Survival Of The Fattest

Both the recent cyclical declines in corporate performance and the prospect of a longer-term and secular restructuring promise to create a new pecking order in much of economic life. At one level, this is nothing new: finding ourselves with a changing roster of winners and losers defines a dynamic economy. That no company stays on top forever is hardly a surprise, and the rise of new champions signals both innovation by companies and the ascendancy of new industries. However, over the last 40 years a gradual shift in the shape of winning and losing has been playing out.