(From Strategy Safari by Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand, Joseph Lampel, and republished with permission of Richard Rumelt).
A story by Richard Rumelt.
In 1977 my MBA final exam on the Honda Motorcycle case asked "Should Honda enter the global automobile business?" It was designed as a "giveaway" question. Anyone who said "yes" flunked.
- Markets were saturated.
- Efficient competitors existed in Japan, the U.S., and Europe.
- Honda had little to no experience in automobiles.
- Honda had no auto distribution system.
In 1985, my wife drove a Honda.