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How We Compete: What Companies Around the World Are Doing to Make it in Today's Global Economy
"Impressive... This is an evidence-based bottom-up account of the realities of globalisation. It is more varied, more subtle, and more substantial than many of the popular works available on the subject." -- Financial Times
Based on a five-year study by the MIT Industrial Performance Center, How We Compete goes into the trenches of over 500 international companies to discover which practices are succeeding in today’s global economy, which are failing –and why.
There is a rising fear in America that no job is safe. In industry after industry, jobs seem to be moving to low-wage countries in Asia, Central America, and Eastern Europe. Production once handled entirely in U.S. factories is now broken into pieces and farmed out to locations around the world. To discover whether our current fears about globalization are justified, Suzanne Berger and a group of MIT researchers went to the front lines, visiting workplaces and factories around the world. They conducted interviews with managers at more than 500 companies, asking questions about which parts of the manufacturing process are carried out in their own plants and which are outsourced, who their biggest competitors are, and how they plan to grow their businesses. How We Compete presents their fascinating, and often surprising, conclusions.
Berger and her team examined businesses where technology changes rapidly–such as electronics and software–as well as more traditional sectors, like the automobile industry, clothing, and textile industries. They compared the strategies and success of high-tech companies like Intel and Sony, who manufacture their products in their own plants, and Cisco and Dell, who rely primarily on outsourcing. They looked closely at textile and clothing to uncover why some companies, including the Gap and Liz Claiborne, choose to outsource production to foreign countries, while others, such as Zara and Benetton, base most operations at home.
What emerged was far more complicated than the black-and-white picture presented by promoters and opponents of globalization. Contrary to popular belief, cheap labor is not the answer, and the world is not flat, as Thomas Friedman would have it. How We Compete shows that there are many different ways to win in the global economy, and that the avenues open to American companies are much wider than we ever imagined.
SUZANNE BERGER is the Raphael Dorman and Helen Starbuck Professor of Political Science at MIT and director of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiative. She was a member of the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity, whose report Made in America analyzed weaknesses and strengths in U.S. industry in the 1980s . She lives in Boston , Massachusetts.
Based on a five-year study by the MIT Industrial Performance Center, How We Compete goes into the trenches of over 500 international companies to discover which practices are succeeding in today’s global economy, which are failing –and why.
There is a rising fear in America that no job is safe. In industry after industry, jobs seem to be moving to low-wage countries in Asia, Central America, and Eastern Europe. Production once handled entirely in U.S. factories is now broken into pieces and farmed out to locations around the world. To discover whether our current fears about globalization are justified, Suzanne Berger and a group of MIT researchers went to the front lines, visiting workplaces and factories around the world. They conducted interviews with managers at more than 500 companies, asking questions about which parts of the manufacturing process are carried out in their own plants and which are outsourced, who their biggest competitors are, and how they plan to grow their businesses. How We Compete presents their fascinating, and often surprising, conclusions.
Berger and her team examined businesses where technology changes rapidly–such as electronics and software–as well as more traditional sectors, like the automobile industry, clothing, and textile industries. They compared the strategies and success of high-tech companies like Intel and Sony, who manufacture their products in their own plants, and Cisco and Dell, who rely primarily on outsourcing. They looked closely at textile and clothing to uncover why some companies, including the Gap and Liz Claiborne, choose to outsource production to foreign countries, while others, such as Zara and Benetton, base most operations at home.
What emerged was far more complicated than the black-and-white picture presented by promoters and opponents of globalization. Contrary to popular belief, cheap labor is not the answer, and the world is not flat, as Thomas Friedman would have it. How We Compete shows that there are many different ways to win in the global economy, and that the avenues open to American companies are much wider than we ever imagined.
SUZANNE BERGER is the Raphael Dorman and Helen Starbuck Professor of Political Science at MIT and director of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiative. She was a member of the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity, whose report Made in America analyzed weaknesses and strengths in U.S. industry in the 1980s . She lives in Boston , Massachusetts.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 5, 2019
I admit that it seems to be a little late to be reading this 15 years after it was first published, however this book is still used as a reference for most geography, economics or international business students. I can see that Suzanne Berger does give lots of information about the way companies work and several detailed examples. But surely there are better, more up-to-date works concerning this subject. Ideed the whole thing comes across as rather dated, trying to be modern for its time (many examples are based in the tech-manufacturing giants such as HP). But this is no longer the reality of many global companies and the biggest changes to international business and the global supply chain simply cannot be missed out if we are to understand "How we compete" today.
In short, this book can help you understand globalisation.... as it was over a decade ago.
In short, this book can help you understand globalisation.... as it was over a decade ago.
August 2, 2020
Small governmental bureaucrats doing "studies" and showing the World how much Humanity needs their paper pushing. A book that starts with "How" and ends with "It's complicated".
October 4, 2012
Possibly my first book honestly considering the profound insecurities we have developed about the decline of middle class, manufacturing, and all that physical and human capital the US is allegedly losing. In that it is a relief, not because things are wonderful but because I now at least have some facts and theory (as in "scientific theory") to go on. It is also the first time I've gotten to think about how the business of making physical objects works at the macro scale. So that's fun. The experience -- not super fun. The exercise made every point into an uncomfortably forceful "tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them loop," with couple levels of recursion. It will take you some will to get through this book. The style is explained by the fact that this is an academic paper that was willed into becoming a pop book.
November 3, 2008
I really enjoyed this book. It was engaging, inquisitive, and done very well in an academic sense. I enjoyed that it didn't seem to have an agenda and was searching for truth. The introductory phase of the book may have dragged on too long and for touting itself as basing its opinion on research with actual companies I find the actual info about what the companies said to be much too sparse. Overall a very balanced and complete look at the issue of globalization though.
January 14, 2008
According to Berger and her team, news of the death of the American (and European) manufacturing industry is greatly exaggerated. High-wage economies can compete with India and China - they just have to be smarter.
November 25, 2007
I thought this was really good. Very thought provoking on what it takes to succeed in a global economy.
August 13, 2012
The "dynamic legacies" model suggested in the book seems to serve as a good model for the reality of enterprises around the world.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews