James Champy is the author of "Outsmart! How to Do What Your Competitors Can't." Champy profiles eight highly-successful firms as he develops his thesis that the key to outsmarting the competition is to focus on the external environment — including the customers.

At the 20th Annual Compete Through Service Symposium, hosted by the Center for Services Leadership at the W. P. CareySchool of Business, business leaders from all industries gathered to discuss (in part) how technology can help companies differentiate themselves in the market.

Thirty-seven years ago Roy Vallee was stocking shelves at a small electronics distribution company in Los Angeles. That small firm has grown up to become Avnet, Inc., a Fortune 500 firm located in Phoenix, Arizona.

By the time you reach your office every day you have already tapped into numbers of service systems.

Your dining companions are likely to influence how much you eat, or don’t eat, at lunch. Professor of Marketing Andrea Morales discovered that the amount of food your table mate orders may affect your own eating decisions.

Many companies have been shifting away from a sole focus on products and have added services in order to drive continued growth and differentiate themselves in an increasingly saturated marketplace. In fact, services account for 80 percent of the U.S.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans began doing all of the things they had always wanted to do, including, apparently, a whole lot of shopping.

The idea behind services blueprinting is fairly simple: Companies put themselves in their customers' shoes to find out what's working, what's not, and what needs to be changed.

W. P. Carey professors Stephen Happel and Marianne Jennings are free-market defenders. For almost two decades they have evangelized the fundamentals of supply and demand, specifically in the secondary market for event tickets.

Super Bowl XLII represents an estimated $450 million in direct and ancillary revenues for businesses and entrepreneurs.