The profit zone is the area of your economic neighborhood where you are allowed to earn a profit. To reach and operate in the profit zone is the goal… - Adrian Slywotzky

Today, as change speeds up, it’s even more important to anticipate how your company’s strategic landscape is changing. It won’t help you to predict the future with 100% accuracy. But it will prepare you to exploit change.

Adrian Slywotzky believes the Internet will overturn the inefficient push model of supplier-customer interaction. He predicts that in all sorts of markets, customers will use choiceboards—interactive, on-line systems that let people design their own products by choosing from a menu of attributes, prices, and delivery options. And he explores how the shifting role of the customer—from passive recipient to active designer—will change the way companies compete.

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 corporate hierarchy made front-line workers responsible for understanding and satisfying the customer’s every whim. Today, we’re poised for the natural sequel to that revolution. It’s time to focus on keeping workers satisfied — or at least engaged in their work.