| theprof00 said:
An example of the first is the scrap steel industry of Japan. Japanese steel was buying American scraps. They developed these ovens that could refine the scrap really quickly, but it was scrap and shitty, but very very cheap and useful for small insignificant parts. American steel didn't have these furnaces and so let them take the market. However, the japanese furnaces were getting better and better and producing mroe and more and the quality getting better and better. And so every few years they were like, here's this new product that can replace american steel F, then, a new one to replace American steel E, and so on and so on until Japanese steel had cornered american steel. In that case, both were moving upstream.
Moving downstream would be a company who makes high margins making a shittier product with their own brand, but at a competitive price, resulting in lower margins. It would be like an aircraft carrier maker using it's secrets to make commercial kayaks. |
@both. You mean the steel grade and the furnace quality.
Examples of upstream (let's see if I get this): The 3DS. Starting from the DS line, a bas-de-gamme product of Nintendo's usual great quality, Nintendo ups to offer the 3DS, a more expensive and high-grade product with Nintendo's usual great quality. hmm.. confusing example.
Example of downstream :) Intel Celeron processor, under the Intel banner, offers the Celeron line of processors. Lower-grade, same name.
