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…
