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PPTA News, December 2009, p. 3
Memo to: Executive Director Global Christmas Trust.
From: Reed, Wright and Talley Consultants.
Subject: Efficiency Review.
Having completed our financial and staffing review of the North Pole Division, we make the following recommendations:
1. Practices in the workshop are extremely outmoded. We could sum this up in the famous phrase from Brian Picot, “good elves: bad system”. Up until now, management has been hopelessly centralised – allowing the elves to have too much say about the way work is organised, even about the best way to produce the toys. Because they have had a monopoly on the production of Christmas toys there has been no competitive pressure on them to maximise shareholder value.
Considerable savings could be made by the introduction of digital technologies which would standardise production and enable us to do more with fewer elves. By our estimates downsizing the workshop by around 700 elves could save us $50 million. Some of these savings can be used to hire more media and communications staff to counter the negative publicity. Should you wish we can assist you with strategic media advice. We can also scope out possible sites for relocation of the workshop to Asia if the restructuring does not increase profits enough. Elves in China, for example, are not just cheaper but far more biddable.
2. We are not convinced that Santa provides an appropriate image for the Global Christmas Trust. Not to put too fine a point on it, he is old and fat when we live in an age that worships young and thin. We understand that he did make some effort to cut out the Christmas mince pies and the brandy butter while the Mission On programme was running but since that was canned, he has piled the pounds back on.
We would be happy to design a new Christmas brand for you based around a more modern and slimmer celebrity, Paris Hilton, for example comes to mind. This would also assist us in our Equal Employment Opportunity targets.
3. If Santa were downsized, fewer reindeer would be required to pull his sleigh offering considerable savings on food and stabling plus reducing our carbon emissions and then our tax liability. (If you had come to us sooner I am sure we could have got you in on the New Zealand government’s plan to subsidise polluters. They have been very pleased with the work we have done for them on national standards so a pay-back is due.) More importantly, the reindeer work only one night of the year so the company is not sweating its assets very effectively. For a small commission we can arrange to contract out the reindeer for other national and international functions such as the Winter Olympics or the Running of the Bulls.
4. The state of the property portfolio at the North Pole is very unsatisfactory – everything could come down in the next blizzard. We suggest you put in a request to the Minister of Education to establish a very small school for the children of the elves (well it would be small wouldn’t it … being as elves are small… oh never mind!) under the Private Schools’ Conditional Integration Act the New Zealand taxpayer will pay 85% of the building costs. We can do more work on this for you, sorting out a cheap line in special character etc.
5. Lastly, Global Christmas Trust needs to look to the future and we can help with that too. The fundamental problem with Christmas is that everyone gets gifts for nothing. This presents a serious moral hazard. If people are given things for nothing, they don’t value them. Moreover there is an opportunity cost imposed on the company when the elves are producing toys that are then given away – gratis. We have begun working on a campaign plan to lobby politicians and powerful global financial interests like the World Bank to introduce user pays to Christmas. The time has long gone when a bottle of warm beer and a piece of home-made Christmas cake can cut it as a reasonable return to the shareholder.
Season’s Greetings.
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