The Comeback of Caterpillar

Caterpillar Inc., which is headquartered in Peoria, Illinois, has dominated the world in earth moving, construction, and materials machinery for more than 75 years. Their global dominance created a dormant and risky environment. Komatsu, who is a leading Japanese competitor, gained market share by offering low cost, high quality options in a variety of product lines while Caterpillar was busy raising prices in their existing product lines at an average of 10% per year. Caterpillar executives disregarded the threat and continued to maintain it's historical management values; some of whic…