In due course, the King’s envoys visited, and meetings were held in person and via the Skynet. The audits resulted in action plans that mysteriously excluded any commitment from the envoys to fulfil any obligations on the King’s behalf. Nevertheless, the negotiations over transferring stock, the new prices, and the monitoring of production against forecasts and orders progressed steadily over the next few weeks and a new contract with the brothers evolved.

The total number of products that the King required had reduced by a quarter, but the forecast sales value was much the same as before.

The brothers had felt concerned that the contract wording was going to trap them into unsustainable commitments and liabilities that would undermine its value to the business. They sent for advice from the Elfin princess on the far side of the island who had experience with these things. She suggested some alternative wording that made the envoys a bit irritable but the brothers a lot happier as the date of the changeover approached.

The brothers had a long list of matters to be addressed under the new regime. All of them needed to be communicated within the business and managed effectively according to an appropriate priority whilst delivering the same product and service that they had been doing for the last twenty years for what seemed to be no more money than they were paid before.

Whereas they once needed to talk to only two or three different people in the course of a month it seems that in future, they must talk to three or four people every week about production and another different person for every issue from label design to bottle testing, raw material specification and formulation.

“This is an investment in our future” the brothers said hopefully!

The first week of the new regime passed uneventfully as stock from the old regime was collected and the King’s representatives grappled with the need for over-labelling of cartons with the new address until new cartons and labels are approved and available.

The brothers began to settle to the new arrangements and hoped that their new contacts would learn quickly how to respond to sales by adjusting forecasts rather than asking for production in response to orders. Let us see how the first quarter goes they said!

394 words FR 46.1 FKG 13.2