I heard an interesting story that Lego faced a crisis where they were losing market share and profitability and so they decided to do some licensing deals which have had a very positive effect on their bottom line.
Yeah it was in the late 90s I believe that they were almost going bankrupt. Part of it too was the number of special pieces they would use for only one set. I have the Lego Book and it's a great read, goes into a lot more detail than that Wikipedia page.