Master Aulaus Kreshnik made a lot of odd and risky choices when he took over Pritchard & Terse.
Though the company built up a modest presence in the Rubarthan ch market over the years, The Great Severing affected P&T much more than other companies!
Due to the company's relatively light footprint in the Red Ocean, the branch headquarters found itself unable to bear the burden of updating its entire first-class ch catalog.
The competitive pressure was too high. Whereas other ch companies transferred plenty of Master ch Designers and a lot of other supporting infrastructure to the new frontier, P&T only had Master Kreshnik, a bunch of contributing ch designers and a lot of low-ranking ch designers not worth ntioning!
This put P&T far behind its other competitors in the Rubarthan Pact!
Since the start of the Hyper Generation, every existing client and custor clamored for hyper chs.
The performance boost was too great. If ch designers and ch companies did not update their existing ch lines soon, then they would inevitably get dumped by the vast majority of their custor base!
This put Master Kreshnik in an awful position. As the most capable ch designer left in P&T's branch headquarters, he was unable to update all of the existing product lines by himself.
Every competitive first-class multipurpose ch design represented the culmination of the collaborative efforts by 5 Master ch Designers over months if not years of dedicated work.
The difficulty beca compounded by the fact that Master Kreshnik did not lead any of the design projects that resulted in the creation of the old mainstays of P&T!
Most of them had been birthed from the visions of the founders and lead designers of Pritchard & Terse that comfortably remained in their old haunts in the Milky Way!
There was no way that Master Kreshnik could inherit these old ch designs and do them justice. He also did not have the prestige and connections to convince other Master ch Designers to replace the design philosophies that allowed P&T's products to carve out their own niches in the Rubarthan ch Market.
P&T was not the only company that suffered from this problem. Many other ch companies found themselves incapable of supporting the bestsellers and mainstays that used to channel steady profits into their coffers in a bygone age.
Most of these companies that had fallen into trouble chose to give up. They put up their brands, their fixed assets, their personnel, their intellectual property, their existing business contracts and sotis even their high-level design talent up for auction!
A large round of consolidation ensued during the first year of the Age of Dawn as large gacorporations eagerly snapped up a bunch of smaller competitors. This enabled the big players to quickly fill up their own gaps, putting them in a much better position to update their own outdated ch lines!
It would have been completely normal for P&T to give up and allow itself to be absorbed by a larger company.
Master Kreshnik was different, though. He went against the grain and argued hard that the company still had a future as an independent company in the Age of Dawn.
"I spent weeks arguing with the remaining upper managent of P&T." Master Kreshnik spoke to Ves as both of them waited for their respective chs to complete their final inspections. "In my 200 years of life, I have worked for one organization after another. P&T is but the latest employer that has accepted my services. I am tired of letting others dictate my work. Now that I have a chance to take over our forr branch headquarters, I needed to take the plunge."
"Bold choice." Ves responded. "Being in charge is always better in my book. I would have thought that Masters such as yourselves are more than capable of starting off on your own. Why did you not go independent sooner?"
"It is not as easy as you may think, professor. The first-class ch market is much more brutal than the other markets. No single Master can expect to do business by designing and publishing first-class multipurpose ch designs by themselves. Every custor expects to obtain the best of what their budget can afford them, so it is essential for a team of five Masters as well as an entire support network of high-tech developnt companies to unite all of their efforts to produce a single ch design that can possibly outperform the prevailing competition and sell enough units to recoup the massive expenditures."
Ves pressed his lips when he heard that. Master Kreshnik did not mince any words when he described the extre difficulty of developing a profitable first-class ch.
While it was true that first-raters had so much money at their disposal, they were much more knowledgeable and discerning as well.
Many first-class organizations were already capable of raising their own in-house design teams.
ch companies that catered to the open market had to exceed the standards of all of those in-house ch designers in order to sell their products, and that was not an easy task!
"So you decided that P&T should give up on the first-class ch market?"
"It was not an easy decision to make." Master Kreshnik spoke with narrowed eyes. "Many executives in my company have beco attached to the status and prestige of working with an established brand in Rubarthan society. It is considered to be a great sha and a mark of failure for a first-class ch company to retreat from its native market and go 'down' into the second-class ch market."
"Yet you managed to ram this decision through anyway."
"The data supported my argunts. Our chances of developing even a single profitable first-class hyper ch model were virtually zero. Since no one else has been able to offer any alternatives that could give us a viable pathway to remain in the first-class ch market, we had to choose between two different options. We could either sell our company to a larger conglorate, or we could temporarily retreat to the second-class ch market while steadily rebuilding our capital to return to our original market in the future."
"If I was in the shoes of those executives, I think that transferring to a bigger, more prestigious and more secure ch company sounds like a good deal."
"That is true, but much of the value of a ch company is concentrated in its high-level design talent. If I choose to depart from P&T, the company becos an abandoned shell that is burdened down by outdated ch designs and other marginal assets. I have every justification to leave on the spot considering that a force majeure has occurred that unreasonably damaged my own interests."
"So you used the threat of your departure to browbeat the remaining executives into keeping P&T independent."
"Correct. Once I found out that they are primarily driven by profit and status, it is not difficult to formulate strategies that target their proclivities and vulnerabilities. I presented a workable business plan that calls for building up a foundation in the second-class ch market first. Once we have stabilized our new positions, we can gather the necessary capital and design talent to make a fresh start in the first-class ch market. It does not matter if we abandon our old ch lines, as none of them are designed with hyper chs in mind. Their individual brands also aren't valuable enough to keep them alive. It is better if I design my own hyper chs based on my own vision from the beginning."
"You will be giving up the first mover advantage if you start out later."
"That is a necessary sacrifice. If you want to survive in this business, then you need to possess an objective understanding of your own situation. I have made the decision that it is better to retreat and wait until our collective understanding of hyper technology has advanced much further before I design serious first-class multipurpose chs once again. There is so much we have to learn before we can properly utilize the properties of hyper materials."
"I agree. It is not a bad idea to be a little more patient and try to find ways to differentiate yourself from the competition."
The two continued to chat as if they were friends and colleagues rather than bitter rivals.
As much as Master Kreshnik issued a challenge to Ves, the two did not have a strong basis for conflict.
The Fey Fianna and the Nelerat Mark I did not compete directly against each other. They occupied their own corners of the second-class ch market and addressed different needs.
Ves and Master Kreshnik were also completely different from each other. They did not compete for the sa opportunities, so why should they hold any personal animosity for each other?
The only complication was that Ves suspected that the Smokestack Prince had induced Master Kreshnik to issue this challenge.
No matter what, losing the challenge match definitely damaged Ves' interests. This made it a lot more difficult for Ves to befriend the Rubarthan Master.
That did not stop him from pumping Master Kreshnik of every scrap of information related to the current situation of the first-class ch market.
Originally, Ves intended to put his products up for sale in this market as well.
Yet the more he learned, the less he was willing to go through with this plan.
Considering how even a 200-year old Master ch Designer lacked the confidence to compete at this level, it appeared that it was way too premature for him to think about designing comrcially viable first-class chs at this stage!
"Compared to the Terran ch market, the Rubarthan ch market is not as difficult to enter as an independent." Master Kreshnik freely shared. "The forr is largely captured by old and established brands. Terran custors are much more accustod to work with a selection of trusted ch companies over the long term. There are Rubarthan custors that adopt the sa approach, but since our ch market is more dynamic, there is much more acceptance to purchasing standalone chs to adapt to changing circumstances or address an imdiate shortcoming. However, the level of competition in the market is so high that you need to be the best in your field to sell more than a handful of copies."
If that was the case, then Ves could forget about selling any of his chs onto the Rubarthan ch market in the next decade or two. He did not think he could et all of the harsh requirents that would allow his first-class chs to reach the necessary level of performance, especially when he had to implent all kinds of powerful and extrely advanced high technologies.
"What would you advise if I want to enter the Rubarthan ch market?" Ves asked. "lam studying hard to beco a first-class ch designer. What do you suggest I do once I have learned the necessary tech?"
Master Kreshnik gave the younger man a pointed glance. "I suggest that you take a step back and collaborate with more established Rubarthan ch designers. You already have a history of collaborating with nurous other ch designers and ch companies. You can use this existing model and apply it in other cases. It isn't necessary for you to retain any ownership of the ch designs that you have contributed to. The lessons you learn and the experience you gain when working as a contractor are the greatest rewards that you can earn. When it cos to designing first-class chs, it is vital for you to build up a network of high-level talent that you can rely upon for collaborations and technical support."
Ves nodded in understanding. He was incredibly deficient in this area. It couldn't be helped since he was an outsider to the first-class ch industry.
"I guess this is why most second-class ch designers hardly ever succeed in entering the first-class ch market. It isn't enough to possess the requisite knowledge and skills. You also need to find a lot of willing partners to support your goals."
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