The crises that the concern of Tomáš and later his brother Jan Antonín Bata had to go through during the First Republic were not different in their consequences from the crises we are struggling with today. A hint as to how the Bata family dealt with the crises can be inspiring for us. We can find it in the last January and first February 1938 editions of Peroutka's Presence (Bata's Struggles with Crises I, pp. 55-58) and Bata's Struggles with Crises II, pp. 71-74). Full article in Czech>
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A great, inspiring read - a few excerpts from the 1938 Presence (for the present) below. The article should be read by the Government of the Czech Republic, citizen-legislators, businessmen and all people who still manage to keep their sanity in today's deranged world.
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The genius of Thomas is, among other things, that he did not introduce the whole working system after some theoretical study, but according to daily experience.
There was a factory psychology in the Zlín enterprises.
The greatest boom of Bata's enterprises occurred in the critical years. In the modern economy, there are often situations that decide the future of a company in a matter of hours.
Although the Zlín concern works for mass consumption and exports are an essential component, the international crisis is actually to its detriment, as consumers are once again fleeing to cheaper goods. It is for such production that Zlín is prepared in all parts: by perfect technical equipment and organization of production, by the wage system and its position, by direct sales and calculation, by catering and housing, by education and propaganda.
Three things are in mind in Zlín in the calculation: money, time and speed. Money conquered, time mastered, and speed? The former US President Herbert Hoover wrote in his book "Losses in Industrial Production" that a pair of leather shoes can be made in an average of 7-14 days. Bata can deliver a finished shoe in 16 hours from the time a worker gets the first leather into the warehouse. As for the sale of the trunk, he assures that the goods can be turned over twelve times a year.
New buildings are going up on Zlín soil, and in one of them also sits the "Zlín Parliament", formed by Jan. This is the name given to the regular Saturday conferences, which are always held in the afternoon with the participation of about 50 Bata company managers. This "parliament" discusses not only the events, results and changes of one week in Zlín, but also deals with higher and more distant phenomena in the economic and political world. In practice, these fifty persons receive all possible information, whether it concerns the company directly or indirectly.
The International Labour Office pointed out as early as 1930 that only the personality of Tomas Bata and a sharp dissipine, achieved such a development of the enterprises.
Jan Šinágl, 29.7.2022
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