For example, if you are entering computing industry, its a big old chain of products from steel, silica and plastic, to electronic components and cpu to the end product.
Normally I set up a full production chain with internal sale, and only sell the end product (PC, notebook, Palm etc).
But this means any competitor sets up their own chain, and often ends up with better raw material production than I do.
1) Is it better to sell your interim products in the meantime, to remove the incentive for competitors to RnD steel, plastic etc?
2) If i change a product to disallow external sales, how long before this takes effect? It doesn't seem to cut off the supply to my competitors immediately (admittedly its a bit mean to suddenly starve them of raw materials when they don't have an alternative, but its Capitalism after all
3) Finally, if you open up a restricted raw material and start selling it to competitors, how do you normally decide what price to sell it for? I tend to bump up the price, and then find that my retail products are actually costing more than the sale price (even though Its still profitable because they are all being bought from my corporation)
