So the costs of doing that are going to be relatively fixed. There will not be any reduction in the number of these "schools" being held on the basis of location after the proposed dealerships have been closed.
One or two schools held in each state may run one or two less days because of these dealership reductions.
I doubt that these schools are even run or taught by Chrysler corporate employees. Probably a hired outside services company.
And like I said, the costs to develop / design the materials is high, and you're going to pay that cost regardless if you have 1 student or
1000 students. The cost to print (replicate) the materials is going to be very low.The cost to travel will be marginally reduced, if at all. Chrysler (or the company performing the actual "teaching") will still have to cover the same geographic area. They will most likely still hold these schools in the exact same venues, the same cities, etc. The difference will be that there *could* be a slight reduction in the duration of some of these schools at some of these locations.
And don't forget that if a dealership closes, and there is another nearby and it remains in operation, that it may hire some of the sales people that used to work at the now closed dealership, and if they do then those people will still be attending this school, so there will be no savings for Chrysler if that happens.
Very inefficient. The average conference room at your local Best Western or Holiday Inn should be able to accomodate 20, 30 people. If they can't organize those schools more efficiently to teach more sales reps at a single sitting, then they obviously aren't trying to optimize the costs of these schools to the extent that you feel these schools are a huge expense for Chrysler.
What - you mean there's only one class per day? No evening classes?
And you are reluctant to consider the basic fact that in this incredibly bad economy, that a dealership that can stay open, can operate in the black, and sell cars for GM and Chrysler, that forcing such a dealership to close is an incredibly stupid thing to do. There is no garantee that the Chrysler and GM cars being sold by those dealerships now would be sold by other GM and Chrysler dealerships in the future as opposed by a foreign dealership.
For example, if there is a rural Chrysler dealership that sells 2 cars per day, and it's forced to close, then it might very well be that the closest Chrysler dealership that is still open will see it's sales increase by only 1 car per day. The other car will be sold by a foreign dealership (Toyota, Honda, Kia, etc).
The only "basic" fact here is that if a dealer is still in business today, in this economy that is bordering on a depression, and if he's selling cars for you, then you're a stupid ass if you cancel that dealer's franchise agreement.