The goal in business is to outdistance the competition and make profitable sales by producing more customer-friendly products or services. To reach this goal, you need an advantage to improve your batting average-but it's getting more difficult and complicated to obtain this advantage, let alone keep it.

Now is the season to be on the lookout for the thieves. In rocky economic times, they come out to prey on companies eager to hold on to current customers and find new ones, introduce new products and services, or simply increase their market share.