In this Issue

Designing a Competitive Advantage

For an increasing number of markets, design has become the major factor in differentiating a company's products from those of its competitors, distinguishing a company's various product lines, building a successful branding strategy, and providing a unique selling proposition.

The New Luxury Item: Food

Food prices are rising, reversing a long-standing trend of decreasing food costs that has existed in much of the world for decades. Reasons include the effects of climate change and the emerging competition for arable land and water resources between food and fuel production as demand for biofuels increases.

Innovation Ecologies

Organizations are creating innovation ecologies-complex webs of a variety of parties and partners-to generate the innovations they need to compete. Companies that learn to build, map, and administer innovation ecologies stand to realize significant competitive advantage. But the process is trickier than it first appears to be.