Hard As A Rockefeller

1. PROPOSAL

Rockefeller was a very methodical man, patient and taciturn. However, above all he was a genius of management and organization. He started working as a teenager on his first formal job having the opportunity to develop his ability of trading. A gift he had been practicing since he was only seven years old. Working with accounts and negotiation was something that always fascinated him.

He was a very stubborn man. Faced many situations that would make others give up but he always remained focused on his mission and succeeded. Since the beginning he was trying to develop ways to make his activities more economical and efficient, always taking his responsibilities very seriously. At the age of nineteen he opened his own commission house with a partner, but it was him who actually ran the firm. Four years after opening his business, decided to invest in oil refining, which he had been watching and learning about for some time.

In 1870 Rockefeller established Standard Oil. His company and its subsidiaries were able to quickly consolidate the refining industry in the Cleveland area and soon they expanded their business to other regions.

Utilizing the practice of vertical integration, expanding its control over other businesses like pipelines, railroads and tank cars, his company was able to lower the prices to stave off competitors and increase market penetration.

However, his businesses practices were controversial. Some of their practices, often made in the dark, were: monopolization (in order to prohibit his competitors from getting their production to the market); rebates (by working with a large volume of business they were able to demand refund of public rates from the railways), rate wars (decreased the oil price so small that competitors could not stay in business), intimidation (competitors who were not overcome by other practices would have their operations broke up by thugs).

After ten years of operations, Ohio Supreme Court forced Standard Oil dissolution, resulting in the creation of twenty smaller businesses.

When the public opinion started to affect his business he reduced his workload with the oil industry to devote himself to philanthropy. It helped to calm down the population that by this time knew about their dubious practices. He was also an active participant in church for many years and generous financial supporter. He aimed at supporting various entities or even creating organizations in helping public health and education improvement.

Rockefeller came to rank as the most hated and reviled American businessman, in part because he was so ruthless and in part because he was so successful. But undoubtedly his role in the development of business and the oil industry were altered permanently by Rockefeller. The production and consumption of oil around the world would have been drastically different without his innovations for the industry.