How Strong Business Relationships Can Wipeout The Dominant Leader

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Corporate Challenge: New entrant wants to capture market share from the long-standing leader.
 
Ironbound Strategy: A new company must focus on generating a powerful brand to outcompete a market-leader that has built a reputation over several decades. Large companies can often become consumed by their success and as result respond more slowly to market changes. This sluggish response creates opportunities for new entrants focused on greater value creation. Powerful brands quickly threaten market share by creating more value for customers, employees, and society.
 
Ironbound Action: General Motors (GM) was once heralded as one of the best-managed and most successful companies in the World. Between 1980 and 2009, their market share dropped from 46 to 20 percent, seceding most of this loss to Toyota. How did Toyota
do it? Toyota invested in building stronger relationships to create trust with their collaborators and employees, this would help reduce costs, and improve lines of communication. Better relationships with collaborators allowed Toyota to quickly develop and deliver new product designs to consumers. The employee value Toyota created helped them produce vehicles in half the time as GM. Good strong relationships between collaborators and employees take time to build and nourish. In the long-run relationships create better opportunities for new competitors to more effectively serve the customer.