From its 1976 launch, The Body Shop was one of the hottest British companies in the world. In less than 20 years, it grew into a global brand, with stores spanning 47 countries and a gravity-defying share price, write W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. 

But by the mid-1990s its profits and share price were under pressure. The market it had pioneered - natural bath and beauty products - was crowded with imitators. Competition from rivals like Bath and Bodyworks in the US, and Boots, Marks and Spencer and supermarket chains in the UK, plus new cosmetic lines such as Estee Lauder's Origins, was turning this new market space into a mature business. 

The lesson: there is no finish line. Not only must companies be able to create new market space, but as competitors imitate, they must do it again to stay ahead. 

In the past weeks we have explored six paths to creating new markets. While each path breaks a conventional boundary of competition to reveal new opportunities, repetitive use of any path, however powerful, brings diminishing returns. 

By turning to alternative paths over time, fresh insights can be unearthed into redefining value in better and unimagined ways. 

Compaq not only created but recreated the server market several times. Initially, the insight to create the server market came by breaking away from rivals pursuing the same strategy and building on the discriminating factors of minicomputers and personal computers. 

Later, however, the creation of the software programs of SmartStart and Insight Manager, which dramatically reduced the cost of installing and managing server hardware, came from a recognition of the need to offer complementary products and services. 

The challenge facing The Body Shop is not of making incremental improvements to keep ahead. Instead, it must go for another quantum leap in buyer value by exploring another path to new market space. 

It is no wonder that corporate leaders see market creation and recreation as a central strategic challenge in the next decade. 

Creating or recreating markets is not only what allows small companies to become big, but big companies to regenerate themselves. 

Take Toyota, the world's third-largest car company. The Lexus provided nearly one-third of its operating profit within three years of its launch in 1989, while representing only 2 per cent of Toyota's unit volume. 

Since its launch the Walkman has made a vast contribution to Sony's profitable growth and reputation. It also has a big spillover effect on Sony's other lines of business globally. 

The same can be said for SMH, the Swiss watch group, whose subsidiaries range from Blancpain, whose products cost more than Dollars 200,000 (o125,000), to Omega, the watch of the astronauts, to mid-range classics like Hamilton and Tissot and the sporty chic of Longines and Rado. 

Yet it was the creation of the Swatch and the market for fun, fashionable watches that revitalised the entire Swiss watch industry. 

These few examples demonstrate how critical the creation of new markets is for the prosperity and survival of even the world's largest companies. Will your company seize these opportunities, or wait until someone else does?