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Nov. 29, 2013, 7:45 a.m.
12/2/2013
By Mike Garrison
LiveRC.com
The business world is much like an R/C car race. There are seemingly endless numbers of competition, and each one of them wants to win. In an R/C race each driver has his own style of driving and strategies to win the race. Some drivers hang back and look for a time to strike and jump to the front, others patiently work their way through the pack to reach the front, and others bash and brawl their way to the front in a hurry.
Too often in the business world we see companies "bashing and brawling" their way ahead of each other in anyway that they can, including legal action against one another. The R/C industry is small compared to other industries, and settling things in a courtroom for R/C companies often means the death of one or both parties involved.
Last week AKA Products announced a name change for their newest 1:10 scale offroad tires. The tires were originally named "Slingshot," not knowing that Pro-Line Racing (a competitor) has already claimed that name for an offroad tire. The issue could have been catastrophic as many companies would have battled and fought for the use of the "Slingshot" name in anyway that they could, ending up in a legal battle, and ultimately be decided by a courtroom judge.
AKA and Pro-Line Racing, however, did just the opposite. The two companies recognized the situation in a civilized way, and addressed it publicly with AKA saying, "As it turns out, we are much better at designing tires than we are at checking to see if names are already in use within our industry. For this reason we have decided to change the name of our Slingshot tires to Typo."
While still fierce competitors, the two companies worked together to solve the issue, and handled it in such a way that both companies actually GAINED respect, and did no real harm to each other or the industry.
With this being said, I would like to personally say that I have the utmost respect for these two companies, and how they handled this situation. I truly believe that if all business was handled in such a manner, there would be far more success than failure in and out of the R/C industry.
The only way for an industry such as ours to grow, is to work together while racing clean to the front of pack. Bashing and brawling may get you to the front of the pack in a hurry, but by the end of it, someone will return the favor and send you tumbling right back to where you started.
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