Michael went to the wet bar and poured a drink for himself. He sat down across from John on the other couch. Michael held up his glass. "Here's to our new found success, with much thanks to you."

John and Michael sat chatting about work for only a few minutes until Jennifer walked back into the room, this time not wearing her apron. "Okay, dinner is ready if you two are." They both got up and followed Jennifer into the dining room. The table had been set exquisitely. John was shown to his seat at the head of the table Michael sat to his right and Jennifer on his left.

After they had finished dessert Michael looked over to John. "Let's go into the study, there we can go over production plans. Jennifer entered the study, refilled both of their drinks again, and then left them to their talks. They sat in a couple of chairs off to one side of another large roaring fireplace. "John, besides bringing you over here to meet my charming fiancé and taste some of the finest home cooked food in the world, we need to talk about the production of our new product. I've read all of your notes regarding your suggestions and I love them. Having someone with your multitude of talent is fantastic in this organization. My own production department didn't see this as clearly and completely as you did."

"When I owned my own company, I was the production department along with a few other departments."

"That is quite obvious by your suggestions and the list of criteria you provided. After going over everything, I believe we want to have this produced by a company I know of in Italy."

"Italy, Michael? I haven't known many Silicon Valley companies that have done that. Is this wise, how are their quality standards not to mention Italy's economic woes right now?"

"Well John, we all know about the quality problems associated with Chinese production. They are capable of great things, but you can't get them to maintain a consistently high quality item. On the other hand, this company in Italy has been doing electronic assemblies for quite a few very large European companies with absolutely no variance in quality. The price is maybe a few points higher than the Chinese version, but when you factor in the cost of dealing with sub-grade articles and duds, they are very competitive monetarily with none of the headaches. They have been in business since the early sixties, so they are a seasoned company, not a startup with all the problems associated with that. Anyway, I am going over there to inspect their production facilities and meet with their business people to hammer out a contract deal. They are very interested in getting more U.S. business. They feel that if they can get us, we will be a foot in the door for more U.S. companies to follow suit. How's that sound?"




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