When Lean Enterprises Collide: Competing Through Confrontation

The book is fascinating for its insights on target costing in addition to the better known Japanese working concepts of target quality and time to market in developing next generation products. It is suggested that everyone in the business team should vision what mix of quality features, price, and in-market date will be competitive, and then target these aims relentlessly. Processes must be tailored to fit them, and innovation priorities are defined by these goals. So target costing, for example, becomes the whole development team's job. Meanwhile accounting (and other performance) measures are seen as a distraction - open a separate book on them as a formality if necessary - but don't let them get in the way of the lean marketing learning organisation. The one disappointment of this book is that the twenty or so case studies of Japanese companies on which it is based are not included in it. For the full story, you will have to buy each Harvard case study. If you would like to discuss this book or how it impacts western measurement notions, eg te Balanced Scorecard, e-mail Chris Macrae at [email protected]