A variation can be encountered during product management involved features and prices.
In more than a few cases, the product specifications for an update or a new product can indicate near feature parity with a current competitive product, usually with a small increment past that current product.
Not what the competitive products would offer at the completion of the development cycle you're launching; not where the competing product would be in six or eighteen months; after however long it takes to get your new product to market.
Leading a moving target by an appropriate amount is a regular challenge of product development.
And you can win against Kaizen by going asymmetric. By allowing your competitor to optimize what you cause to be the wrong problem.
Kaizen isn't a perpetual advantage. Just look at what demographics are doing to the Japanese economy and manufacturing base. Korea is the new Japan in many ways, and any honest Japanese manager will willingly tell you as much. Korea came from literally nowhere to catch up to Japan, despite kaizen.
Disruption, rising costs, aging demographics, etc., can easily shift industrial edge from one country or region to another.
I'm not denigrating kaizen, mind you. It's still a valuable principle, and one that will continue to confer many advantages to the Japanese industrial base. But it's not a sufficient advantage in perpetuity.
In more than a few cases, the product specifications for an update or a new product can indicate near feature parity with a current competitive product, usually with a small increment past that current product.
Not what the competitive products would offer at the completion of the development cycle you're launching; not where the competing product would be in six or eighteen months; after however long it takes to get your new product to market.
Leading a moving target by an appropriate amount is a regular challenge of product development.
And you can win against Kaizen by going asymmetric. By allowing your competitor to optimize what you cause to be the wrong problem.