Do customers drive innovation? "Every industry on the planet is being reinvented from the customer backwards," answers management theorist Gary Hamel in a recent issue of Fortune. "Companies need to bring as much innovation to the demand chain as they brought to the supply chain. How do customers learn about this product or service? How do they pay for it? Acquire it? Use it? Experience it? And how do they build a relationship over time with the vendor?"

Hamel wonders aloud what a candy company like Mars has to learn from Dell: "Well, go to the website for M&Ms, which is MMS.com. You can buy customized M&Ms in 21 different colors. My office is decorated in ivory, green, and crimson, and on the desk is a bowl of ivory, green and crimson M&Ms. The great thing for Mars is that they cost three times more per pound than the ordinary candies."