Cost-Cutting Brilliance?
You have likely heard the tale. Someone asks a matchbox company: “Want to save 50% on your striking strip costs?” Of course they do. “Only put the strip on one side of the box!“. A success. The suggestion is rewarded.
Legendary, but unsubstantiated.*
Crime-Cutting Reality
Police officers approach the government: “We can cut vehicle theft by 30%. No reward needed – just investigate each report.” A success; false allegations are filtered out, no-crimed.
The system? Scrapped.
Currently, professional car thieves operate with near impunity.
What is the real scale of the problem? Who is tracking it? Who is fighting it?
Ask questions, query explanations. Demand the acquisition and provision of accurate numbers, facts. Push for lasting action, not excuses and misdirection.
Not all doom and gloom.
On the bright side, it may be that law enforcement agencies simply have not had the opportunity to pause and reassess their processes. Now is an ideal moment to put long-promoted principles into action: partnership and collaboration.
Insurers and their representatives have long taken proactive steps. Why would the police attempt to duplicate activity or look to re-invent the wheel? Instead, efforts should be aligned for maximum impact.
It is time to revisit crime reporting methodologies. While some refinements may require initial investment, the long-term goal is clear: to better support frontline policing, enabling optimisation and freeing up of limited resources.
A submission has already been made to the National Vehicle Crime Reduction Partnership (NVCRP), addressing this and several related challenges. It marks the start of what could be a transformative shift.
With renewed cooperation and clear direction, the sector is well-positioned to drive meaningful change. Momentum is building – let us hope, this time, it is heading in the right direction.
*The story is a popular anecdote in business and innovation circles, often told as an example of lateral thinking or the power of simple ideas to yield significant savings. While it is a compelling tale, there is no verifiable primary source confirming it as a true historical event involving a specific match company.
The Story has circulated for decades, particularly in marketing, business management, and creative thinking literature. It often appears alongside other parables e.g., the ‘NASA space pen vs. Soviet pencil’ myth used to promote creative, cost-saving thinking.
The story has variations, sometimes involving engineers, sometimes inventors, and often left unattributed.
Despite its popularity, there is no named individual or documented case from a match company archive or patent history confirming this actually occurred.
The anecdote may have originated as a thought experiment or teaching example rather than an actual historical event. It is sometimes confused with or linked to similar corporate legends, such as the idea airlines saved money by removing olives from salads. Such tales often exaggerate or simplify real events for didactic or motivational effect.
Unlike the vehicle crime reduction scenario, there is no confirmed evidence that the “one-side striking strip” matchbox story actually happened as told. It appears to be apocryphal, a business myth or parable, that continues to be cited widely as an example of ingenuity in cost-cutting.
07/2025