Subsidiary Suggestion - CEO Control

[Arcnor]

Should we be able to adjust the subsidiary's CEO focus to produce or sell specific product classes.

[David]

Please also suggest from the UI (user interface) design point of view about how you would like to see these new options implemented.

[David]

Re-posted the following from another thread:

One argument for not implementing this is that the CEO of a subsidiary should have the power to decide on the types of products that the company should produce, otherwise it will be too restrictive and it will affect the performance of the subsidiary company. For example, in the presence of of excellent business opportunities where the company can enter to reap great profits, because of this restriction, the CEO will not have the autonomy to do so, and thus end up delivering subpar performance, which is not what shareholders of the company would want to see.

Feel free to let us know about your opinions on this as well.

[Slimp]

In reality it is unthinkable for a subsidiary to start producing a new product without approvement of the parent company. Therefore, adding the option to restrict the area of activity for a subsidiary would make sense. In my opinion the best way to implement this feature would be in the "product section". There you would simply choose the subsidiary, consumer products / industrial products and "All" and then you could define the product classes by setting a hook / cross. Sadly I am not skilled enough to show my suggestion graphically.

Another possibility would be to allow the subsidiary to come up with suggestions of new products to produce. In this way you always have the option to approve or deny the suggestion.

Some other thing I noticed, when taking over the control of another company: The CEO does not get any salary, but if you want to appoint a new CEO, he demands substantial compensation.

Slimp

[ba127]

Agreed on this feature, it would be great to have implemented. What really interests me about the subsidiary DLC is being able to have focused companies under your control that can still be somewhat autonomous.

For example, my initial company runs a department store. I want to be able to buy a company or start a company to fill that specific need the parent organization has of supplying "leather goods" to the department store (for example). I don't want the subsidiary to get involved in other areas, like electronics, even if it's less overall profit - I probably am thinking of another subsidiary to fill that need (if I have the need at all).

In terms of real life applicability, this is basically giving a core competency of the subsidiary that the company should stick to. A bit of a silly example, but as a shareholder of Facebook I in no way want them to start a corn growing operation, even if it would be incredibly profitable. That's not the thing they know how to do well.

For a UI, just a simple checkbox button area or multi-select list of product classes would seem to work very well in the current subsidiary options screen.

[David]

This has been implemented in the latest version:
http://www.capitalismlab.com/subsidiary-control.html

In addition to the "Management Policies" page, you may select the "Scope of Production" page and set a list of product classes that you do not want your subsidiary company's CEO to produce.

You may do so when you do not want your subsidiary company to compete with you in the same product classes.

Please note that these policies will only keep your subsidiary company from starting production on the affected product classes. However, if your subsidiary company has already engaged in the production of those product classes, these policies will have no effects.

[ba127]

Thanks David. I must have missed that, thats exactly it.