Today that strategic assumption would be disastrous for all but the most advanced products, those with highly proprietary technologies. Global markets no longer allow a company time to introduce a product and then scale up. Now imitators-usually lean enterprises - can bring "me too" products to market so rapidly that first-mover companies have no time to inculcate brand loyalty, let alone recover their development costs. Lean competitors, with faster reflexes than old mass-production companies, work on shorter product-development and life cycles, and they manufacture almost anywhere - Korea, Mexico, Israel.