The 2084 Precept by Anthony D. Thompson Page B

reverse any of the city’s
self-inflicted diseases), and I became a self-employed consultant.
No capital required. I deal with loss-making companies only,
usually manufacturing ones, and only those of up to a maximum of
around 500 employees; more than that and I would need a team.
    It takes me between two and three weeks to
tell them whether I can get rid of their losses in the short-term,
short-term being within 12 months—or whether I can't, I don't see
it, maybe somebody else can. I do this by interviewing employees at
various levels, and I use the two ears and one mouth ratio, i.e. I
listen a lot. And for a very good reason—at any level, these people
tend to know more about their business than I do. I also look at
the companies’ products, I go through their balance sheets—many a
slimy worm creeps out of that swamp, I can tell you—and I do a
thousand other things. And if I can see how to get the
company churning out some profits again and if they want me to stay
and do it, then I cost €1,200 per day plus expenses.
    Cheap, I tell them. If you hire a
consultancy firm, they will send you a production expert, a sales
expert, a marketing expert, a finance expert, a purchasing expert
and maybe other experts as well and it will cost you a daily
fortune. And you may well end up with a report full of
recommendations, many of which are not feasible, or are
inappropriate, or require large amounts of capital investment which
is simply not available. And, of course, after the report you will
be involved in more vast consultancy fees if you want them to stay
and help you to actually do something about it.
    I, on the other hand, write no reports. I
fix things. I believe there is a solution for every problem. There
are plenty of people who don't of course. There are plenty of
people who believe there is a problem for every solution. Or there
are the people who can see a problem but assume there is no
solution. Or, worse still, there are the people who cannot even
recognize that a problem exists.
    And—I tell my potential clients—you will
find nobody like me, but nobody, who can be contractually fired
overnight if you don't like his performance, and without having to
state a reason of any kind or pay me a single day's extra fee.
    So, that's me, I've been doing this for
years now. Word gets around, and I have had plenty of customers in
plenty of countries. I have the languages, and where I don't,
English is the magic elixir. And it doesn't matter what the
companies' businesses are, I learn quickly. I am successful and I
always have customers. So far, that is.
    * * * * *
    It was raining again this morning, hard and
wind-driven. I checked out of the hotel, slung my overnight case
into the back of the car and drove across town to the industrial
estate and into the car park of Clark's Industrial Adhesives &
Fasteners PLC, the name of the subsidiary. It manufactures and
markets industrial adhesives, glue to you and me, lots and lots of
different kinds in lots and lots of different-sized metal
containers and other forms of packaging. It also manufactures a
wide variety of industrial rivets. This is admittedly an illogical
manufacturing mixture, except for the fact that in many cases the
customers are the same for both product types. The glue has high
profit margins, the rivets low ones. If I were to stay involved
long enough to be involved in some of the more strategic issues, I
would have to look closely at what benefits and negatives this kind
of production mixture was propagating.
    It was an unkempt, poorly maintained
building, not unusual for a loss-making company with no money, but
the sign with the company name brought a smile to my face, as it
did every time I walked up to the entrance. When I arrived on the
first day, the sign was off the horizontal, a letter had fallen
off, it was grimy, it hadn't been cleaned in years, it was off to
the side of the entrance and it was small, as if the company were
ashamed of identifying