The bestselling coauthor of The Discipline of Market Leaders provides crucial new benchmarks for ranking businesses in the new economy and reveals the practical strategies that set winning companies apart from the pack.

In the decade since the renowned business strategist Fred Wiersema first began research for his #1 bestseller, The Discipline of Market Leaders, profound changes have transformed the business world. Ask most managers what's different in the new economy and they will tell you that markets are more crowded than ever, and that it is harder than ever to attract and retain customer attention. Our capacity to produce products and information has increased dramatically, creating a glut in the marketplace as more and more companies compete for the same customer. A momentous shift has occurred -- we have, in effect, entered an age of customer scarcity. Increasingly, fresh role models are needed to determine just what it takes to succeed when customers are the most precious resource.

The New Market Leaders delivers precisely that, by examining the exciting, often unorthodox companies dominating the market and revolutionizing business.

After tracking the performance of 5,000 companies worldwide over the past six years, Wiersema discovered that just a few hundred of them -- the new market leaders -- exert tremendous influence on the growth and shape of the new economy. Wiersema offers totally new yardsticks for assessing a company's success. He explains why traditional measures, such as size of company or total sales, are no longer adequate markers of a company's competitive prowess or future prospects. By providing new indexes for sales growth and market value, Wiersema shows readers how to recognize the movers and shakers in any industry -- whether Internet paced or more traditional. He identifies today's 100 most influential global businesses and explains what makes the new leaders so powerful...