We study the growth dynamics of the size of manufacturing firms considering competition and normal distribution of competency. We start with the fact that all components of the system struggle with each other for growth as happened in real competitive business world. The detailed quantitative agreement of the theory with empirical results of firms growth based on a large economic database spanning over 20 years is good with a single set of the parameters for all the curves. Further, the empirical data of the variation of the standard deviation of the growth rate with the size of the firm are in accordance with the present theory rather than a simple power law. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.