Twenty years ago, the business world was taken by surprise when the work pyramid was up-ended. Suddenly customers were on top and a flattened corpora… - Adrian Slywotzky

Market share was the grand old metric, the guiding light, the compass of the product-centric age. Companies focused on improving their product and building economies of scale. This product-centric thinking led to the battle cry: "Get more market share and the profit will follow."

The number one problem in business today is profitability. Where will you be allowed to make a profit in your industry? Where is the profit zone today? Where will it be tomorrow?

Doctors, chess grand masters and football quarterbacks share a trait: the ability to recognize patterns and learn from them. A doctor can connect symptoms to causes and use that to make a diagnosis and offer a prescription. Top quarterbacks and grand masters can sense the shape of unfolding play, and profit from that knowledge. Great managers are also skilled at pattern recognition. Every industry is reshaped by patterns of strategic change that can dramatically shift profit and power.