One of the biggest things that happened is just like steel from China. Toyota a few years back flooded the market with trucks at or below cost. They made up the difference on parts sales.
The biggest showing is with Coke and Pespi worldwide.

When Clark was king of the hill they had a great number of company owned stores and promoted strong STR & LTR and customer finance programs (aka financial merchandising) and were leaders in developing national account along with Hyster. Then Clark started sell off their company stores and began loosing control of the distribution system. Then their move to Battle Creek, MI to Kentucky did not serve them well at all, then Terex got involved with Clark and Clark's parts operations went to **** in a hand basket. By this point the former king of the hill was rolling down the backside of that hill very rapidly.

Davelift: One reason Linde's don't do well in the US is that a FMV (fair market value) lease of 36 to 60 months depending on anticipated annual usage is VERY common, where basically the end users is only paying for the usage and at the end of the term they turn it in & get new units before the high cost of repairs period kicks in. These FMV leases can be structured with or without a maintenance agreement. A finance company owns the equipment during the lease period is ultimately responsible for selling the asset at the end of the lease to recoup at least a predetermined residual value or greater if the condition of the equipment and Fair Market Value will allow. They can be sold to the lessor, local dealer or open market. Typically, units sold on a FMV program don't show up on the selling dealers balance sheets.
So what I have said is Linde's are higher priced than other makes, therefore their monthly payments will be higher than the competition for the same time period and because most trucks will not run more than 10,000 hours in a 5 year period and customers don't really care that a Linde will run 20,000 hrs or 10 years because they plan on releasing new units every 5 years - why pay for something you aren't ever going to use. Certainly, the Linde lift can fit into the niche markets that are classified "mean, dirty & nasty" operations but that is only about 3 - 5% of the total market, the rest of the lift truck dogs fight & eat in the other 80 - 85% of the market. The missing 10% of the market includes light duty and specialty type lifts.

I think the US market is totally different to the European market and it is here ware Clark lost out. North America like a simple truck that will last you don't need to be the best truck just simple that does the job and has a very good service back up. Toyota looked at Clark seen where they could improve and then went after Clark dealers with a lower cost truck. Toyota understand the two point's that makes you number 1 in the US. These are value and service You don't need to be the most technological truck in the market as Toyota aren't all you need is value for money and a very good service back up. If you look at Taylor who are number 1 in US in larger trucks their truck is not complicated it is quite basic and simple backed up by a good service network that is why they are number 1 Same with Toyota. In Europe where trucks are more technical Linde and Junghienrich do well but yet they don't seem to do as well in the US., This is a question many have asked and the answer is quite simple the trucks are just to technical and cost are to high over a basic truck and the US Customer who tend to look after there own truck or purchase them instead of rent don't see a benefit in the extra cost. They just see higher costs and a more difficult truck to repair. from what i have seen Toyota don't have a canbus system in the US they use manual hydraulics not electric hydraulics this is why they keep ahead of the European manufactures and Mits / Cat. In US Mits and Cat sell better with manual hydraulics. The main challengers to Toyota will come from China when the Chinese as some in the construction equipment industry have start to manufacture in the US they will become more power full in the Market because the US like to buy local , which is not a bad point you tend to see US made trucks sell better than imported trucks.

I cant stand pure Toyota counter balances full stop.
Awful to work on, no design thought on maintenance, old fashioned drum brakes with auto transmission.

Cesab make a better counter balance then Toyota, at least Cesab listened to the engineers feedback & made improvements to the design when they released a new model.

Give me a Linde IC truck any day of the week, bombproof reliability, easy to work on due to the design team using there brains & hydrostatic drive / brakes.

SAS is really just a sales gimmick, yes it does do what it says on the tin BUT Toyota product quality these days is awful, people still fall for the Toyota badge image / name.

When Clark was amking the C500 series trucks they were probably the best there was was leaks and all. Had a sleeved engine that was cheap and easy too rebuild. They then made drastic changes that did them in. Along comes Toyota and Nissan with very good trucks selling for way under Clark and Clark evenntually went away (almost).Then Toyota out marketed Nissan and now Toyota leads the pack. Not saying they're the best but well marketed. I can't stand their SAS system.

bbforks;
MIS-MANAGEMENT.
This is often the case as I'm sure johnr j would also say. Having seen good firms fail. R&D, failure to stay price competative and not hearing customer's needs-wants and desires. Another key factor is "GREED" (the parts are of more value then the whole).