It is a small world

Data for a study of British, Japanese and American competitors were obtained from detailed face-to-face interviews with chief executives and top marketing decision makers for defined product groups in 90 companies. To control for market differences, the methodology was based upon matching 30 British companies with their major Japanese and American competitors in the British market. The study involved 30 triads of companies, each composed of a British, Japanese and American business that competed directly with one another. Most of the data on the characteristics of the companies’ performance, strategy and organisation were collected on five-point semantic differential scales. The first stage of the analysis involved factor analysis of variables describing the firms’ strategies and marketing activities. The factor scores were used to identify groups of similar companies using Ward’s hierarchical clustering routine. A six-cluster solution was developed.

Membership in the six clusters was then interpreted against the original performance, strategy and organisational variables. All the clusters contained some successful companies, although some contained significantly more than others. The clusters lent support to the hypothesis that successful companies were similar irrespective of nationality, since British, Japanese and American companies were found in all the clusters. There was, however, a preponderance of Japanese companies in the more successful clusters and a predominance of British companies in the two least successful clusters. Apparently, Japanese companies did not deploy strategies that were unique to them; rather, more of them pursued strategies that worked effectively in the British market. The findings indicated that there were generic strategies that described successful companies, irrespective of their industry. Three successful strategies could be identified. The first was the quality marketing strategy. These companies had strengths in marketing and research and development. They concentrated their technical developments on achieving high quality rather than pure innovation. These companies were characterised by entrepreneurial organisations, long-range planning and a well-communicated sense of mission. The second generic strategy was that of the innovators, who were weaker on advanced research and development but were entrepreneurial and driven by a quest for innovation. The last successful group were the mature marketers, who were highly profit oriented and had in-depth marketing skills. All three appeared to consist of highly marketing-oriented businesses.