Two Lessons For Us All from Crumbled Crumbs Bake Shop

Two Lessons For Us All from Crumbled Crumbs Bake Shop

Crumbs Bake Shop – a small chain of cupcake shops, almost totally unknown outside of New York City and Washington, DC – announced it was going out of business today.  Normally, this would not be newsworthy.  Even though NASDAQ traded, Crumbs small revenues, losses and rapidly shrinking equity made it economically meaningless.  But, it is receiving a lot of attention because this minor event signals to many people the end of the “cupcake trend” which apparently was started by cable TV show “Sex and the City.”

However, there are actually 2 very important lessons all of us can learn from the rise, and fall, of Crumbs Bake Shop:

crumbs cupcake

1 – Don’t believe in the myth of passion when it comes to business

Many management gurus, and entrepreneurs, will tell you to go into business following something about which you are passionate.  The theory goes that if you have passion you will be very committed to success, and you will find your way to success with diligence, perseverance, hard work and insight driven by your passion.  Passion will lead to excellence, which will lead to success.

And this is hogwash.

Customers don’t care about your passion.  Customers care about their needs.  Rather than being a benefit, passion is a negative because it will cause you to over-invest in your passion.  You will “never say die” as you keep trying to make success out of an idea that has no chance.  Rather than investing your resources into something that fulfills people’s needs, you are likely to invest in your passion until you burn through all your resources.  Like Crumbs.

The founders of Crumbs had a passion for cupcakes.  But, they had no way to control an onslaught of competitors who could make different variations of the product.  All those competitors, whether isolated cupcake shops or cupcakes offered via kiosks or in other shops, meant Crumbs was in a very tough fight to maintain sales and make money.  It’s not you (and your passion) that controls your business destiny.  Nor is your customers.  Rather, it is your competition.

When there are lots of competitors, all capable of matching your product, and of offering countless variations of your product, then it is unlikely you can sustain revenues – or profits.  There are many industries where cutthroat competition means profits are fleeting, or downright elusive.  Airlines come to mind.  Magazines. And many retail segments.  It doesn’t matter how much passion you have, when there are too many competitors it’s a lousy business.

2 – Trends really do matter

Cupcakes were a hot product for a while.  And that’s great.  But it wasn’t hard to imagine that the trend would shift, and cupcakes would be displaced by something else.  Whatever profits you might have when you sit on a trend, those profits evaporate fast when the trend shifts and all competitors are fighting for sales in a declining market.

Remember Mrs. Field’s cookies?  In the 1980s an attractive cook and her investment banker husband built a business on soft, chewy, warm cookies sold in malls and retail streets across America.  It seemed nobody could get enough of those chocolate chip cookies.

But then, one day, we did.  We’d collectively had enough cookies, and we simply quit buying them.  Mrs. Fields (and other cookie brand) stores were rapidly replaced with pretzels and other foodstuffs.

Or look at Krispy Kreme donuts.  In the 1990s people went crazy for them, often lining up at stores waiting for the neon sign to come on saying “hot donuts”.  The company exploded into 400 stores as the stock flew like a kite.  But then, in a very short time, people had enough donuts.  There were a lot more donut shops than necessary, and Krispy Kreme went bankrupt.

So it wasn’t hard to predict that shifting food tastes would eventually put an end to cupcake sales growth.  Yet, Crumbs really didn’t prepare for trends to change.  Despite revenue and profit problems, the leadership did not admit that cupcake sales had peaked, the market was going to decline, competition would become even more intense and Crumbs would need to find another business if it was to survive.

Few trends move as fast as tastes in sweets.  But, trends do affect all businesses.  Once we bought cameras (and film,) but now we use phones – too bad for Kodak.  Once we used copiers, now we use email – too bad for Xerox.  Once we watched TV, now we download from Netflix or Amazon – too bad for NBC, ABC, CBS and Comcast. Once we went to stores, now we order on-line – too bad for Sears. Once we used PCs, now we use mobile devices – too bad for Microsoft.  These trends did not affect these companies as fast as shifting tastes affected Crumbs, but the importance of understanding trends and preparing for change is a constant part of leadership.

So Crumbs Bake Shop failure was one which could have been avoided.  Leadership needed to overcome its passion for cupcakes and taken a much larger look at customer needs to find alternative products.  It wasn’t hard to identify that some diversification was going to be necessary.  And that would have been much easier if they had put in place a system to track trends, observing (and admitting) that their “core” market was stalled and they needed to move into a new trend category.

Why Tesla Beats GM, Ford, Nissan

The last 12 months Tesla Motors stock has been on a tear.  From $25 it has more than quadrupled to over $100.  And most analysts still recommend owning the stock, even though the company has never made a net profit. 

There is no doubt that each of the major car companies has more money, engineers, other resources and industry experience than Tesla.  Yet, Tesla has been able to capture the attention of more buyers.  Through May of 2013 the Tesla Model S has outsold every other electric car – even though at $70,000 it is over twice the price of competitors! 

During the Bush administration the Department of Energy awarded loans via the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program to Ford ($5.9B), Nissan ($1.4B), Fiskar ($529M) and Tesla ($465M.)  And even though the most recent Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, called Tesla a "loser," it is the only auto company to have repaid its loan. And did so some 9 years early!  Even paying a $26M early payment penalty!

How could a start-up company do so well competing against companies with much greater resources?

Firstly, never underestimate the ability of a large, entrenched competitor to ignore a profitable new opportunity.  Especially when that opportunity is outside its "core." 

A year ago when auto companies were giving huge discounts to sell cars in a weak market I pointed out that Tesla had a significant backlog and was changing the industry.  Long-time, outspoken industry executive Bob Lutz – who personally shepharded the Chevy Volt electric into the market – was so incensed that he wrote his own blog saying that it was nonsense to consider Tesla an industry changer.  He predicted Tesla would make little difference, and eventually fail.

For the big car companies electric cars, at 32,700 units January thru May, represent less than 2% of the market.  To them these cars are simply not seen as important.  So what if the Tesla Model S (8.8k units) outsold the Nissan Leaf (7.6k units) and Chevy Volt (7.1k units)?  These bigger companies are focusing on their core petroleum powered car business.  Electric cars are an unimportant "niche" that doesn't even make any money for the leading company with cars that are very expensive!

This is the kind of thinking that drove Kodak.  Early digital cameras had lots of limitations.  They were expensive.  They didn't have the resolution of film.  Very few people wanted them.  And the early manufacturers didn't make any money.  For Kodak it was obvious that the company needed to remain focused on its core film and camera business, as digital cameras just weren't important. 

Of course we know how that story ended.  With Kodak filing bankruptcy in 2012.  Because what initially looked like a limited market, with problematic products, eventually shifted.  The products became better, and other technologies came along making digital cameras a better fit for user needs. 

Tesla, smartly, has not  tried to make a gasoline car into an electric car – like, say, the Ford Focus Electric.  Instead Tesla set out to make the best car possible.  And the company used electricity as the power source.  By starting early, and putting its resources into the best possible solution, in 2013 Consumer Reports gave the Model S 99 out of 100 points.  That made it not just the highest rated electric car, but the highest rated car EVER REVIEWED!

As the big car companies point out limits to electric vehicles, Tesla keeps making them better and addresses market limitations.  Worries about how far an owner can drive on a charge creates "range anxiety."  To cope with this Tesla not only works on battery technology, but has launched a program to build charging stations across the USA and Canada.  Initially focused on the Los-Angeles to San Franciso and Boston to Washington corridors, Tesla is opening supercharger stations so owners are never less than 200 miles from a 30 minute fast charge.  And for those who can't wait Tesla is creating a 90 second battery swap program to put drivers back on the road quickly.

This is how the classic "Innovator's Dilemma" develops.  The existing competitors focus on their core business, even though big sales produce ever declining profits.  An upstart takes on a small segment, which the big companies don't care about.  The big companies say the upstart products are pretty much irrelevant, and the sales are immaterial.  The big companies choose to keep focusing on defending and extending their "core" even as competition drives down results and customer satisfaction wanes.

Meanwhile, the upstart keeps plugging away at solving problems.  Each month, quarter and year the new entrant learns how to make its products better.  It learns from the initial customers – who were easy for big companies to deride as oddballs – and identifies early limits to market growth.  It then invests in product improvements, and market enhancements, which enlarge the market. 

Eventually these improvements lead to a market shift.  Customers move from one solution to the other.  Not gradually, but instead quite quickly.  In what's called a "punctuated equilibrium" demand for one solution tapers off quickly, killing many competitors, while the new market suppliers flourish.  The "old guard" companies are simply too late, lack product knowledge and market savvy, and cannot catch up.

  • The integrated steel companies were killed by upstart mini-mill manufacturers like Nucor Steel.  
  • Healthier snacks and baked goods killed the market for Hostess Twinkies and Wonder Bread. 
  • Minolta and Canon digital cameras destroyed sales of Kodak film – even though Kodak created the technology and licensed it to them. 
  • Cell phones are destroying demand for land line phones. 
  • Digital movie downloads from Netflix killed the DVD business and Blockbuster Video. 
  • CraigsList plus Google stole the ad revenue from newspapers and magazines.
  • Amazon killed bookstore profits, and Borders, and now has its sites set on WalMart. 
  • IBM mainframes and DEC mini-computers were made obsolete by PCs from companies like Dell. 
  • And now Android and iOS mobile devices are killing the market for PCs.

There is no doubt that GM, Ford, Nissan, et. al., with their vast resources and well educated leadership, could do what Tesla is doing.  Probably better.  All they need is to set up white space companies (like GM did once with Saturn to compete with small Japanese cars) that have resources and free reign to be disruptive and aggressively grow the emerging new marketplace.  But they won't, because they are busy focusing on their core business, trying to defend & extend it as long as possible.  Even though returns are highly problematic.

Tesla is a very, very good car. That's why it has a long backlog. And it is innovating the market for charging stations. Tesla leadership, with Elon Musk thought to be the next Steve Jobs by some, is demonstrating it can listen to customers and create solutions that meet their needs, wants and wishes.  By focusing on developing the new marketplace Tesla has taken the lead in the new marketplace.  And smart investors can see that long-term the odds are better to buy into the lead horse before the market shifts, rather than ride the old horse until it drops.

 

 

Why Yahoo Investors Should Worry about Marissa Mayer

Marissa Mayer created a firestorm this week by issuing an email requiring all employees who work from home to begin daily commuting to Yahoo offices.  Some folks are saying this is going to be a blow to long-term employees, hamper productivity and will harm the company. Others are saying this will improve communications and cooperation, thin out unproductive employees and help Yahoo.

While there are arguments to be made on both sides, the issue is far simpler than many people make it out to be – and the implications for shareholders are downright scary.

Yahoo has been a strugging company for several years.  And the reason has nothing to do with its work from home policy.  Yahoo has lacked an effective strategy for a decade – and changing its work from home policy does nothing to fix that problem.

In the late 1990s almost every computer browser had Yahoo as its home page.  But Yahoo long ago lost its leadership position in content aggregation, search and ad placement.    Now, Yahoo is irrelevant.  It has no technology advantage, no product advantage and no market advantage.  It is so weak in all markets that its only value has been as a second competitor that keeps the market leader from being attacked as a monopolist! 

A series of CEOs have been unable to develop a new strategy for Yahoo to make it more like Amazon or Apple and less like – well, Yahoo.  With much fanfare Ms. Mayer was brought into the flailing company from Google, which is a market leader, to turn around Yahoo.  Only she's been on the job 7 months, and there still is no apparent strategy to return Yahoo to greatness. 

Instead, Ms. Mayer has delivered to investors a series of tactical decisions, such as changing the home page layout and now the work from home policy.  If tactical decisions alone could fix Yahoo Carol Bartz would have been a hero – instead of being pushed out by the Board in disgrace. 

Many leading pundits are enthused with CEO Mayer's decision to force all employees into offices.  They are saying she is "making the tough decisions" to "cut the corporate cost structure" and "push people to be more productive." Underlying this lies thinking that the employees are lazy and to blame for Yahoo's failure. 

Balderdash.  It's not employees' fault Yahoo, and Ms. Mayer, lack an effective strategy to earn a high return on their efforts. 

It isn't hard for a new CEO to change policies that make it harder for people to do their jobs – by cutting hours out of their day via commuting.  Or lowering productivity as they are forced into endless meetings that "enhance communication and cooperation." Or forcing them out of the company entirely with arcane work rules in a misguided effort to lower operating costs or overhead.  Any strategy-free CEO can do those sorts of things. 

Just look at how effective this approach was for

  • "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap at Scott Paper
  • "Fast Eddie" Lampert at Sears
  • Carol Bartz at Yahoo
  • Meg Whitman at HP
  • Brian Dunn at Best Buy
  • Gregory Rayburn at Hostess
  • Antonio Perez at Kodak

The the fact that some Yahoo employees work from home has nothing to do with the lack of strategy, innovation and growth at Yahoo.  That failure is due to leadership.  Bringing these employees into offices will only hurt morale, increase real estate costs and push out several valuable workers who have been diligently keeping afloat a severely damaged Yahoo ship. These employees, whether in an office or working at home, will not create a new strategy for Yahoo.  And bringing them into offices will not improve the strategy development or innovation processes. 

Regardless of anyone's personal opinions about working from home, it has been the trend for over a decade.  Work has changed dramatically the last 30 years, and increasingly productivity relies on having time, alone, to think and produce charts, graphs, documents, lines of code, letters, etc.  Technologies, from PCs to mobile devices and the software used on them (including communications applications like WebEx, Skype and other conferencing tools) make it possible for people to be as productive remotely as in person. Usually more productive removed from interruptions.

Taking advantage of this trend helps any company to hire better, and be more productive.  Going against this trend is simply foolish – regardless the intellectual arguments made to support such a decision. Apple fought the trend to PCs and almost failed.  When it wholesale adopted the trend to mobile, seriously reducing its commitment to PC markets, Apple flourished.  It is ALWAYS easier to succeed when you work with, and augment trends.  Fighting trends ALWAYS fails.

Yahoo investors have plenty to be worried about.  Yahoo doesn't need a "tough" CEO.  Yahoo needs a CEO with the insight to create, and implement, a new strategy.  And a series of tactical actions do not sum to a new strategy.  As importantly, the new strategy – and its implementation – needs to augment trends.  Not go against trends while demonstrating the clout of a new CEO. 

If you've been waiting to figure out if Ms. Mayer is the CEO that can make Yahoo a great company again, the answer is becoming clear.  She increasingly appears very unlikely to have what it takes.

Who Wants a Big Mac for Christmas? Bah! Humbug! McDonald’s Scrooge!

How would you recognize signs of a troubled business?  Often the key indicator is when leadership clearly takes "more of the same" to excess.

This week McDonald's leadership began encouraging franchisees to open on Christmas Day.  Their primary objective, clearly stated, was to produce more revenue and hopefully show a strong December. 

I nominate McDonald's for the 2012 Dickens' Award as the most Scrooge-est business behavior this season. 

"Christmas is but an excuse for workers to pick their employer's pockets every 25th December" is I believe how Charles Dickens put it in "A Christmas Carol."  Poor Bob Cratchet couldn't even have 1 day off per year.  And in McDonald's case the company founder actually made it corporate policy to never be open on Thanksgiving or Christmas days so employees could be with family. 

Bah! Humbug!

Now, there are a lot of trends McDonald's could legitimately cite when making a case for being open on Christmas – a case that could actually shed a positive light on the company:

  • The number of single people has risen over the last decade.  This trend means that many more people now have a need for at least one meal not in a family setting on 25 December.
  • America has a large and storied Jewish community for whom 25 December does not have a special religious meaning.  For these people enjoying their habitual norms such as eating at McDonald's would indicate an open-minded company supports all faiths.
  • America is a nation of immigrants.  While the founders were European Christians, today America has a very diverse group of immigrants, especially from Asia and the Indian sub-continent, who follow Islam and other faiths for which 25 December has, again, no particular meaning.  Offering them a place to eat on their day off could show a connection with their growing importance to America's future.  An act of understanding to their impact on the country.

These are just 3, and there are likely more and better ones (please offer your thoughts in the comments section.)  But truthfully, this is not why McDonald's is urging franchisees to toil on this national holiday.  Instead, it is just to make a buck. 

But then again, what trend has McDonald's successfully leveraged in the last… let's say 2 decades?  Despite the rapid growth of high end coffee, the "McCafe" concept was a decade late, and so missed the mark that it has made no impact when competing against Caribou Coffee, Peet's or Starbucks.  And it has had minimal benefit for McDonald's. 

To understand the dearth of new products just go to McDonald's web site where you'll see an animated ad for the "101 reasons to eat a McRib" – that mystery meat product which is at least 30 years old and rotated on and off the menu in the guise of "something new."

McDonald's had a very rough last quarter.  It's sales per store declined versus a year ago.  The number of stores has stagnated, sales are stagnant, new products are non-existent.  Even Ronald McDonald has aged, and apparently moved on to the nursing home.  What can you think about that is exciting about McDonald's?

Desperate to do something, McDonald's fired the head of North America.  But that doesn't fix the growth problem at McDonald's, it just demonstrates the company is internally fixated on blame rather understanding external market shifts and taking action.  McDonald's keeps doing more of the same, year after year; such as opening more stores in emerging markets, staying open longer hours at existing locations and even opening on Thanksgiving and Christmas in the U.S. 

McDonald's Ghost of Christmas past was its great strength, from its origin, of consistency.  In the 1960s when people traveled away from home they could never be quite sure what a restaurant offered.  McDonald's offered a consistent product, that people liked, at a consistent (and affordable) price.  This success formula launched tremendous growth, and a revolution in America's restaurant industry, creating a great string of joyous past Christmases. 

But the Ghost of Christmas present is far more bleak.  50 years have passed, and now people have a lot more options – and much higher expectations – regarding dining.  But McDonald's really has failed to adapt.  So now it is struggling to grow, struggling to meet goals, struggling to be a kind and gentle employer.  Now asking its employees to work on Christmas – and ostensibly eat Big Macs.

What is the Ghost of Christmas Future for McDonald's?  Not surprisingly, if it cannot adapt to changing markets things are likely to worsen.  No company can hope to succeed by simply doing more of the same forever.  Constantly focusing on efficiency, and beating on franchisees and employees to stay open longer, is a downward spiral.  Eventually every business HAS to innovate;  adapt to changing market conditions, or it will die.  Just look at the tombstones – Kodak, Hostess, Circuit City, Bennigan's ….

Take time between now and 2013 to ask yourself, what is your Ghost of Christmas past upon which your business was built?  How does that compare to the Ghost of Christmas present?  If there's a negative gap, what should you expect your Ghost of Christmas Future to look like?  Are you adapting to changing markets, or just hoping things will improve while you resist putting enough coal on the fire to keep everyone warm?

 

Irrelevancy leads to failure – Worry for Yahoo, Microsoft, HP, Sears, etc.

The web lit up yesterday when people started sharing a Fortune quote from Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, "We are literally moving the company from BlackBerrys to smartphones."  Why was this a big deal?  Because, in just a few words, Ms. Mayer pointed out that Research In Motion is no longer relevant.  The company may have created the smartphone market, but now its products are so irrelevant that it isn't even considered a market participant.

Ouch.  But, more importantly, this drove home that no matter how good RIM thinks Blackberry 10 may be, nobody cares.  And when nobody cares, nobody buys.  And if you weren't convinced RIM was headed for lousy returns and bankruptcy before, you certainly should be now.

But wait, this is certainly a good bit of the pot being derogatory toward the kettle.  Because, other than the highly personalized news about Yahoo's new CEO, very few people care about Yahoo these days as well.  After being thoroughly trounced in ad placement and search by Google, it is wholly unclear how Yahoo will create its own relevancy.  It may likely be soon when a major advertiser says "When placing our major internet ad program we are focused on the split between Google and Facebook," demonstrating that nobody really cares about Yahoo anymore, either. 

And how long will Yahoo survive?

The slip into irrelevancy is the inflection point into failure.  Very few companies ever return.  Once you are no longer relevant, customer quickly stop paying attention to practically anything you do.  Even if you were once great, it doesn't take long before the slide into no-growth, cost cutting and lousy financial performance happens. 

Consider:

  • Garmin once led the market for navigation devices.  Now practically everyone uses their mobile phone for navigation. The big story is Apple's blunder with maps, while Google dominates the marketplace.  You probably even forgot Garmin exists.
  • Radio Shack once was a consumer electronics powerhouse.  They ran superbowl ads, and had major actresses parlaying with professional sports celebrities in major network ads.  When was the last time you even thought about Radio Shack, much less visited a store?
  • Sears was once America's premier, #1 retailer.  The place where everyone shopped for brands like Craftsman, DieHard and Kenmore.  But when did you last go into a Sears?  Or even consider going into one?  Do you even know where one is located?
  • Kodak invented amateur photography.  But when that market went digital nobody cared about film any more.  Now Kodak is in bankruptcy.  Do you care?
  • Motorola Razr phones dominated the last wave of traditional cell phones.  As sales plummeted they flirted with bankruptcy, until Motorola split into 2 pieces and the money losing phone business became Google – and nobody even noticed.
  • When was the last time you thought about "building your body 12 ways" with Wonder bread?  Right.  Nobody else did either.  Now Hostess is liquidating.

Being relevant is incredibly important, because markets shift quickly today. As they shift, either you are part of the trend going forward – or you are part of the "who cares" past.  If you are the former, you are focused on new products that customers want to evaluate. If you are the latter, you can disappear a whole lot faster than anyone expected as customers simply ignore you.

So now take a look at a few other easy-to-spot companies losing relevancy:

  • HP headlines are dominated by write offs of its investments in services and software, causing people to doubt the viability of its CEO, Meg Whitman.  Who wants to buy products from a company that would spend billions on Palm, business services and Autonomy ERP software only to decide they overspent and can never make any money on those investments?  Once a great market leader, HP is rapidly becoming a company nobody cares about; except for what appears to be a bloody train wreck in the making.  In tech – lose customesr and you have a short half-life.
  • Similarly Dell.  A leader in supply chain management, what Dell product now excites you?  As you think about the money you will spend this holiday, or in 2013, on tech products you're thinking about mobile devices — and where is Dell?
  • Best Buy was the big winner when Circuit City went bankrupt.  But Best Guy didn't change, and now margins have cratered as people showroom Amazon while in their store to negotiate prices.  How long can Best Buy survive when all TVs are the same, and price is all that matters?  And you download all your music and movies?
  • Wal-Mart has built a huge on-line business.  Did you know that?  Do you care?  Regardless of Wal-mart's on-line efforts, the company is known for cheap looking stores with cheap merchandise and customers that can't maintain credit cards.  When you look at trends in retailing, is Wal-Mart ever the leader – in anything – anymore?  If not, Wal-mart becomes a "default" store location when all you care about is price, and you can't wait for an on-line delivery.  Unless you decide to go to the even cheaper Dollar General or Aldi.

And, the best for last, is Microsoft.  Steve Ballmer announced that Microsoft phone sales quadrupled!  Only, at 4 million units last quarter that is about 10% of Apple or Android.  Truth is, despite 3 years of development, a huge amount of pre-release PR and ad spending, nobody much cares about Win8, Surface or new Microsoft-based mobile phones.  People want an iPhone or Samsung product. 

After its "lost decade" when Microsoft simply missed every major technology shift, people now don't really care about Microsoft.  Yes, it has a few stores – but they dwarfed in number and customers by the Apple stores.  Yes, the shifting tiles and touch screen PCs are new – but nobody real talks about them; other than to say they take a lot of new training.  When it comes to "game changers" that are pushing trends, nobody is putting Microsoft in that category.

So the bad news about a  $6 billion write-down of aQuantive adds to the sense of "the gang that can't shoot straight" after the string of failures like Zune, Vista and early Microsoft phones and tablets.  Not to mention the lack of interest in Skype, while Internet Explorer falls to #2 in browser market share behind Chrome. 

Browser share IE Chrome 5-2012Chart Courtesy Jay Yarrow, BusinessInsider.com 5-21-12

When a company is seen as never able to take the lead amidst changing
trends, investors see accquisitions like $1.2B for Yammer as a likely future write down.  Customers lose interest and simply spend money elsewhere.

As investors we often hear about companies that were once great brands, but selling at low multiples, and therefore "value plays."  But the truth is these are death traps that wipe out returns.  Why?  These companies have lost relevancy, and that puts them one short step from failure. 

As company managers, where are you investing?  Are you struggling to be relevant as other competitors – maybe "fringe" companies that use "voodoo solutions" you don't consider "enterprise ready" or understand – are obtaining a lot more interest and media excitment?  You can work all you want to defend & extend your past glory, but as markets shift it is amazingly easy to lose relevancy.  And it's a very, very tough job to play catch- up. 

Just look at the money being spent trying at RIM, Microsoft, HP, Dell, Yahoo…………