Mike_Feury - 12:04 am on Mar 3, 2012 (gmt 0)

Right, but those symptoms--improvements in quality and costs and time to market--came from improved ways of doing business. Much of it started in Toyota in the 50s, which is probably why they became the world's largest car manufacturer decades after the first surge of Japanese manufacturing in the 70s--allowing for overreaching by an ego-driven CEO in the last decade, which endangered them for a while.

You could also attribute Walmart's rise to symptoms like squeezing the suppliers and workforce. But behind the more visible or vocal elements was an improved way of doing business.