Ecolab, Inc.

By 1993, Ecolab has established a dominant market position in the institutional cleaning industry. As the company’s principal competitor, Diversify, drives sales aggressively, Ecolab president Al Schuman faces a choice about how best to market Ecolab’s offerings. Should Ecolab’s sales personnel continue to focus on building relationships first and worrying about numbers only later? Or has the time come to change the firm’s approach? Even as Schuman focuses on this choice, there are some faint rumblings of internal dissension.