Shattered Crystal, Broken Dreams

How sad is the ongoing Waterford Crystal debacle?

Mind you Waterford were never easy to deal with. It is no secret that they treated shops and outlets who sold their brands in Ireland and in the US, with complete disdain most of the time. Those same shops were selling container-loads of glass annually, one stem at a time, to ordinary moms and pops across America. It is disgraceful really how the shops were treated, but they put up with it because it was 'Waterford' and they were 'privileged' to be allowed to represent it.

World recession aside, how Waterford came to be in such dire finances is beyond me. Anyone there ever heard of dropping prices to compete and trade their way out of trouble? Or would that have undermined such a top-shelf international brand? We will never know now, will we? The boffins in Wall, NJ and the number crunchers in Waterford have co-incided tragically, blinkers on and choked the goose that laid the crystal egg.

I believe the demand for their traditional crystal brands is still there. Lismore is still the market leader. Waterford could have easily appealed to the customer goodwill out there, especially in the US if they had used their heads and their contacts, and maybe admitted that yes, the Irish and the Irish-American public loved them, and made them the success they were.

But no, Waterford had their head in the sand, pun intended, pretending that their success had nothing at all to do with the traditional Irish lace-curtain values, pride in heritage and patriotism. Those same Waterford collectors could yet save them if approached sympathetically.

Pity about this is that the brand is so iconic and so potentially viable in the long term, now to be just a memory, or a trophy traded by Clarion Capital, or some other such opportunistic trader. They got Wedgewood and Royal Doulton as a package with Waterford. thats like getting a latter day Louis Vuioton for a cent on the dollar. Fair play to them I suppose, for siezing the opportunity, but all those skilled folks out of a job, their pensions up in smoke and the shares, worthless. For Shame.

the Irish Government perhaps rightfully refused to be drawn in and offer a rescue package for the factory in Waterford. They saw the O'Reilly consortium plough millions in without arresting the decline...of the group. Waterford Crystal on its own is a different prospect. The skillsets that were built up over generations have now been dumped. yes the apprentice system and the mastercutter class cost a lot of money, but it worked and the product was just fine. Now within a ten-year, we will be bereft of these skills, left without any trace it had ever happened and no control over our patriotic brands, Lismore, Powerscourt, Kenmare, Kilbarry and Hibernia.

Sir Tony O'Reilly may indeed have been at the helm when Waterford's ship struck the reef and he has to regret that role and share the blame, but I would include management (unimpressive and unresponsive) and the unions (irresponsible) equally in the blame-game, for letting things get so out of hand. Pride comes before the fall they say. The Waterford Crystal Ball has well and truly fallen in Times Square, perhaps for the last time.