Korea's focus on R&D enabled it to match the ability of its Japanese rivals to produce colour televisions and VCRs on a mass scale. Brazil similarly used R&D to develop design and technology comparable to what the Italians did in casual leather footwear.

Ericsson, a Swedish company, was searching the global arena for new markets. It believed in tapping local technologies, adapting them to local requirements and exporting them to the group's advantage.

In the late 1960s, firms producing colour television sets needed the supply of tubes. But the size of an efficient tube manufacturing unit was relatively larger than that of a television assembly plant. The result of installing a tube manufacturing unit was that the increase in demand of colour televisions was not rapid enough to absorb the tube capacity.

Timex's strategy in entering the watch industry in the 1950s was to produce such a low-priced watch that it did not pay to have repaired. The Swiss watch industry, which was positioned as producers of high quality and high-priced watches, did not pose a threat to Timex, poised as it was to create primary demand. Consequently, Timex was able to gain a strong foothold in the lower end of the market.

When India recently opened its doors to foreign brands, the ready-made-garment industry was one of the first to see an influx of American and European players. America's Arrow brand of shirts collaborated with Arvind Mills to manufacture and market its executive formal wear in India.

Even as Arrow was setting its sights, European brands like Van Heusen, Louis Phillip and Allen Solly set up shop in India's metropolitan cities, under, similar collaborations with other manufacturers. The branded, premium ready-mades market being at a nascent stage, there was no threat to market shares as the market itself was growing at 25% per annum. Neither was the existing Indian brand of premium shirts, Park Avenue, losing markets to the new entrants. Yet Arrow positioned itself at the apex of the super-premium shirts market, pricing its shirts marginally higher than the new entrants. It developed a voice of authority via styles and fabric variants and aggressive advertising support.

3M competencies in substrates, adhesives and coatings were combined to successfully enter diverse businesses like sticky tapes, "post-its, magnetic tapes, photographic film and coated abrasives.

Honda and Ford developed partnerships with vendors to improve the quality and lead time of subcontracted products, without having to go the route of expensive mergers and acquisitions.

Japan is susceptible to severe earthquakes due to its geological location, and daily tremors are common. This immediately calls for attention to safety in product design which is specified by the Japanese government. Take the case of space heaters. Japanese homes do not have central heating systems and hence rely on kerosene room heaters. These need to be designed to withstand tremors and retain their stability as the resultant fire hazards are enormous.

Japan found that the Swedish kerosene heaters complied with Japanese safety standards whereas the American domestic space heaters were not engineered to adapt to Japanese safety needs, and hence were not acceptable.

In a highly labour-driven, low-cost market like India, domestic automation like washing machines and vacuum cleaners was slow to gain acceptance, as substitutes in the form of cheap domestic help was easily available. But with the increasing trend away from the joint family system, where two or three generations of a family were living together, and the growth of the double-income nuclear families, the need for time-saving, self-reliant aids like washing machines were seen as a viable substitute. This growing market is now offering valuable opportunities for foreign brands like Electrolux, Whirlpool, National and GE, LG, Samsung etc. to enter the Indian market.