Triad power: the coming shape of global competition

During the last year renowned business strategist Kenichi Ohmae's pathbreaking ideas on the globalization of industries and products have made headlines in leading financial newspapers and business publications on three continents. Now, in this eagerly awaited book, Ohmae integrates and expands his much discussed concepts-to demonstrate why corporations hoping to compete in the global arena must become "insiders" in what he calls the Triad: Europe, Japan, and the United States.

Ohmae explains that becoming an insider means nothing less than full membership in the indigenous business communities at each corner of the Triad. Why? In such high-tech industries as computers, consumer electron ics, and communications, the rapid pace of product innovation and development no longer allows firms the luxury of testing the home market before probing abroad. More over, because consumer preferences vary subtly by culture and are in constant flux, companies must intimately understand local tastes-and react instantly to changing mar ket trends and prices. Political considerations play a part as well: Ohmae's insiders possess greater immunity to protectionism than do outsiders. Finally, capturing markets in all three parts of the Triad is often the only way to achieve the economies of scale world-class automated plants demand in order to pay for themselves.