Killing for Market Share: The Competitive Ethic in America
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I. The Forms of Competition
A. Business as Competition
1. Competition
JIT is a whole-company philosophy for long-run growth, survival and excellence in the face of worldwide competition. (Heard, 1987, 50.)
What is GE Capital’s edge? … Most important is a culture that successfully blends an entrepreneurial spirit with the hard-driving and intensely competitive focus of its parent. (Tim Smart, “G.E.’s Money Machine,” Business Week, March 8, 1993, 63.)
The U.S. has scored a victory in its battle to become more competitive in the global economy. (Farrell, Christoper, “The U.S. Has a New Weapon: Low-Cost Capital,” Business Week, July 29, 1991, 72.)
Japan emerged as the world’s most feared global competitor in the 1980s. (Farrell, 1991, 72.)
2. Game
Would-be-masters of the universe luxuriated for a time on their slice of an estimated $60 billion in fees for dealmakers, lawyers, and commercial banks. (Faltermayer, 1991, 58.)
Anon. 1991. “Like Everyone Else, Cable is Just Playing to Win,” Business Week, Sept. 2, 7.
Japan is an enemy that is not playing the game … there is an absolute desire to conquer the world. (Buchanan and Macli, 1991, 83.)
The 1990s may just turn out to be the decade when the rest of the world begins to worry about America’s new economic muscle. (Farrell, 1991, 73.)
3. Race
The players are choosing sides for the multimedia race.
U.S. markets shine as Japan loses its lead. (Neff, 1991, 52.)
As U.S. industries, one after another, fall behind in the global economic race, pundits say America must be losing its edge in science and technology. (Naomi Freundlich, “U.S. Research Looks Strong — Except Where It Counts,” Business Week, July 15, 1991, 131.)
4. Baseball
Gould … revived its stagnating sales with hardball tactics. (Zinn, 1991A, 38.)
5. Boxing
Europe gets pummeled. (Neff, 1991, 52.)
Hewlett-Packard [is] packing a powerful punch. (Eva Pomice and Warren Cohen, “The Toughest Companies in America,” U.S. News & World Report, October 28, 1991, 66.)
The auto slowdown … clobbered Italy’s Fiat. (Neff, 1991, 53.)”Competition is tough.” (Mandel, 1991, 38.)
“Free-for-all: Japan, the U.S., and the EC are duking it out to determine who will dominate the New Europe — and the New Century.” (Business Week leader, June 3, 1991, 2.)
“Food Lion stores and a union square off over scheduling policies.” (Konrad, 1991, 40.)
By 1989, more than 60 Far eastern clones were closing in on HP’s market. In a lightning fast response, the Silicon Valley company struck back with cheap and technologically advanced machines. ‘We hit them with a left, then a right hook,’ says Richard Watts, Hewlett’Packard’s director of worldwide sales and distribution for computer products. … That fancy glovework ultimately landed pugnacious HP in the winner’s corner. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 73.)
Many argue that a leaner, meaner Europe Inc. is just what’s needed to fend off such heavyweights as Japan’s Nissan and Toyota in a single market. ‘We’ll need a big increase in volume before we add workers,’ says Yves Blanc, director of finance at France’s Valeo. For labor that’s bad news. (Reimer, 1991, 45.)
Intelsat is already under pressure to lower rates to compete with the fiber-optic cable networks that cross the oceans. And it’s showing bruises as a result. (Vogel, 1991, 103.)
Intelsat won’t give up its monopoly without a fight. (Vogel, 1991, 104.)
[HP’s] profit margins have been chopped down to size by low-priced Asian imports. But the company is slugging back with proprietary products like …. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 73.)
Like so many other vendors, Straus Computer Inc. has moved to Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC)-based technology which it hopes will help it go toe-to-toe with Tandem for its share of the worldwide fault-tolerant market. (Fuochi, 1991, 9.)
6. Gathering
“In the age of information, survival still depends on hunters and gatherers,” ad in Business Week for Dow Jones Information Services, Sept. 23, 1991, 33.)
Damon Corp. was ripe for the picking. (Amy Barrett, “A Wake-Up Call for the M&A Crowd,” Business Week, July 26, 1993, 26.)
7. Hunting (Blood Sport)
The U.S. company [HP] has snagged deals with … (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 73.)
Pfizer [has] a killer instinct for competition. (Eva Pomice and Warren Cohen, “The Toughest Companies in America,” U.S. News & World Report, October 28, 1991, 66.)
[Samuel J. Heyman, dealmaker] never bagged his prey, but he pulled down about $500 million in profits from his investments. (Hager, 1991, 110.)
Normally conservative Corning Inc., which had been eyeing Damon for years, jumped in with a decisive strike — a $401 million cash offer of its own. Done deal. Only with a monumental leap of imagination could this miniwar be likened to the bid-’em’up days of the 1980s. (Amy Barrett, “A Wake-Up Call for the M&A Crowd,” Business Week, July 26, 1993, 26.)
Mutual funds hungry for high yields are snatching up junk bonds as quickly as they hit the market. (Amy Barrett, “A Wake-Up Call for the M&A Crowd,” Business Week, July 26, 1993, 26.)
GE Capital is using this environment to gobble up assets from weakened rivals and expand its reach. (Tim Smart, “G.E.’s Money Machine,” Business Week, March 8, 1993, 63.)
GE Capital is always prowling for new businesses to expand into. (Tim Smart, “G.E.’s Money Machine,” Business Week, March 8, 1993, 63.)
Already, super-regionals such as Banc One and First Union have been running up huge market share gains by sticking to the business basics while gobbling up competitors. (Hawkins, 1991, 117. [On McColl of C&S/Sovran])
“We’d all kill for that kind of savings,” says Robert Benedict, head of applied mathematics in Goodyear’s process research laboratory. (Art Zimmerman, “These Materials are Downright Precocious,” Business Week, Sept. 16, 1991, 112J.)
The Japanese have 14 very competitive companies slashing one another’s throats for market share. Each has to be excellent or perish in the cutthroat competition of the free market. (Jonah McLeod, “‘You Don’t Need Mass Resources to Win” [Interview with T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor], Electronics, August 1990, 85.)
“The people who can pounce first are going to make money.” [Equities-technology manager Hadar Pedhazur of UBS Securities Inc., in Gary Weiss, “In the Trading Wars, This Swiss Bank is Anything but Neutral,” Business Week, June 10, 1991, 84.)
B. Business as War
1. War
Corporations … are running scared. The reason: They fear an onslaught of competition, especially from the Japanese, as the single market of 1992 nears. Says Bill Brodrick, a union official of the Transport & General Workers at Ford’s plant in Halewood, England: ‘Everyone realizes only the fittest will survive.’ (Reimer, 1991, 44.)
Trade Warriors. (Canadian Business, June 1993, 22.)
The battle’s on for global market share, and Canadians are winning some decisive skirmishes. Now the whole country is getting into fighting trim to help our exports flatten the competition. (“Trade Warriors,” Canadian Business, June 1993, 22.)
Every day around the world, corporations do battle. (Bruce Nussbaum, “Winners. The Best Product Designs of the Year,” Business Week, June 17, 1991, 62.)
Japan is the force to beat. The country is slated for another double-digit increase in capital spending, following a 17 percent jump in the fiscal year ended last March. (Monroe W. Karmin, “Lean times loom on the factory floor,” U.S. News & World Report, Nov. 20, 1989, 72.)
The U.S. electronics industry is pinned down in the trenches of an economic battle, according to our troops in the R&D labs and engineering workplaces of America. And right now, the battle is going nowhere. (“Turning it Around,” Electronic Engineering Times, October 14, 1991, S75.)
The view from the trenches may be murky at the moment, but battlefronts are a mix of forward thrusts and strategic retreats. “Nervous and Insecure. With More and More Companies Downsizing, EEs are worried about Their Jobs,” Electronic Engineering Times, October 14, 1991, S45.)
Compaq has already seized opportunities in the features wars. (Catherine Arnst, “PC Land’s Little Guys Get Slaughtered,” Business Week, Feb. 15, 1993, 105.)
We won the intellectual battleground on how you think about trade. (Protectionist Paul R. Klugman of MIT in Christopher Farrell, “The Choice Isn’t Free Trade or Protectionism,” Business Week, May 6, 1991, 34.)
The 1990s will be the first decade of true global competition and global economic warfare, with three major players: the U.S., Japan, and Germany. Tremendous change – hyperchange – is the only certainty. (Rock, 1990, 71.)
Does your writer forget how the U.S. semiconductor industry was driven to its knees by Japanese targeting of the industry? (Rep. Ralph Regula, “Wake Up! U.S. Industry is Under Attack,” Business Week, July 29, 1991, 8.)
Listen up! U.S. industries are being targeted, and the practice continues unabated! Alarmingly, technologies critical to America’s defense are being lost. Nearly 50% of the high-tech weaponry used in Iraq was based on U.S. technology developed in the 1970s, the production of which was lost to foreign production in the trade wars of the 1980s. (Rep. Ralph Regula, “Wake Up! U.S. Industry is Under Attack,” Business Week, July 29, 1991, 8.)
We don’t meet, we have battles. (McColl of C&S/Sovran in Hawkins, 1991, 117.)
Gary Weiss,”In Trading Wars, This Swiss Bank is Anything but Neutral” Business Week, June 10, 1991, 84.
Personal income will take another hit in July. (Cooper and Madigan, 1991C, 22.)
A price war among dealers has put the emphasis on keeping manufacturing costs down. (Eng, 1991, 78D.)
Hewlett-Packard is clearly in no mood to relinquish any segment of the global computer business without a fight. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 73.)
Users are seeing the emergence of a [multimedia] standards war. (Van Brussel, 1991, 6.)
SMB: The discussion of business as war reminds one of comic books or Wolrd War II propaganda movies for the war effort. The sides in the make-believe conflict are highly stylized — white hats and black hats, with no in-betweens.
The cola wars. (Visa ad in Business Week, October 27, 1986, 82.)
Collingwood, Harris. 1991. “Two Casualties of the Computer Wars,” Business Week, May 27, 47.
Olivetti … makes AT&T’s entry in the IBM-compatible personal computer wars. (“AT&T Plugs In,” 1986, 44.)
CEOs … were in the trenches themselves during the takeover wars. (Teitelbaum, 1991, 73.)
The go-go 1980s. (Neff, 1991, 52.)
Back in 1989, … most U.S. semiconductor makers were unconditionally surrendering the memory-chip market to the Japanese. (Magnusson, 1991, 34.)
Software makers [are] in a do-or-die marketing battle to win over increasingly sophisticated and demanding custiomers. (Michael Crawford, “No Nerds Need Apply,” Canadian Business, January 1993, 46.)
Perhaps as important is the new world of global capital markets. … Interest rate markets around the world are increasingly integrated. Investors, armed with round-the-clock computerized trading systems, can shift billions from one country to another, eliminating any persistent real interest-rate disparities. (Farrell, 1991, 73.)
On one multimedia team, Bajarin sees Microsoft, Tandy and possibly Nintendo lining up to take on Kaleida, with Apple, IBM and possible Sony.
[Pfizer’s sponsored scientific studies] slammed rival remedies. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 66.)
‘We’re seeing the industry move in such a way that these two big forces are going to be really fighting it out.’ …
The battle will take place on the fronts of ‘audio, video, voice CD-ROM, stereo, mass storage’, [etc.] (Tim Bajarin, Executive VP of Creative Strategies Research Internation Inc. of Santa Clara, CA in Casselman, 1991, 18.)
2. Air War
The Battle of Britain is over, and Pfizer blitzed the competition. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 66.)
The target of this aggressive campaign — Bayer AG, a $28 billion German goliath with a sizeable chunk of the cardiovascular drug market in Britain — is about to have palpitations. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 66.)
This fall [Corel CEO Michael Cowpland] blindsided US competitors by launching a new version of CorelDRAW thatb does in one package for $695 what others sell separately for a total of $1,500 to $2,000. (Michael Crawford, “No Nerds Need Apply,” Canadian Business, January 1993, 48.)
At last month’s Semiconductor Outlook Forum, a semiconductor industry analyst at a New York investment company made the following prediction: “We are going to experience a shakeout in the desktop PC business over the next 12 months of unprecedented proportions.” Not exactly news to our guys in the trenches at IBM, Digital Equipment and Wang. The bombs have already started dropping in those places.
Next in line: engineers on the semiconductor front. A retreat by the computer sector will leave them on the firing line. …
No wonder the GIs in the trenches are nervous. “Nervous and Insecure. With More and More Companies Downsizing, EEs are Worried about Their Jobs,” Electronic Engineering Times, October 14, 1991, S45.)
3. Guerrilla War
It’s a marketplace out there. In order to survive, let alone thrive and prosper, you’ve got to be a guerilla. (Levinson, 1989, 2.)
If you’ve got the personality of a successful guerilla marketer, you’re already champing at the bit to unleash some of your newfound attack power. (Levinson, 1989, 16.)
The guerilla marketing attack is a sustained attack. Once started, you never stop attacking. You may vary your weapons, adding some, subtracting others, polishing others. (Levinson, 1989, 38.)
The green berets of the surgical selling world. (Pomice Cohen, 1991, 73.)
4. Gang War
Gould is known as a street fighter. (Zinn, 1991A, 38.)
[PC] manufacturers have started a new brawl. The latest battleground is features. No, the price wars haven’t halted. But PC makers, rather than just slashing prices as they did last year, are throwing in new goodies. (Catherine Arnst, “PC Land’s Little Guys Get Slaughtered,” Business Week, Feb. 15, 1993, 105.)
The features game favors the industry giants that have the technical and financial wherewithal to add new touches without raising prices. The upshot: The top brands will continue to grab market share. (Catherine Arnst, “PC Land’s Little Guys Get Slaughtered,” Business Week, Feb. 15, 1993, 105.)
Software has become a cutthroat marketplace. (Michael Crawford, “No Nerds Need Apply,” Canadian Business, January 1993, 46.)
For much of the last decade, U.S. companies have been maligned as wimps that lacked the grit and gumption to stand up to Japanese and European rivals. As they cowered in th big shadows thrown off by the Siemenses and Matsuhitas of the world, American firms caved in to quarterly earnings pressures and skimperd on long-term technology investments, But lately, the derisive criticism has begun to ring hollow. Domestic corporations, perceived by many as the world’s weaklings, have put on new muscle and become industrial warriors capable of blowing away even the most intimidating global competitors. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 65.)
Multinational software giants push their futuristic products with a 19th-century brand of killer capitalism. (Michael Crawford, “No Nerds Need Apply,” Canadian Business, January 1993, 47.)
America’s toughest companies … display tenacity and innovation in beating up global foes. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 66.)
Pall, an industrial filter maker, has trounced Japanese competition. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 66.)
Thermo Electron aced out a European firm in paper recycling. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 66.)
The specter of an ever-expanding Thermo has Europe’s industrial giants quaking. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 74.)
Pfizer is muscling a German drug giant. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 66.)
Hewlett Packard has routed Japanese rivals in laser printers. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 66.)
The moral of these stories is simple: Getting tough is the only way to thrive in today’s global market. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 66.)
“Will Boeing Build a Behemoth to Defend Its Turf?” (Yang, 1991, 28.)
At first glance, it would appear to be sweet revenge on the Japanese corporate titans that have been beating up on their North American and European counterparts. … More Japanese companies fell off the (Business Week Global 1000) list than those of any other country. (Neff, 1991, 52.)
The five [companies] profiled below … display tenacity and innovation in beating up global foes. (Eva Pomice and Warren Cohen, “The Toughest Companies in America,” U.S. News & World Report, October 28, 1991, 66.)
Pall, an industrial filter maker, has trounced Japanese competition. Thermo Electron aced out a European firm in paper recycling. Pfizer is muscling a German drug giant. U.S. Surgical has stunned vaunted German medical instrument makers. And Hewlett-Packard has routed Japanese rivals in laser printers. The moral of these stories is simple: Getting tough is the only way to thrive in today’s cutthroat global market. (Eva Pomice and Warren Cohen, “The Toughest Companies in America,” U.S. News & World Report, October 28, 1991, 66.)
5. Civil War
The financial civil war that swept across America in the past decade was a ripsnorting string of shoot-’em-ups like nothing ever seen on Wall Street or Main Street. Withering volleys of money shot back and forth as insurgents stormed one entrenched corporate position after another. Counting friendly and hostile deals, more than a third of the companies in the Fortune 500 industrials were swallowed up by other concerns or went private. … Buyers shelled out an astounding $1.5 trillion, plus billions more in defensive maneuvers. … Did they create new wealth for the whole economy…? … No. (Faltermayer, 1991, 58.)
[Pfizer] muscled Istin into distribution by doubling its UK sales force to about 120 people. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 66.)
6. Gladiatorial Combat
At the Vick School of Applied Merchandising: It was a gladiators’ school we were in. Selling may be no less competitive now, but in the Vick program, strife was honored far more openly than today’s climate would permit. Combat was the ideal – combat with the dealer, combat with the ‘chiseling competitors,’ and combat with each other. There was some talk about the ‘team,’ but it was highly abstract. Our success depended entirely on beating our fellow students, and while we got along when we met for occasional sales meetings the camaraderie was quite extracurricular.
Slowly, as our sales-to-calls ratios crept up, we gained in rapacity. Somewhere along the line, by accident or skill, each of us finally manipulated a person into doing what we wanted him to do. Innocence was lost…. (Whyte, ?, 47.)
“Global Gladiators. Battling Japan and Germany,” ( U.S. News & World Report, October 28, 1991, 74.)
7. Holy War
The disagreements between the people who promote MRP II (Material Resource Planning) and the people who promote JIT (Just-in-Time) has almost become a holy war. The proponents of each side of the MRP-JIT war are declaring the other to be a loss to the true faith. However, when the smoke clears and the over used buzz words are quited there is one common goal that both have, and that is improving the operations of their company. (Wells, 1988, 39.)
II. Modus Operandi
A. The Goal of Competition
1. The Aim of Competition is Victory
To all … the many unnamed heroes and heroines of marketing wars…, I … urge you onward to victory. (Levinson, 1989, viii.)
Pfizer’s marketplace victories…. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 68.)
Get the jump on the competition. (Foster, 1986, 37.)
[Knock] the socks off the competition. (Peters and Waterman, 1982, 31.)
Many Europeans look to the Japanese conquest of industrial America as a cautionary tale. (Powell, 1991, 33.)
SMB: Soldiers use a business metaphor to characterize their actions and purposes. War for them is “a grim business” or “just a job.” They speak of the “business of war” and say they are “just doing their job.” Football players and boxers speak of “meaning business” when they’re intent of winning. A poster for the BC Lions says: “We mean business.”
SMB: We’re watching a phase of war being described: the encircled-wagons phase, Fort Apache beseiged, the London blitz, Hong Kong during WWII, a ship sinking in the South Pacific. We’re listening to the distress signals, the cries for help. At similar times in their history, North Americans have responded by calling up fictional superheroes like Flash Gordon, Superman, and Sgt. Rock. But no superhero can pull us out of economic decline.
Moreover, what is happening to us today is what we saw happen to other Eastern cultures: they fell into the hands of superior cultures, from whom we rescued them. Now we too are bowing to another culture and becoming a client-state, at least in our own eyes. The arsenal of democracy and the true north strong and free are becoming subservient.
The broader American Dream is rooted in materialism, greed, and war
2. The Prize is Profit
You are surrounded. All around you are enemies vying for the same bounty [i.e., zero sum]. They’re out to get your customers and your prospects, the good and honest people who ought to be buying what you’re selling. These enemies are disguised as owners of small and medium-sized businesses.
These enemies thrive on competition. They’re out to get you and get you good. … Your enemies mean business, your business, your profits. (Levinson, Jay Conrad. Guerilla Marketing Attack. Strategies, Tactics, and Weapons for Winning Big Profits for your Small Business. 1989, 1.)
‘Money is power.’ (Jerry Rubin in Thomas, 1986, 28.)
Money is the absolute standard. Freedom, and the dignity and well-being of one’s fellow creatures, simply don’t figure in the basic formula. (Ventura, 1991, 78.)
One reason [for high enrollments in law schools] is obvious: moolah. (Galen, 1991, 31.)
3. There are Allies and Enemies, Winners and Losers
Cost accounting is enemy number 1 of production. (Eliyahu M. Goldratt in Tatikonda, 1988, 1.)
The gold fields of B.C. made poor men rich and rich men enemies. (cover of Report on Business Magazine for Nov. 1991.)
If there’s more than one company in your business, somebody is winning and somebody is losing, just like in the NBA. Somebody’s got a bigger share of the market, somebody is making more money, somebody is beating someone else. Auerbach, 1991, 30.)
This is the heart of our fundamental problem. … Our political and economic structure simply isn’t able to cope with an economy that has a substantial zero-sum element. A zero-sum game is any game where the losses exactly equal the winnings. All sporting events are zero-sum games. For every winner there is a loser, and winners can only exist if losers exist. What the winning gambler wins, the losing gambler must lose. (Thurow, 1981, 11.)
4. Business is a struggle for survival
The Fight for Survival September to June of the First Year (Cohen, 1973, 11.)
Social Darwinism is respectable again. (Olive, 1991, 15.)
5. Survivors Have a Winning Attitude
A winning attitude. (Auerbach, 1991, 38.)
The Psychology of Winning. (Auerbach, 1991, 47.)
Dr. Robert Haas. Eat to Win. The Sports Nutrition Bible.
A player – or employee – who gives his or her all, who is willing to pay whatever price it takes to succeed, is a winner regardless of who wins the game or what the standings are at the end of the year, or whether a particular project succeeds or not.
It’s a lot more fun when you’re winning. The feelings are all positive – excitement, stimulation, challenge, reward, delight. motivation, and anticipation. The feelings can be negative when you’re losing – stress, anger, procrastination, rejection, and resentment. I say ‘can’ because they don’t have to be. You can learn a lot from losing. (Auerbach, 1991, 47.)
The guerilla marketing attack is not just an exercise. It’s a real battle, and there are winners and losers. Now you know the personality of the winners. (Levinson, 1989, 38?)
6. Only the fittest firms survive
Says [Borg-Warner’s] CEO James Bere…: ‘There’s nothing like the survival mode to get humans moving.’ (Faltermayer, 1991, 61.)
In that modern-day tribe called a corporation, it’s still the survival of the fittest. And in the treacherous nineties, the fittest will certainly be the best informed. (Dow Jones ad in Business Week, Sept. 23, 1991, 33.)
[Harley-Davidson Chairman Vaughn] Beals foresees a major shakeup in America coming soon — one in which only the strongest, best prepared companies will survive. (Willis, 1986, 22.)
It’s evolution. Successful firms will grow big, and smaller ones will shrivel and die. (About firms of upwards of 800 lawyers, Management specialist David Maister in Glaberson, 1986, 104.)
Moody’s expects Wall Street in the 1990s to be marked by ‘rapacious competition’ that will lead to greater consolidation of the industry.
As a result, … a number of firms that are not prepared for the global competition of the next decade are likely to be driven into mergers, undergo big realignments or fail.
The changes will bring with them a good deal of pain, the report said. (Eichenwald, 1990, C8.)
7. Defeat is being put out of business
[JIT] is the strategy our competitors have used successfully and will continue to use to put us out of business unless we adopt it also. (Myers, 1987, 30.)
B. Theatre of Conflict
1. Today’s firms compete for survival in a global theatre
If management really wants to be around in the nineties, something has to be done. We no longer are just competing with the company down the street. Today, the name of the game is global competition. Survival is what many businesses are facing. MRPII and JIT techniques are tools which can greatly enhance our chance to be around in 1990. (Proud, 1987, 81.)
Today’s manufacturing market is a truly world-wide market where only the world class manufacturers will survive. … To achieve the dramatic results needed for world class competition, dramatic changes are needed in manufacturing philosophies and techniques. (Costanza, 1988, 38.)
2. Corporations do battle with each other
General Electric came under attack by the Japanese in the 70’s on a broad front — from steam turbines to TV’s. Unlike many of its American competitors, GE responded early to the Pacific Basin manufacturing invasion. (Andrew, 1987, 3.)
The cost of doing battle with Airbus may be as stunning as the size of the superjumbo itself. (Yang, 1991, 29.)
3. Whole industries may battle each other
Why is the American electronics industry bogged down on the economic front? (Bellinger, 1991, S75.)
Industry after U.S. industry, from autos to semiconductors, is being beaten in world markets. (Carey, 1991, 128.)
4. Countries do battle with each other
Clearly, then, there is enormous potential for spectacular industry-wide improvement through the quality movement. But it would be a mistake to conclude that the battle is won, the wildly destructive export tide turned. U.S. firms, it should be noted, are still for the most part playing catch-up. The Japanese, relentless competitors, are not sitting still as U.S. industry accomplishes long-overdue reforms. (Alster, 1987, 64.)
The rise to power and dominance of world markets by Pacific Basin firms in industry after industry has been both swift and relentless. In particular, the prominence of Japanese manufacturing productivity has been nothing less than awesome. But many major Western world manufacturing companies are not backing away from this competition. In point of fact, several major multi-nationals, some U.S. based, others European, have successfully stepped up their efforts for profitable survival in the productivity battle. (Andrew, 1987, 50.)
5. Even whole continents may be under seige
“The Battle for Europe,” Business Week, June 3, 1991, cover.
With Europe 1992 drawing near, lines are forming for an all-out assault on the world’s richest market. From Manchester to Milan, the Japanese are busy establishing strong footholds in industries from computers to autos. The battle is just being joined, but already it seems that U.S. and European giants are losing ground to Japan Inc. (Business Week, June 3, 1991, 2.)
“Fortress Europe.” (Smith, 1989, 44.)
Europe’s fearsome fortress is beginning to look like Swiss cheese. (Toy and Levine, 1991, 44.)
Unless the U.S. acts quickly, [the Eastern European] market will be taken by Germany and Japan. (Rock, 1990, 71.)
6. Whole industries, markets, continents can be lost
The consumer industry … we lost a long time ago. … There are a number of people predicting that sometime in the 1991-92 time frame, our leadership position will shift to the Japanese specifically in computers; they will have a larger share of the world market than the U.S. Now that really bothers me. I think that this area is so critical to our effectiveness as a developed country, so critical to the health of our entire industrial base. (Charles E. Spock, president and CEO of National Semiconductors in Weber, 1990B, 56.)
7. A country may go into decline
Unless Uncle Sam invests more in the technologies of the future, [lawmakers, technopundits, and high-tech chief executives] warn, America’s decline is as inevitable as the sunset. ‘While the White House is debating ideology, other countries are eating our lunch,’ fumes Senator Jeff Bingham (D-N.M.). (Carey, 1991, 128.)
Now, according to the industry-funded Council on Competitiveness, among others, there’s sobering evidence of a decline in U.S. living standards. Even the Bush Administration admits to worry over the future. ‘By the best measure of competitiveness — income per capita — the U.S. is still on top,’ says John B. Taylor, a member of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. ‘But we may not be growing fast enough to provide for our children.’ (Carey, 1991, 128.)
8. The Business Battlefields
The marketing battlefield. (Levinson, 1989, viii.)
9. Battles are always taking place
Every day around the world, corporations do battle. (Nussbaum, 1991, 62.)
Other marketplace battles [are] shaping up. (Foster, ?, 39.)
10. Our troops in the trenches fight the battles
Our ‘trenches’ are the labs, fabs and other engineering departments in which our readers … work. If chief executive officers are generals, engineers are the equivalent of, well, military engineers. They devise the weapons, lay down the bridges and participate in strategies to bypass — or march through — the front line of the opposition. Like troops in the field, engineers in the trenches know their territory and have definite opinions about the larger theatre of operations — their industry. (Bellinger, 1991, S4.)
The U.S. electronics industry is pinned down in the trenches of an economic battle, according to our troops in the R&D labs and engineering workplaces of America. And right now, the battle is going nowhere. (Bellinger, 1991, S75.)
The view from the trenches may be murky at the moment, but battlefronts are a mix of forward thrusts and strategic retreats. In the end the fallbacks may be an opportunity to regroup. (Bellinger, 1991, S45.)
11. Our leaders themselves may fight in the trenches
CEOs … were in the trenches themselves during the takeover wars. (Teitelbaum, 1991, 73.)
C. The Institutional Supports of Competition
1. Government has/has no role to play in the competitive war
[What] produces a healthy industry … is unrestricted competition. (T.J. Rodgers, president of Cypress Semiconductors in McLeod, 1990B, 84.)
The government should get out of the electronics industry. Charles Darwin and Adam Smith are what’s required to make winners and losers. It is not raw materials, human beings, education, or government support that produces a healthy industry. It is unrestricted competition. (T.J. Rodgers, president of Cypress Semiconductors in McLeod, 1990B, 84.)
Two hundred years after Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton helped set America on its path to greatness, the nation is still embroiled in a battle over the government’s proper role in nurturing the country’s industrial might. (Carey, 1991, 128.)
2. Business schools teach rules of war
World War III is going to be fought on the shelves of your neighbourhood shopping center, and the Harvard Business School is a sneak preview of it. How its generals are prepared. The weapons and tactics they learn to use. How, fighting against each other, against humiliation and delusions of grandeur, they run each other down, yet somehow, desperately at times, seek to maintain at least the appearance of friendship. (Cohen, 1973, 8.)
This is an account of [the] education [of a class of 94 MBA students] to become lords over a new kind of army in a new kind of warfare, ready to take over from the military who have perfected their technology to the point where its use is guaranteed to leave nothing worth using it for. But since men will continue to be ambitious; since they will still want to be, they don’t know what, except different, they will go on fighting for those things of which there aren’t enough to go around — money, love, land, praise, power and perquisites. (Cohen, 1973, 8.)
D. Strategic aim of competition
1. Business strategies help competitors survive
JIT offers the last chance for many organizations to survive and compete in the world market. (Myers, 1987, 38.)
JIT is our key to economic survival. (Myers, 1987, 30.)
Companies have used these insights either implicitly or explicitly to get the jump on the competition. (Foster, 1986, 37.)
Though our automative, appliance, electronics and other businesses have been sandbagged by JIT users, we are pulling away from the brink and beginning to regain lost ground through our own JIT strategies. (Myers, 1987, 30.)
2. Overall strategic aim: Dominate the market
“Free-for-all: Japan, the U.S., and the EC are duking it out to determine who will dominate the New Europe — and the New Century.” (Business Week leader, June 3, 1991, 2.)
[Bausch & Lomb] revamped its R&D operation, pushed into the extended-wear market, and managed to capture a dominant share. (“Bausch & Lomb is Correcting its Vision of Research,” 1987, 91.)
Merely being competitive is not enough in today’s global markets. Rather, [a firm’s] long-term success will depend upon [its] domination of markets.
The term competitive means a condition of parity or equality. … In business as in sports, dominance increases the predictability of winning, whereas parity only increases competition. (Boznak, n.d., 207.)
3. Strategies
a. Get and hold a competitive edge
The competitive edge is a state of mind where you’re always trying to outsmart the other guy. (Auerbach, 1991, 34.)
[Seek] a sustained competitive advantage. (Gellman, 1989, 93.)
I don’t care if you’re selling baseball tickets or shoes, a competitive edge is the name of the game today. (Auerbach, 1991, 29.)
Comparative trade advantage increasingly means doing things smarter and using sophisticated technology. This is not a secure advantage. Expertise and technology cannot be contained within national boundaries and they rapidly evolve to render yesterday’s advantages obsolete. (Canadian Manufacturers’ Association in Saint-Pierre, 1983, 31.)
To keep a step ahead of their competitors, industrialists must pay continuous attention to improving their technology management. For companies where managers understand this, technology will provide the key to an effective competitive advantage. (Canadian Manufacturers’ Association in Saint-Pierre, 1983, 31.)
b. Match the competition
Match the competition. (Charles E. Spock, Pres. and CEO of National Semiconductors in Weber, 1990B, 56.)
Keep up with … foreign competition. (Corrigan, 1990, 70.)
Get the jump on the competition. (Foster, 1986, 37.)
The people who can pounce first are going to make money. (Weiss, 1991, 84.)
c. Advance! Gain new ground!
The latest Council on Competitiveness report [is called] Gaining New Ground. (Carey, 1991, 129.)
‘American companies must quickly address the perception of their product quality in Eastern Europe or risk losing ground to European or Japanese competitors.’ (? in Bachmann, 1990, 310.)
The world’s largest market is up for grabs. While the Europeans and Americans are losing ground, the Japanese are coming on strong. (“The Battle for Europe,” Business Week, June 3, 1991, cover.)
d. Globalize! Surround them! Cut them off!
A global firm which can shift cash flows from several countries to competitive activities in a given country may be able to underprice a multidomestic competitor, gain market share thereby, and, possibly, even drive a well-established but single-country oriented firm out of its market niche altogether. How does a multidomestic or multinational firm anticipate such competitive pressures and make appropriate responses before its cash and investment potentials are eroded? The answer often is, the firm must itself ‘globalize’ to survive. This is a key reason why firms desire to expand their strategic perceptions and to become ‘more global.’ (Spivey and Thomas, 1990, 88-9.)
e. Attack! Meet the competition head on!
Bennett A. Brown … the chairman of Citizens & Southern Corp. rejected a hostile takeover bid from NCNB Corp…. Even though [NCNB chairman Hugh L.] McColl [Jr.] told Brown that he had “launched his missiles,” the brash, acquisitive McColl backed off with uncharacteristic meekness. (Hawkins, 1991, 116.)
‘Pfizer always meets the competition head on,’ says Marc Mayer, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. (Pomice and Cohen, 1991, 68.)
While internecine strife hogged attention at home, the U.S. retreated in the far more important war of global competition. Biggest winner: Japan, where companies stay in fighting trim without having to listen for predator’s footsteps. (Faltermayer, 1991, 59.)
f. Be aggressive! Scare off the competition!
Getting tough with Japan. (Buchanan and Macli, 1991, 80.)
Aggressive expansion drive. (Schroeder, 1991, 39.)
The competition is getting aggressive. (Costanza, 1988, 40.)
At the moment, declaring a winner in the superconductivity race is premature. … ‘I wouldn’t call what they have done ominous, but it certainly is a sign of intensifying aggressiveness,’ says Roland W. Schmitt, General Electric Co.’s chief scientist and chairman of the National Research Board. (“The U.S. has the advances, but Japan may have the advantages,” 1987, 97.)
Aggression and the need to excel are looking for new ways to manifest themselves, and business, with its armies of functionaries, its prominent adversaries, its highly visible battlefields, is the perfect fit. (Cohen, 1973, 8.)
Aggressive management. (Mackay, 1988, 8.)
g. Hit them with strength! Turn back their attack! Give it everything you’ve got!
“What will the 1990s bring? Anderson sees it as an intensely competitive decade with ‘time to market’ as the battle cry. … ‘The battleground will be time to market — the ability to take continuing advances in technology and respond quickly with them in a worldwide competitive situation. This will be the big differentiator.'” (Weber, “Battle Cry of the ’90s,” 1990, 80.)