Just saw the documentary on the rise and fall of Tower Records. In 1999 they had sales over $1Billion. In five years they were bankrupt.
Their industry was caught in a sea change from physical music delivery to digital music delivery. The toy industry has been going through something similar with electronic gaming, but to a much lesser extent than what happened in music. Still, it has been significant.
As things started to go south for Tower, the bean counters were brought in to run things. Things went from bad to worse. I'll quote Ross Solomon, the visionary who built that company from nothing:
"They don't understand the product. They don't understand the people that work for the company. They don't understand the systems. They don't understand anything. The seeds of failure are built into it, and it can't last."
Sound familiar?
When his hands were tied by the bean counters he asked them who was going to be the visionary. The reply: "We don't need a visionary."
Once more, sound familiar?
The bean counters started cutting heads, getting rid of the people who grew the company and knew the business, and a lot of the artistic people who did the things that drew young customers into the stores. They crushed all of the creativity out of the business, for the sake of cost cutting.
A final time, sound familiar?