You’d think that Danone, one of the globe’s biggest makers of milk products, should have had an easy time entering the world’s fastest-growing dairy market. But the French food conglomerate, which has been successfully selling biscuits and mineral water in China, flopped with its dairy offerings. In 2002, after a decade of effort and an investment of more than $10 million, it withdrew its dairy products from the Chinese market and sold its facilities to domestic competitors.
A version of this article appeared in the March 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review.
