I'm often accused of bitterness when I write about the decline of Kinko's after Clayton, Dubilier and Rice displaced the founding partners, but I think incredulousness is closer to my true emotion. I'm a student of business, and I simply cannot believe how many mergers and acquisitions fail because the new owners do not bother to understand -or choose to ignore - the key success factors of acquired companies. Kinko's is the case study with which I am most familiar, so of course I refer to it often.

Here's one example. In the mid 1980s, Kinko's advertised that we offered copies, binding, and passport photos. And every ad promoted the fact that we were open early, open late, and open weekends. Our extended hours constituted a competitive advantage over the quick-print shops offering similar services.

Then, a handful of stores in Chicago got so busy that they asked some of their Key Operators (the most highly trained production experts, also known as Copy Jocks or Copy Gods) to work graveyard shifts to complete large orders. The Key Ops reported that people occasionally tapped on the windows to see if the store was open. We decided to show Key Ops how to use the cash register, and then we unlocked the doors.

This did not noticeably spike sales, but we heard from a convenience store owner that we would see an improvement in daytime sales if we stayed open at night. So my partners in Chicago advertised that the stores were open 24 hours. As the convenience store owner predicted, this did not spike graveyard shift sales, but the daytime business almost doubled. It didn't take long for most of my partners across the country to adopt this successful practice. Eventually all Kinko's stores were open 24 hours, and it was an essential element of our brand identity.

If you planned to go to Kinko's after work, delays at the office did not create additional stress for you, because you could go to any Kinko's any time. Likewise, you could pick up orders on the way to work. The power of Open 24 Hours was psychological - it positioned Kinko's as a reliable resource, and separated us clearly from other providers of business services.

But any measurebator with a calculator or spreadsheet could "prove" that being open around the clock was unprofitable. After all, we hardly rang up any sales between midnight and 7:00 AM.

Short-term thinkers only see what's in front of them; long-term thinkers need to imagine broader possibilities - they need to see what isn't there yet, and what is missing. The interim leaders at Kinko's did not see, or did not care about, the long-term value of Open 24 Hours to the brand. Perhaps they viewed it as "the next guy's problem."

Instead, they kept a few stores open around the clock and limited the rest to more traditional business hours. For customers, this replaced simplicity and reliability with complexity and uncertainty. The company achieved short-term cash savings - and improved short-term profitability - by reducing store hours, eliminating training programs, and slashing the advertising budget. But they crippled the brand.

I understand the "strip and flip" mentality. What I don't understand is how these "strip and flip" magicians keep finding buyers for their damaged goods. Anyone can see improvement on the P&L, but who is looking for what's missing?