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Is the buying power of large multi-park operators helpful to suppliers?
Mike Chance, Chance Morgan: It can be. It has both advantages and disadvantages. It can cut down on our selling expenses, having fewer customers to deal with and relationships to maintain. The disadvantage is that their increased buying power gives them a better negotiating position. More importantly, when a big corporation’s capital budget gets cut, as it occasionally does, it has a more dramatic effect on our business.
Len Soled, Rides-4-U: Yes. The market is shrinking somewhat so it’s important we deal with the entire market, including large parks. At IAAPA, for example, we closed deals with several larger parks.
Christian Freiherr von Elverfeldt, Mack Rides: It can be a good thing sometimes, because you are only dealing with one department and there is a chance that if it goes good other orders will follow in the group. But often the decision makers do not have any technical knowledge of the rides, and that creates problems. Is it cost effective? For the park maybe, but it’s very hard to calculate a price that is still economical to manufacture, very hard.
Horst Ruhe, Maurer Söhne: It makes our business more difficult because too often major corporations change their management team. This requires us to stabilise a new relationship.
Franz Maier, Gerstlauer: Yes, if they keep it fairly level. That is, if they don’t one year spend $200 million and the following years spend nothing. Gerstlauer has not personally had that proble, we need to maintain balanced production. It also helps if the customer does not delay his decision until too late in the year.
