Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I wish I could go to Kirby Kamp, so I can learn how to do what my managers manual tells me too

Bloodwin wrote:

The fans of GW are a niche group who are willing to pay for their product so don't try to appeal outside this niche as it's wasted effort

This is so closed minded. This is really what is killing GW. Unnable to see the potential of new markets and expand it's boarders, new customers seem to me what is required to get rid of the hobby shirk that others have identified. Who is to say that new markets won't be receptive to the GW product, they make a large number of fine miniatures. To me video games like WoW get mass market appeal, I don't see why GWs (or indeed any miniature companies) products should be pigeon holed so.

Bloodwin wrote:

People who 'fit' in GW. That's standard management talk, it means don't hire people who will try to change the company and possibly screw up our IP money machine

This seems like the most stupid and maronic ideas i've heard in sometime, surely you hire people for the differences, skills and so flexibilities they bring to the company. What your endorsing by saying this is paramount to indoctrination or the suggestion that only one "model" works. This is stupid as GW compitition demonstrates with thier penetration into GW market well underway what people are after is not the monotone model GW seems to be selling it would be good in that respect to have some fresh blood at GW.

ceorron wrote:

Bloodwin wrote:

The fans of GW are a niche group who are willing to pay for their product so don't try to appeal outside this niche as it's wasted effort

This is so closed minded. This is really what is killing GW. Unnable to see the potential of new markets and expand it's boarders, new customers seem to me what is required to get rid of the hobby shirk that others have identified. Who is to say that new markets won't be receptive to the GW product, they make a large number of fine miniatures. To me video games like WoW get mass market appeal, I don't see why GWs (or indeed any miniature companies) products should be pigeon holed so.

They're probably pigeon-holed because we're perceived to be in a culture of instant gratification. The "masses" don't likely want to put the effort into building up painting skills or modeling skills to play what many of them see as a "board game".

Interesting to see operating expenses generally down about 1% and COGS also having improved markedly ... and still revenue drops almost 3%.

That would suggest a pretty precipitous drop in sales given flat pricing YoY... and as I recall prices went up.

It looks like GW could be setting itself up for a real difficult YoY comp if they do indeed reach a point where they can't cut operating expenses much further and have to lap revenue on declining sales volume.

ceorron wrote:This seems like the most stupid and maronic ideas i've heard in sometime, surely you hire people for the differences, skills and so flexibilities they bring to the company.

Surely you don't. Most companies hire people based on the jobseeker having the skillset, or being able to learn the skillset, that meet the requirements of the position to be filled. Companies don't want people with 'differences', they want people that can do the job. GW wants people that have the skills to fit into a job at GW. If flexibility is one of those, like running a one man store, then that's a needed skill. If flexibility isn't needed for the job, then why hire someone for it? If you get hired by any company in a low level position, you should be able to learn to do your job. Telling the boss/supervisor/ceo how to make changes sure as hell isn't your job.

Maybe a 3 person start up needs flexibilities and different skill sets. Larger companies don't need that.

It lovely though how you can proclaim someone else to be 'Maronic' and stupid. Are you perchance an expert on hiring practices for companies equivalent to GW?)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

evilsponge wrote:I wish I could go to Kirby Kamp, so I can learn how to do what my managers manual tells me too

I wish I could go, just for the knowledge. I can match a low selling GW store with my GW sales. A good store blows me out of the water by 3-4 times. So they know or do something that I don't.

sourclams wrote:

boyd wrote:Did any of their stores close based on the turbulence in the country? Did any of them flood or wash away? If so that could be one of the reasons why they closed the shops. We had that issue in Florida when we had 5 Hurricanes and 2 Tropical storms dump 4 feet of water over Central Florida in 2 months back in 2004. Many businesses took their insurance payout and never re-opened. That is an alternative rebuilding and reopening several months later. I can imagine that since there is a lot of upheavel in the country closing the shops in the short term and waiting for the country to stabilize would be beneficial.

The Fukushima Prefecture of Japan is a relatively rural/industrial area on the NE coastline, and is considered rather remote. It is extremely... EXTREMELY... unlikely that there were GW stores there to begin with, and even less so that all of the locations were so closely clustered around the Dai-Ichi plant as to be affected by the tsunamis or radiation.

This is not to say that the closing of the stores is unrelated to the recent turmoil, but for it to have had a direct affect on the properties is a low probability IMO.

My Company has an office in Tokyo and Okinawa and we shut both down due to the turmoil. The turmoil over there is NOT condusive to business right now. We moved our inventory and shut the lights off in our warehouse. The only people working there are sales men from home offices and to schedule all of our gear coming in from Australia. About 2 weeks after the tsunami we had all of our orders cancelled and no revenue for two weeks but a full sales force and warehouse staff of approx 100 people. No revenues means no way to pay the bills. We will open back up as soon as business picks back up.

Right now the Japanese have seen a shift from their normal course of life - I would assume that they are not focused on luxury items at the moment. Give them 6 - 12 more months and I would believe they will go back to "normal". Some of the hardcore players may not see a shift in buying habits but new people coming into the fold account for a good piece of the overall pie.

sourclams wrote:Interesting to see operating expenses generally down about 1% and COGS also having improved markedly ... and still revenue drops almost 3%.

That would suggest a pretty precipitous drop in sales given flat pricing YoY... and as I recall prices went up.

It looks like GW could be setting itself up for a real difficult YoY comp if they do indeed reach a point where they can't cut operating expenses much further and have to lap revenue on declining sales volume.

Yep, noticed that too. The drop in COG and operating expenses is a good thing, but not something you can pull off year after year. Only so much efficiency to be gained. Increasing sales (without increasing prices) is the only way they will be increasing revenue in a way that increases overall health and profits both.

And granted, that's difficult in the current economy, as many businesses have found out. I'm about to go raiding Borders for fixtures in a couple of weeks.) But GW are still profitable with low debt. A far, far cry from the bankrupt businesses that are popping up daily now.

mikhaila wrote:

ceorron wrote:This seems like the most stupid and maronic ideas i've heard in sometime, surely you hire people for the differences, skills and so flexibilities they bring to the company.

Surely you don't. Most companies hire people based on the jobseeker having the skillset, or being able to learn the skillset, that meet the requirements of the position to be filled. Companies don't want people with 'differences', they want people that can do the job. GW wants people that have the skills to fit into a job at GW. If flexibility is one of those, like running a one man store, then that's a needed skill. If flexibility isn't needed for the job, then why hire someone for it? If you get hired by any company in a low level position, you should be able to learn to do your job. Telling the boss/supervisor/ceo how to make changes sure as hell isn't your job.

Maybe a 3 person start up needs flexibilities and different skill sets. Larger companies don't need that.

It lovely though how you can proclaim someone else to be 'Maronic' and stupid. Are you perchance an expert on hiring practices for companies equivalent to GW?)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

evilsponge wrote:I wish I could go to Kirby Kamp, so I can learn how to do what my managers manual tells me too

I wish I could go, just for the knowledge. I can match a low selling GW store with my GW sales. A good store blows me out of the water by 3-4 times. So they know or do something that I don't.

You're both correct - yes you hire for diversity of opinions but you need to know when and where the appropriate place is to provide that opinion. Your employees are hired to perform a job. They should tell their boss how they can be more efficient (if we had X instead of Y I could do this better). A poor way of doing this would be going outside the chain of command and undermining the boss. This does 2 things - it creates inner turmoil (boss and employees) and makes the company look bad (if they go and rant and rave that the boss doesn't know what he's doing why would I want to do business with people who don't know what they are doing?).

sourclams wrote:That would suggest a pretty precipitous drop in sales given flat pricing YoY... and as I recall prices went up.

It looks like GW could be setting itself up for a real difficult YoY comp if they do indeed reach a point where they can't cut operating expenses much further and have to lap revenue on declining sales volume.

Well... herein lies the problem, as in my admittedly uneducated estimation - they've already axed too much muscle from their organization in their enthusiastic effort to show a profit.

boyd wrote:

sourclams wrote:This is not to say that the closing of the stores is unrelated to the recent turmoil, but for it to have had a direct affect on the properties is a low probability IMO.

My Company has an office in Tokyo and Okinawa and we shut both down due to the turmoil. The turmoil over there is NOT condusive to business right now.

My company also has sales offices that were closed immediately after the events in March, especially as rolling brown/blackouts made keeping the lights on difficult and transportation nearly impossible. We didn't, however, close up shop and quit whole-clothe, nor do I think many other companies 'shipped out' of Japan entirely either.

mikhaila wrote:

sourclams wrote:Interesting to see operating expenses generally down about 1% and COGS also having improved markedly ... and still revenue drops almost 3%.

That would suggest a pretty precipitous drop in sales given flat pricing YoY... and as I recall prices went up.

It looks like GW could be setting itself up for a real difficult YoY comp if they do indeed reach a point where they can't cut operating expenses much further and have to lap revenue on declining sales volume.

Yep, noticed that too. The drop in COG and operating expenses is a good thing, but not something you can pull off year after year. Only so much efficiency to be gained. Increasing sales (without increasing prices) is the only way they will be increasing revenue in a way that increases overall health and profits both.

And granted, that's difficult in the current economy, as many businesses have found out. I'm about to go raiding Borders for fixtures in a couple of weeks.) But GW are still profitable with low debt. A far, far cry from the bankrupt businesses that are popping up daily now.

That shows they are on the right track. If you want to look at the health of the Company I implore you to look at the statement of cash flows (if UK companies are required to put that in their statements like US GAAP requires). Its the best way to judge how the Company is doing as it shows HOW THEY ARE SPENDING THEIR MONEY. A Company that shows a 5% growth but they are leveraged to their eyeballs in debt and are spending their profits paying tons of interest are not as good as a company that shows a 5% decrease in revenues. I have always found the Cash Flows to be one of the best statements to look at when investing in a Company and when I audited Companies to judge their health. I've seen highly leveraged Companies and I've seen Companies with little debt. Each have their merits - I would expect GW not to be a highly leveraged entity only because the barriers to enter the market are not very high. To have their production capabilities it would be high but as they were private for many years before going public, I would naturally assume they had the equipment, facilities, and a decent LOC to assist with cash flow management. Poor indicators for the Company would be that they are not covering their operations and are having to borrow money to stay open or that they have no equity in the Company (usually this is seen when PEG's get in the mix and are taking over the Company to divide the assets).

I'm going to try and look over the report when I get off work (I've got too much work with month end close coming up to take a look at it now).

Henners91 wrote:Unfortunately, when people are satisfied, it's a lot harder to find the energy to make a forum post detailing their experience than it is when you're motivated by rage.

And as I've said, now for about the third or fourth time, when the product they put up ON THEIR OWN SITE to SHOW OFF the LAUNCH OF THEIR NEW FLAGSHIP SUPER PRODUCT LINE is full of BUBBLES AND OTHER MISCASTS, you have to wonder W(here)TF they got 97% excellent quality from.

keezus wrote:Well... herein lies the problem, as in my admittedly uneducated estimation - they've already axed too much muscle from their organization in their enthusiastic effort to show a profit.

I can't make any sort of statement on whether or not they've tipped below their critical mass from a personnel standpoint, but as an economist and thinking about price elasticity of demand and how the slope becomes increasingly steep as prices rise, the revenue outlook is not good if they are unable to cut costs further and must attempt to increase prices on incremental volume loss.

A purely theoretical model would suggest they've already passed the point where the incremental price increase results in sufficient volume loss that revenues suffer greater decline disproprotionate (in a bad way) to volume declines.

Trooper wrote:Finances aside don't the comments of the CEO boil your blood, I know that is how they like to word things and they wont say anything negative but its a group of well written lies.


"The scale of this task is not to be underestimated, as making finely detailed resin
miniatures in these sorts of quantities has never been attempted before. The initial production run
achieved a 97% quality level, far exceeding previous levels achieved in the development phase."

Its comments like this that is find insulting.

Well mite have sold us the development phase finecast for all that we know. And ya the s**t he said dose insult me and the others that would and could buy stock in GW.
But if you want to try to save the business buy stock they have votes on issues in trading and other stuff and *IF* we can enough votes we can save GW from what it has become.

I see that GW has heard what its customers want. Case in point look at the White Dwarf. They saw sales start to seriously tank. Their response, lets start to shift back from a catelog to actually putting something that veteran gamers want to see - rules etc. Its a start but the only way they see it is when it affects their bottom line.

boyd wrote:I see that GW has heard what its customers want. Case in point look at the White Dwarf. They saw sales start to seriously tank. Their response, lets start to shift back from a catelog to actually putting something that veteran gamers want to see - rules etc. Its a start but the only way they see it is when it affects their bottom line.

His this actually happened yet?

From what I have seen lately...no. It got slightly better a couple of months ago. And then Blood Angels hit, and down we went to new depths.

An interesting point, building on observations published by others in places like this;

The decision to offer a dividend, is it really in the best interest of the company when price rises and cost-cutting measures are being instituted? Consider that (according to this), Marks Wells (CEO) and Tom Kirby (Chairman) own...

Mark Wells: 125586 shares,

Tom Kirby: 1913009 shares.

According to the report, there was a dividend of 25 pence/share in October 2010, 20 pence/share in May 2011, and a further 18 pence/share is expected in October 2011. On just the paid dividends (45 p/s since Oct.2010), these two have received (the as yet proposed 18 p/s dividend is in parenthesis),

Mark Wells: 56,513 GBP (25,117 GBP),

Tom Kirby: 860,854 GBP (382,601 GBP).

Now, this is not to imply that the decision to offer a dividend is necessarily a sinister plot enacted by Kirby by fiat, but it is rather shocking to see the Chairman receiving almost double his (rather impressive at 462,000 GBP for 2011) salary in dividend payouts.

boyd wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:They are making a profit.
Why close 70% of Japanese shops after the business grew there?

Did any of their stores close based on the turbulence in the country? Did any of them flood or wash away? If so that could be one of the reasons why they closed the shops. We had that issue in Florida when we had 5 Hurricanes and 2 Tropical storms dump 4 feet of water over Central Florida in 2 months back in 2004. Many businesses took their insurance payout and never re-opened. That is an alternative rebuilding and reopening several months later. I can imagine that since there is a lot of upheavel in the country closing the shops in the short term and waiting for the country to stabilize would be beneficial.

All the shops closed in Japan were in the centre and south of the country, well away from the disaster area.

They closed three (?) shops in the greater Tokyo megalopolis area, containing 31 million people within one to two hour's train ride.

I could understand them closing shops if they've given up on Japan, but business was apparently growing.

@Boyd:

GW adding content back into White Dwarf is like trying to reattach an amputated foot when the leg it used to be attached to was also amputated at some time in the past. Suddenly adding content isn't going to magically restore the lost reader base, just like how attaching a foot to a legless patient won't enable the patient to walk again. In fact, I'd be surprised if this new "content rich" White Dwarf has more than a +10% sales number over the old WD as the overall GW Saddly, management will interpret the "reattaching" exercise to be a failure without looking at the root cause, discontinue the practice after a few months and won't try again for quite some time.

Meanwhile down at the speakeasy:

Sales are down! Profits are down! wadda we ganna doo buoss?

Simple yuzz great chump, what we always duzz.
Raise prices!

I godda hand it toosya buoss, yuh shore is a genius!

And thus the small leak in the hull of the great battleship 'Games Workshop' grows a little larger...

L. Wrex

agnosto wrote:You're right, it's like the PS3 and Xbox; both companies lose money on the core system so they can make it in other areas.

So you're suggesting that GW sells starter sets for like $4 USD? It really doesn't cost that much to make them and they have ridiculous profit margins on them. Not to mention all of the R&D costs get paid off rather quickly.

Now, I'm not an economist, so I want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly:

-Sales, in volume, are down across the board.

-Profits are down slightly, but not in proportion to the lost sales, no doubt due to royalties, price increases, and reducing the numbers of Hobby Centres and staff in remaining Hobby Centres.

-Wells makes some head-scratching statements, including saying that GW has the basis for growth and all they need to do is figure out how to spur it on, despite saying the exact same thing five years in a row.

-They paid out a dividend despite decreased income, rather than spending that money on figuring out how to foster growth.

-The reports have been similar for the past few years.


Like I said, not an economist or business man, but isn't this unsustainable? Their solution in the face of flagging sales seems to be "trim the fat and increase prices", but eventually there won't be any fat to trim and prices will have exceeded the threshold that people are willing to pay.

I'm not saying they're doomed since they theoretically could figure out what's going wrong and fix it, but if you look at the past few reports, is this not indicative of an (very, very slow) decline? And if the pattern continues for another five or ten years, they might go under?

They closed 5 of the 7 shops in Japan.

Only Nakano and Jimbocho remain. And Nakano is balls.

evilsponge wrote:I wish I could go to Kirby Kamp, so I can learn how to do what my managers manual tells me too

Good thing, they tell us, they are now perfect. Some people didn't know that
I would also like to go to a Kirby camp to learn, how you can have such a continuous decline in sales with such a good product range. Another manager with lesser skills than Kirby would have raised sales by 50% within 3 years.

AgeOfEgos wrote:This actually surprised me. I expected this report to be good--with Fantasy, the return of DE (and Grey Knights?)---plus the big year Black Library had.

That shows how good management and anti-marketing can compensate for a good product range. Just imagine the results, if there hasn't been a Dark Eldar and Warhammer release. And yes, next year's results will be really ugly, with even more pay raises for Kirby and Wells. Maybe Kirby doesn't want GW to survive him, a typical mindset in dictatorical regimes

Kilkrazy wrote:They are making a profit.
Why close 70% of Japanese shops after the business grew there?(...)
They closed three (?) shops in the greater Tokyo megalopolis area, containing 31 million people within one to two hour's train ride.
I could understand them closing shops if they've given up on Japan, but business was apparently growing.

They told us last year, how good sales were in Australia. Maybe they are just lying
May also have to do with the fact, that Scandinavia and Japan are now one regional group

BTW: Did I get it right that GW has 31.22m shares, paid 45p per share during the year and proposed another 18p per share? And that this results in paying £ 19.67m considering an operating profit of £ 15.3m , so draining the company of £ 4.37m? Milk the cow as long as it can live without food

RatBot wrote:Like I said, not an economist or business man, but isn't this unsustainable? Their solution in the face of flagging sales seems to be "trim the fat and increase prices", but eventually there won't be any fat to trim and prices will have exceeded the threshold that people are willing to pay.

You've pretty much nailed the theory.

AesSedai wrote:They closed 5 of the 7 shops in Japan.

Only Nakano and Jimbocho remain. And Nakano is balls.

And even if business does pick up for GW in Japan, won't it be difficult to find new retail space?

The good news here is that GW makes £15 million profit - nothing at all to be sniffed at, especially in the current economic climate.

The unsettling thing there is that out of a £123 million turnover, they only have a pre tax profit of £15 million. Coropration tax is 26% so you can knock a quarter off that £15 million and we only have £11 million left. And I don't know what other amounts have to come off that - pension contributions? National Insurance Contributions? etc etc.

Basically, it doesn't leave a whole lot left for re-investment back into the product, plus you can bet your bottom dollar that the share holders will take their cut regardless. All this means that to have enough to put back into the product they need to cut costs, which we are already seeing with stores closing, mainly on foreign shores - they're pulling in a battening down the hatches. Concentrating on what they know. Look at the expansion into the American market; it's a safer bet in terms of it's target market than somewhere like Japan, I would guess. It makes sense and, to be fair, it's good to see that they are planning ahead and keeping their eye on their (small and therefore at risk) profit margins. Hopefully it means that long term, they'll be more successful. It also means that short term many of us will be disappointed with the way they are operating.

sourclams wrote:

RatBot wrote:Like I said, not an economist or business man, but isn't this unsustainable? Their solution in the face of flagging sales seems to be "trim the fat and increase prices", but eventually there won't be any fat to trim and prices will have exceeded the threshold that people are willing to pay.

You've pretty much nailed the theory.

I remember someone on this board (Can't recall the user) stated that GW's ultimate market strategy was to eventually have one guy filling $500 space marine tactical squad box sets. Made me actually lol.