Planet13 - 8:17 am on Mar 4, 2012 (gmt 0)

@ Mike_Feury:

Right, but those symptoms--improvements in quality and costs and time to market--came from improved ways of doing business.

Ahh... I see your point. Think it is called Kaizen (continuous improvement).

Great book on this is Corporate Creativity: how innovation and improvement actually happen, by Alan Robinson and Sam Stearns.

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.

Ok, but I don't see why the other lower end, high volume retailers (like K Mart or JC Penny) weren't able to fill that market space (I know I am going off topic a bit here).