MMC must have done something right during those times, otherwise they would not have survived.
Indeed they did, and the reason they have survived is precisely because they understand their changing customers and the changing market place into which they are selling their products.
When you boil it down, a company can only be one of three basic types. You can be commodity-led, where you sell on the basis of your product being cheaper than the competition. You can be product led, where people are prepared to pay a premium because your product is better than those of the competition, or you can be Image-led, where people are prepared to pay more because of the nature of the relationship between customer and provider.
Morgan will never be cheaper or better than competing alternatives, but they know very well indeed how to appeal to something much deeper in their customer's emotions. Their challenge is to keep their products with sufficient financial range to give people a reasonable chance of being able to turn their dreams into reality - hence the ongoing investment in technology to reduce production cost. Everything they are doing at the moment to my mind demonstrates that they have this very well under control.
