Wednesday, April 14, 2010

IMO, an excellent read - Shimano and Advocacy

Certainly worth a few moments of your time to read (or scan) through...

Shimano's Advocacy

Spoiler alert - here are some of my thoughts/impressions.


Shimano - a $2B company, with 80% of its revenue coming from cycling ($1.6B) and the remainder primarily from fishing equipment ($400M). Clearly the dominant player in both industries, probably moreso cycling... though I do not claim to have the grasp on the state of the fishing equipment industry that I do on cycling.

Cycling and fishing, politically speaking, are roughly at opposite ends of the spectrum... cycling is generally more leftward leaning (environmentally conscious, etc) and sport fishing (not industrial fishing - key distinction) is generally a bit more to the right (environmentally conscious for sure, yet more focused on freedom of access rights and opposed to catch restrictions).

As you'll note reviewing my previous blog entries, I'm not normally want to comment on affairs political in this space. However, this one for some reason is striking me as comment-worthy... why would a company take a strong political position that's primarily opposed to the general beliefs represented by 80% of its revenue (and by translation customers/constituents)? Curious to say the least. Additionally, if the statement that their market share within the fishing equipment space isnt as dominant as that within the cycling market, this strategic direction becomes even more puzzling.

Anyway, a worthy read for anyone with a particular bent towards environmental affairs or interest in Shimano as a corporate entity. I'm always interested to hear more about advocacy efforts undertaken by the companies that provide products I consume - there are always many options available to the consumer; Ideally, I desire that my dollars spent not only provide me with the goods/services I want, but also support the beliefs I espouse.

Hopefully you enjoy the article too!

1 comment:

plain-jane said...

Thanks for sharing - as a scuba diver, saving the fish/marine environment is really important to me. I guess I should get the SRAM crank instead of the Shimano one.

Those who want to 'See Tom Tri' :)