<h4>Chapter 5550 The Challenges of the First-ss Mech Market</h4>


    Master Aus Kreshnik made a lot of odd and risky choices when he took over Pritchard & Terse.


    Though thepany built up a modest presence in the Rubarthan mech market over the years, The Great Severing affected P&T much more than otherpanies!


    Due to thepany''s rtively light footprint in the Red Ocean, the branch headquarters found itself unable to bear the burden of updating its entire first-ss mech catalog.


    Thepetitive pressure was too high. Whereas other mechpanies transferred plenty of Master Mech Designers and a lot of other supporting infrastructure to the new frontier, P&T only had Master Kreshnik, a bunch of contributing mech designers and a lot of low-ranking mech designers not worth mentioning!


    This put P&T far behind its otherpetitors in the Rubarthan Pact!


    Since the start of the Hyper Generation, every existing client and customer mored for hyper mechs.


    The performance boost was too great. If mech designers and mechpanies did not update their existing mech lines soon, then they would inevitably get dumped by the vast majority of their customer base!


    This put Master Kreshnik in an awful position. As the most capable mech designer left in P&T''s branch headquarters, he was unable to update all of the existing product lines by himself.


    Everypetitive first-ss multipurpose mech design represented the culmination of the coborative efforts by 5 Master Mech Designers over months if not years of dedicated work.


    The difficulty becamepounded by the fact that Master Kreshnik did not lead any of the design projects that resulted in the creation of the old mainstays of P&T!


    Most of them had been birthed from the visions of the founders and lead designers of Pritchard & Terse thatfortably remained in their old haunts in the Milky Way!


    There was no way that Master Kreshnik could inherit these old mech designs and do them justice. He also did not have the prestige and connections to convince other Master Mech Designers to rece the design philosophies that allowed P&T''s products to carve out their own niches in the Rubarthan Mech Market.


    P&T was not the onlypany that suffered from this problem. Many other mechpanies found themselves incapable of supporting the bestsellers and mainstays that used to channel steady profits into their coffers in a bygone age.


    Most of thesepanies that had fallen into trouble chose to give up. They put up their brands, their fixed assets, their personnel, their intellectual property, their existing business contracts and sometimes even their high-level design talent up for auction!


    Arge round of consolidation ensued during the first year of the Age of Dawn asrge megacorporations eagerly snapped up a bunch of smallerpetitors. This enabled the big yers to quickly fill up their own gaps, putting them in a much better position to update their own outdated mech lines!


    It would have beenpletely normal for P&T to give up and allow itself to be absorbed by argerpany.


    Master Kreshnik was different, though. He went against the grain and argued hard that thepany still had a future as an independentpany in the Age of Dawn.


    "I spent weeks arguing with the remaining upper management of P&T." Master Kreshnik spoke to Ves as both of them waited for their respective mechs toplete their final inspections. "In my 200 years of life, I have worked for one organization after another. P&T is but thetest employer that has epted my services. I am tired of letting others dictate my work. Now that I have a chance to take over our former branch headquarters, I needed to take the plunge."


    "Bold choice." Ves responded. "Being in charge is always better in my book. I would have thought that Masters such as yourselves are more than capable of starting off on your own. Why did you not go independent sooner?"


    "It is not as easy as you may think, professor. The first-ss mech market is much more brutal than the other markets. No single Master can expect to do business by designing and publishing first-ss multipurpose mech designs by themselves. Every customer expects to obtain the best of what their budget can afford them, so it is essential for a team of five Masters as well as an entire supportwork of high-tech developmentpanies to unite all of their efforts to produce a single mech design that can possibly outperform the prevailingpetition and sell enough units to recoup the massive expenditures."


    Ves pressed his lips when he heard that. Master Kreshnik did not mince any words when he described the extreme difficulty of developing a profitable first-ss mech.


    While it was true that first-raters had so much money at their disposal, they were much more knowledgeable and discerning as well.


    Many first-ss organizations were already capable of raising their own in-house design teams.


    Mechpanies that catered to the open market had to exceed the standards of all of those in-house mech designers in order to sell their products, and that was not an easy task!


    "So you decided that P&T should give up on the first-ss mech market?"


    "It was not an easy decision to make." Master Kreshnik spoke with narrowed eyes. "Many executives in mypany have be attached to the status and prestige of working with an established brand in Rubarthan society. It is considered to be a great shame and a mark of failure for a first-ss mechpany to retreat from its native market and go ''down'' into the second-ss mech market."


    "Yet you managed to ram this decision through anyway."


    "The data supported my arguments. Our chances of developing even a single profitable first-ss hyper mech model were virtually zero. Since no one else has been able to offer any alternatives that could give us a viable pathway to remain in the first-ss mech market, we had to choose between two different options. We could either sell ourpany to arger conglomerate, or we could temporarily retreat to the second-ss mech market while steadily rebuilding our capital to return to our original market in the future."


    "If I was in the shoes of those executives, I think that transferring to a bigger, more prestigious and more secure mechpany sounds like a good deal."


    "That is true, but much of the value of a mechpany is concentrated in its high-level design talent. If I choose to depart from P&T, thepany bes an abandoned shell that is burdened down by outdated mech designs and other marginal assets. I have every justification to leave on the spot considering that a force majeure has urred that unreasonably damaged my own interests."


    "So you used the threat of your departure to browbeat the remaining executives into keeping P&T independent."


    "Correct. Once I found out that they are primarily driven by profit and status, it is not difficult to formte strategies that target their proclivities and vulnerabilities. I presented a workable business n that calls for building up a foundation in the second-ss mech market first. Once we have stabilized our new positions, we can gather the necessary capital and design talent to make a fresh start in the first-ss mech market. It does not matter if we abandon our old mech lines, as none of them are designed with hyper mechs in mind. Their individual brands also aren''t valuable enough to keep them alive. It is better if I design my own hyper mechs based on my own vision from the beginning."


    "You will be giving up the first mover advantage if you start outter."


    "That is a necessary sacrifice. If you want to survive in this business, then you need to possess an objective understanding of your own situation. I have made the decision that it is better to retreat and wait until our collective understanding of hyper technology has advanced much further before I design serious first-ss multipurpose mechs once again. There is so much we have to learn before we can properly utilize the properties of hyper materials."


    "I agree. It is not a bad idea to be a little more patient and try to find ways to differentiate yourself from thepetition."


    The two continued to chat as if they were friends and colleagues rather than bitter rivals.


    As much as Master Kreshnik issued a challenge to Ves, the two did not have a strong basis for conflict.


    The Fey Fianna and the Nelerat Mark I did notpete directly against each other. They upied their own corners of the second-ss mech market and addressed different needs.


    Ves and Master Kreshnik were alsopletely different from each other. They did notpete for the same opportunities, so why should they hold any personal animosity for each other?


    The onlyplication was that Ves suspected that the Smokestack Prince had induced Master Kreshnik to issue this challenge.


    No matter what, losing the challenge match definitely damaged Ves'' interests. This made it a lot more difficult for Ves to befriend the Rubarthan Master.


    That did not stop him from pumping Master Kreshnik of every scrap of information rted to the current situation of the first-ss mech market.


    Originally, Ves intended to put his products up for sale in this market as well.


    Yet the more he learned, the less he was willing to go through with this n.


    Considering how even a 200-year old Master Mech Designercked the confidence topete at this level, it appeared that it was way too premature for him to think about designingmercially viable first-ss mechs at this stage!


    "Compared to the Terran mech market, the Rubarthan mech market is not as difficult to enter as an independent." Master Kreshnik freely shared. "The former isrgely captured by old and established brands. Terran customers are much more ustomed to work with a selection of trusted mechpanies over the long term. There are Rubarthan customers that adopt the same approach, but since our mech market is more dynamic, there is much more eptance to purchasing standalone mechs to adapt to changing circumstances or address an immediate shoring. However, the level ofpetition in the market is so high that you need to be the best in your field to sell more than a handful of copies."


    If that was the case, then Ves could forget about selling any of his mechs onto the Rubarthan mech market in the next decade or two. He did not think he could meet all of the harsh requirements that would allow his first-ss mechs to reach the necessary level of performance, especially when he had to implement all kinds of powerful and extremely advanced high technologies.


    "What would you advise if I want to enter the Rubarthan mech market?" Ves asked. m studying hard to be a first-ss mech designer. What do you suggest I do once I have learned the necessary tech?"


    Master Kreshnik gave the younger man a pointed nce. "I suggest that you take a step back and coborate with more established Rubarthan mech designers. You already have a history of coborating with numerous other mech designers and mechpanies. You can use this existing model and apply it in other cases. It isn''t necessary for you to retain any ownership of the mech designs that you have contributed to. The lessons you learn and the experience you gain when working as a contractor are the greatest rewards that you can earn. When ites to designing first-ss mechs, it is vital for you to build up awork of high-level talent that you can rely upon for coborations and technical support."


    Ves nodded in understanding. He was incredibly deficient in this area. It couldn''t be helped since he was an outsider to the first-ss mech industry.


    "I guess this is why most second-ss mech designers hardly ever seed in entering the first-ss mech market. It isn''t enough to possess the requisite knowledge and skills. You also need to find a lot of willing partners to support your goals."