painfully aware, this year’s trade show schedule. Pretty intimidating. But of course it doesn’t include any key account presentations suppliers might have to make. Or regional shows. Or shoe shows, or bike shows, or toy shows or whatever other shows some suppliers and retailers might need […]

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Well, I Guess It’s a Recession; Perspective on an Economic Downturn.

Surfing

It has been a while—ten years actually—since we endured the lastr ecession back in ’90/91. But business cycles are pretty much immutable.  What goes up must come down. “Regression to the mean” they call it in statistics.   Two things have me especially concerned about our current situation.  First, the economic rubber band is stretched

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What To Do in a Recession? Hint: “Nothing” is the Wrong Answer

General Management, Macroeconomics

I’m sure that everybody who was in the snowboard business during the 1990-91 recession liked that one better than we’re going to like this one. Assuming, of course, that you even noticed the one in 1990-91. Ah, those were the good old days- when suppliers and retailers could sell whatever decks they could manage to get their

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Potential Impact of War and Recession on the Snow Sports Industry; Relevant Statistics and Possible Strategies

Macroeconomics, Snowsports, Strategy

We were looking at a recession before the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the tragedy raised the possibility (certainty in the minds of many) that the recession would be longer, deeper or both then it would otherwise have been. Economic activity has already rebounded since its nadir in the

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Cash Flow Revisited; Why Hardly Any Successful Business is Just Snowboarding Anymore

Financial Management

I know it’s because of crossover, and the mainstreaming of action sports, and because we’re selling to parents as much as to kids. I know all that. Largely, I believe it. I just did my occasional and not nearly frequent enough sojourn into a bunch of local snowboard retail stores, big and small, and looked at what they’re

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A Good Snow Year Does Not Make Us Heroes of Management; A Minor Reality Check

Snowboarding, Strategy

1980- Michael Porter, the Harvard strategy Guru published Competitive Strategy.   In it, he discusses how industries change, and how companies have to change, as they transition from growth to maturity.  I want to look briefly at what Porter says stereotypically happens during this transition and see how it applies to the winter resort business. Like all

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