To do that, they weigh carefully how much gas to buy ahead of time, locking in a price with the knowledge that, if prices fall, competitors can sell their electricity for less by using cheaper fuel bought on spot markets.
But even as these have fallen, competitors have found it hard to "tropicalise" their offering, as Brazilians say, whereas Totvs's franchise system has helped it spread into the country's fast-growing provincial towns.Good governance has endeared the company to investors, as did Mr Cosentino's willingness, rare among tech founder-CEOs, to surround himself with professional managers.
The 100 business leaders that spent the day in Washington know this and showed up because they recognize their new normal: address worker education and upskilling as a core corporate priority--or fall behind competitors who get it.
In the years since, the company has fallen behind competitors who moved to China, where costs are cheaper.
The New York firm has fallen behind competitors like Goldman , Sachs Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston among takeover advisers this year, according to Bloomberg data.
She justified the board's drastic action by arguing that Virginia was falling behind competitors, like Harvard and Stanford, especially in the development of online courses, a potentially transformative innovation.
Fierce public opposition has limited the use of cloning in Europe, however, leaving producers fearful of falling behind competitors in the United States and elsewhere.
Corporate executives know that if they hold back too long on investment and expansion, they run the risk of falling behind competitors.
Roush blamed himself for his five Sprint Cup teams' falling behind competitors in the 2007 testing for what was called the Car of Tomorrow.
Moreover, Associates was falling behind competitors in automating its operations, a long and costly process required to make it more efficient, analysts said.
THE NEWS In a brutally frank internal memo, Stephen Elop, the recently appointed chief executive of Nokia, lambasted his company for falling behind competitors, missing big trends and losing market share.
