I’d say they do a good job of acquiring and learning and teaching. When they take on a brand they don’t subsume them but let them be fairly autonomous, but take on certain commoditized aspects such as supply chain, distribution, and marketing placement. The core of the brand stays independent and some of the learning of that brand comes back into the core company. They also are very self critical and internally striving. But, yes, they could certainly be better and healthy competition would help.
Would it be unreasonable to say a lot of potential excellence isn't actualized because:
>Whenever a new upstart brand came along they simply acquired them.
and they don't ever actually compete with a near peer?