INCREASING RETURNS - COMPETING FOR CUSTOMERS IN THE GLOBAL MARKET

This paper discusses emerging, increasing returns notions, comparing i t to the diminishing returns model of the industrial era, with the con sequent implications for the global manager. Increasing returns, it is argued, comes from a different set of management premises: capitalisi ng on the time value of individual customers in new ''market spaces,'' rather than from making and moving more ''things'' in traditional pro duct/market categories; leveraging intangibles, abundant and infinite, which increasingly deliver the value to customers; and sharing market s, resources and technologies with others in new ''competitive spaces, '' rather than adopting proprietary behaviour in order to get critica l market mass and lock in. These premises, if consciously managed and translated into strategy, the paper argues, lead to an accumulating ad vantage and disproportionate returns for corporations.