Damato of the Day Is ... "Big Oil Doesn't Get It"
Flush with cash and highly successful, the behemoth Exxon Mobil does not know what they sell or who their customer is. Of course I am not qualified to make such an outrageous statement, but this is my blog, dammit, and I can pontificate if I feel like it.
Flush with cash and highly successful, the behemoth Exxon Mobil does not know what they sell or who their customer is. Of course I am not qualified to make such an outrageous statement, but this is my blog, dammit, and I can pontificate if I feel like it.
Seems they (speaking of the generic “big oil” because Exxon Mobile does not have a franchise on this) believe in their product (hydrocarbons … fossil fuels) more than they believe in what we actually buy from them. I say we because I am a customer of big oil and since I have no allegiance to any one of them I end up at all of their pumps sooner or later.
What we buy from them is a product necessary to:
1. Make us warm (or cool in the case of the A/C in our cars).
2. Help us go places (most of our cars happen to be fueled by hydrocarbon-type products).
3. Keep the motor in the car (and other things) running by furnishing lubrication (which will not be needed forever as other engineering solutions are developed to replace hydrocarbon-based lubricants).
4. Not to sell them short … there are LOTS of other uses for the slimy stuff left behind by the dinosaurs, including the manufacturing many roofing products.
Most of us would hope that big oil would furnish these products in a safe manner and in such a way as to protect the environment. To their credit, big oil is working hard on that. They are being forced to by the governments of the world and the changing attitude of consumers (hey, their kids have to breathe this air too).
Here’s the point: There are other ways beside fossil-fuel based products to make all this happen. Big oil’s experts are telling them that there is no way there will be any serious competition to their product for a very, very long time. But no matter how long it is going to take, how stupid is it for them to sit back and let anyone else take their livelihood and customers away? Why are they not developing products that their customers want? Either they just do not care about anything but profits (nothing wrong with profits and these guys are masters), or they are just arrogant, or simply not worried about the long-term health of their enterprises.
So maybe they are right and are doing the best thing for their shareholders. Maybe General Motors did the right thing for their shareholders by failing to see the competitive world around them change (for around 50 years). Maybe they were right not to look at other solutions to their customers’ needs. Maybe shareholders in Honda and Toyota sold their souls to the devil to put them in the position of the innovators that are ultimately taking GM down?
Or maybe the automobile companies that are surviving today just paid attention to what their real core business was. Converting the fossil fuels refined by big oil into power or other forms of available power (i.e., electricity) and selling it to us consumers who have a need for it.
So maybe the oil companies will pull their heads out of the oil sands long enough to create alternative solutions for their customers. It may or may not happen in my lifetime (probably not), but they will likely simply run until the last well runs dry and screw a bunch of bondholders out of a lot of cash and leave the governments of the world holding the bag for whatever is left.
So, Mr. Roofing Contractor, what do you sell? Residential? Commercial? EPDM? TPO? BUR? I think you sell security. That feeling you have when everything is all right. Like when you know you and your family or your business are inhabiting clean, dry, temperate spaces. The roofing piece of the building envelope is a vital part of delivering that. The consumers of this world will continue to expect the roofing industry to do its part to deliver these “clean, dry, temperate spaces.” If we fail to do that, no matter what form or fashion our products take, we will be replaced.
Flush with cash and highly successful, the behemoth Exxon Mobil does not know what they sell or who their customer is. Of course I am not qualified to make such an outrageous statement, but this is my blog, dammit, and I can pontificate if I feel like it.
Seems they (speaking of the generic “big oil” because Exxon Mobile does not have a franchise on this) believe in their product (hydrocarbons … fossil fuels) more than they believe in what we actually buy from them. I say we because I am a customer of big oil and since I have no allegiance to any one of them I end up at all of their pumps sooner or later.
What we buy from them is a product necessary to:
1. Make us warm (or cool in the case of the A/C in our cars).
2. Help us go places (most of our cars happen to be fueled by hydrocarbon-type products).
3. Keep the motor in the car (and other things) running by furnishing lubrication (which will not be needed forever as other engineering solutions are developed to replace hydrocarbon-based lubricants).
4. Not to sell them short … there are LOTS of other uses for the slimy stuff left behind by the dinosaurs, including the manufacturing many roofing products.
Most of us would hope that big oil would furnish these products in a safe manner and in such a way as to protect the environment. To their credit, big oil is working hard on that. They are being forced to by the governments of the world and the changing attitude of consumers (hey, their kids have to breathe this air too).
Here’s the point: There are other ways beside fossil-fuel based products to make all this happen. Big oil’s experts are telling them that there is no way there will be any serious competition to their product for a very, very long time. But no matter how long it is going to take, how stupid is it for them to sit back and let anyone else take their livelihood and customers away? Why are they not developing products that their customers want? Either they just do not care about anything but profits (nothing wrong with profits and these guys are masters), or they are just arrogant, or simply not worried about the long-term health of their enterprises.
So maybe they are right and are doing the best thing for their shareholders. Maybe General Motors did the right thing for their shareholders by failing to see the competitive world around them change (for around 50 years). Maybe they were right not to look at other solutions to their customers’ needs. Maybe shareholders in Honda and Toyota sold their souls to the devil to put them in the position of the innovators that are ultimately taking GM down?
Or maybe the automobile companies that are surviving today just paid attention to what their real core business was. Converting the fossil fuels refined by big oil into power or other forms of available power (i.e., electricity) and selling it to us consumers who have a need for it.
So maybe the oil companies will pull their heads out of the oil sands long enough to create alternative solutions for their customers. It may or may not happen in my lifetime (probably not), but they will likely simply run until the last well runs dry and screw a bunch of bondholders out of a lot of cash and leave the governments of the world holding the bag for whatever is left.
So, Mr. Roofing Contractor, what do you sell? Residential? Commercial? EPDM? TPO? BUR? I think you sell security. That feeling you have when everything is all right. Like when you know you and your family or your business are inhabiting clean, dry, temperate spaces. The roofing piece of the building envelope is a vital part of delivering that. The consumers of this world will continue to expect the roofing industry to do its part to deliver these “clean, dry, temperate spaces.” If we fail to do that, no matter what form or fashion our products take, we will be replaced.
