Corporate America is full of companies that got fat and lazy, lost sight of their objectives, ignored their customers demands, and fed on their own image.
Their boardrooms bred their own leaders - myopic, pathetic, greed-driven operators, intent on rewarding executives and shareholders with staggering unjust rewards, while they treated their employees like the enemy.
They let sharemarket scammers and bankers and oil companies rule their decision-making. They talked loud and long about "corporate ethics" - but there are virtually none in the corporate world. It's purely a greed-driven, dollar-driven, "what's in it for me" mentality.
There's a large tome been written about the failure of International Harvester, one of the worlds biggest and most profitable manufacturers.
The book is called "IH - a Corporate Tragedy". It's a worthy read. There's another one been written about the GM corporate disaster, it's called "Overhaul" by Steven Rattner.
In both the cases of the IH and GM bankruptcies, the revelations in the books are stunning. CEO's and executives who had no handle on what the company was doing, or where it was going. Dysfunctional accounting systems. Bad product decisions (caused by out-of-touch company leadership). Poor labour relationships. Shockingly bad corporate investments. Poor employee controls, with executives playing extended golf sessions during downturns, instead of addressing the real problems.
Vans will never be the same because of the many poor decisions taken. The future of Vans is now in the hands of a ruthless bunch of lawyers, financiers and liquidators, who are all in for what they can scarf out for themselves.
They'll leave the picked-clean skeleton of the bullet riddled duck for the Vans aircraft owners to huddle over, because these people are the ravens of the corporate world.
Vans will never be the same company again - and even more so if outside bean-counters are installed in any new, revamped board. These people will target Vans aircraft owners as the new fat duck to be sucked dry.