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Mesa/Gibson corporate BS over free speech
- Thread starter Nuage420
- Start date
They don't.I didn't know Mesa made guitars and basses....
But Gibson's main competitor is Fender, who has a fairly successful line of Bass & Guitar amps.
Gibson? Not so much...
(and isn't funny how the Rumble series became popular after the acquisition of SWR & GB)
EDIT: and I might speculate that Mesa was ripe for acquisition; imagine if Fender acquired them....
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Unfortunately the incentive for the acquiring company and its staff to be "the new broom that sweeps clean" is pretty much irresistible. Generally, an acquiring company is able to make the acquisition because there's sufficient waste and mismanagement in the target compnay for them to get it at a bargain price. But it's almost universal that the new sheriffs in town feel a mandate to change EVERYTHING, leading to product delays, quality dumps, resignations of key personnel and retention of the most mullet-headed ones, loss of institutional memory (likely to be an issue, for example, with a small amplifier company where a lot of decisions and design/process choices were probably made on the fly without extensive documentation), and many other issues. So far, and I've been alive a long time and I've been in the business world a long time, I can't remember an instance where an acquisition of a smaller company by a larger has led to improvements in customer service or product quality for the customers of the smaller, acquired company. There must have been some, but I'm not aware of them.
I mean, let's say you were the guy from Gibson Corporate tasked with putting together a staff and integrating the Mesa amplifier business into Mother Gibson. Would you feel you're more likely to earn that big annual bonus if you go back to your management and say "Well, you know, really most of the Mesa business processes work just fine; they're diffferent than ours but it's a small company, so I recommend we mostly leave things alone under the guys who've been running it all along"?
Or if you say "Well, they were running this thing like it was 1980 (the horror, the horror!) so we've implemented SAP (there goes a year of production down the toilet while you debug it), we've replaced their old paper documentation with the latest CAD tools and Mentor Graphics (there goes a year of design development down the toilet...) we've implemented a forced standardization of components so they will use all the same standard components as the rest of Gibson (there goes another year of design development while the engineers first fight the standardization to subpar components, and then have to redesign everything to use the mandated subpar lowest-bid components...) we've implemented a full ISO 9000 compliance program to ensure high quality (there goes a year of everyone else's time writing documented procedures for everything...) and we've implemented a full stage-gate process for new product development to ensure rapid deployment of resources for maximum shareholder value (and things that used to take a week and one sign-off from a manager who is also a subject matter expert, will now take six months with nine different reviews by people who wouldn't know a capacitor from a nuclear reactor...) Shall I continue?
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Jazzdogg
Less barking, more wagging!
I wonder how many of the improvements implemented by your theoretical buyer were already in place at Mesa before the acquisition?
It seem to recall @agedhorse discussing testing, compliance, certification, and documentation that sounded pretty advanced and sophisticated before the Gibson acquisition.
I can imagine Gibson diminishing all of those qualities, for profit.
Let's hope they leave Mesa alone.
Gibson acquired Mesa in 2021. Things seem to be going okay so far from what I can tell...
Sadly I have worked at companies where I have seen this happen. they are acquired by a different company who then brings in their so-called experts and they literally ruin everything.
It makes zero sense to mess with a company that your company has acquired when that company is doing well, has a stellar reputation in its field and makes quality products Especially if it is a case where the founder of that company has given it his whole life and wants nothing more don to sell it make some money retire to a island somewhere where they can sit on the beach and drink fancy drinks with umbrellas sticking out of them and watch the waves roll in . You honestly can't blame the founder of any company if they wish that.
But corporate America doesn't work that way they have So-Called efficiency experts that love to mess with things. It's a given that the so-called experts will not have any idea what the company they acquired stands for or even understand the products it makes as they see everything as just another widget. Their function is to crunch numbers and shuffle paperwork back to corporate to make themselves look like they're doing something. While in the process destroying the heart and soul of the very company they acquired.
Jazzdogg
Less barking, more wagging!
Thank goodness for the exceptions!
And thank goodness for those who make it a priority to think of long-term goals and human beings before short-term profits.
Unfortunately, many otherwise successful companies are deficient in management and financial skills: lofty goals are no substitute for cash flow.
Does that apply to Gibson and Mesa though? Neither company is exactly a giant corporation.
Jazzdogg
Less barking, more wagging!
A few random comments…..
The OP situation is just one more common tale of corporate behavior; and not a whole lot to get excited about. These kinds of things happen in large, publicly traded companies. One of the better depictions of the human dynamics commonly in play can be seen in the movie Ford vs Ferrari. Large companies harbor socially aggressive types, whose primary goals tend to be personal agrandizement, often at the expense of rational achievement based performance. The result is often decisions which make little sense, other than bolstering the positions of those making them. Having spent several decades in corporate environs, this story is all too familiar, and not worthy of second thought. People do this stuff; get over it.
I suspect that whatever transpires, we can count on @agedhorse for support to the best of his abilities.
Next.
The OP situation is just one more common tale of corporate behavior; and not a whole lot to get excited about. These kinds of things happen in large, publicly traded companies. One of the better depictions of the human dynamics commonly in play can be seen in the movie Ford vs Ferrari. Large companies harbor socially aggressive types, whose primary goals tend to be personal agrandizement, often at the expense of rational achievement based performance. The result is often decisions which make little sense, other than bolstering the positions of those making them. Having spent several decades in corporate environs, this story is all too familiar, and not worthy of second thought. People do this stuff; get over it.
I suspect that whatever transpires, we can count on @agedhorse for support to the best of his abilities.
Next.
Having owned a less than stellar example from Gibson and the company's history with previous acquisitions, it doesn't take much imagination.
Moral of the story is don't talk about your sponsors and endorsers unless there's been some sort of written agreement. Fine by me. Don't cut your nose off to spite your face, as the saying goes.
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