By now, the scenario is familiar. Domestic competition in a volatile market has cooled off, with a pecking order established and shares firmly in place. Suddenly, a Japanese multinational arrives and quickly secures a beachhead; soon after, more Japanese firms join the fray, pouring new product lines into what seemed a saturated market only months before.

As Japanese consumer goods gain footholds in diverse market niches, European and American firms seem unable to assimilate the motivations of their Japanese rivals or to emulate the tactics that serve Japanese multinationals so well in winning new customers.

That situation is likely to change with the publication of Relentless. A trenchant analysis of Japanese marketing strategy in the international arena, it denotes a unique collaboration between Western and Eastern marketing expertise. Professors Johansson and Nonaka present their detailed study of Japanese life in general, and domestic marketing in particular, to reveal the imperatives of Japanese marketers abroad and to sum up the fundamental themes of Japanese marketing philosophy.

With anecdotes as vivid as an Escher print, the authors explore the Japanese marketing mind to show how it uniquely defines each business relationship and motivates every action, inverting most of what Western enterprises do and think. The result is a penetrating insight into the ego of the Japanese marketer and a vital tool for any Western manager who faces Japanese competition now or in the future.