Lean enterprises and the confrontation strategy

Executive Overview Competition is eternal. There is no such thing as winning. There is no end to the game. Even if you compete and win today, You must compete and win tomorrow. Kuniyasu Sakai, Chairman, Taiyo Kogyo Globalization, improvements in communications technology, improvements in infrastructure in third world countries, falling political barriers to trade and cooperation—all have combined to create a faster and, some say, more hostile world. Consider the example provided by Phil Knight of Nike and Paul Fireman of Reebok. Aggressive competitors, one says of the other: “At the end of a contest, I'd shake hands and walk away. I think he would throw a shovel of dirt on the grave.”1 While these two tigers are locked in what could be a Pyrrhic struggle. Puma enters the fray too, and beats each of them to market with a new product—one perhaps capable of obsoleting much of the technology that Nike and Reebok have spent years developing. Competing and winning today is no guarantee that a player can compete...