Unlucky Porsche dealer - business sense gone mad

Wow, check out this article

Glen Fergusson - Sales and Marketing manager for a brand new Californian Porsche dealer. Has lost his job and faces possible legal proceedings as the company strives to reclaim the costs of the 18 Porsches given away free under Glen's Opening day "buy one get one free promotion" "I admit I didn't really do the numbers properly on this one" said Glen who told reporters that he had "seen the concept work really well for coffee stores" and in terms of numbers you could argue that Glen's campaign worked. As the new Porsche dealer sold 18 Porsches in the first hour of the store opening. [ continued on stuffed.co.nz ]

I find this to be a very nice example of how stuff can go wrong if you transfer ideas from one business where they make sense to another industry with different characteristics, where they obviously do not make sense.

Sadly, the story seems to be made up, as can be read here on urban legends references pages of snopes.com .

Anyways, I think the point made is still very true. This story probably happens a hundred times every day in numerous companies around the world. Except that the guy's name is not Glen (well, maybesometimes) and he's probably not a Porsche dealer. And most of the times, it won't be that obvious what happens, but still value is destrcuted.

E.g. you have a top CEO that turns around a whole company in 2 years and has the best track record you can imagine, plus is highly appreciated by analysts and the stock market. So what do you do? Right, you fire him ...