We have discussed the accelerating leadership turnover in the global asset management industry quite a bit of late, along with concentration of assets and flows to fewer products.

In fact, the 50 bestsellers in the fund industry in the last twelve months gathered almost $400 billion, i.e. $8 billion on average for each product in net flows, with a heavy tilt towards the bestsellers even within the bestseller list (the “Billionaires’ Fund Club”).

A lot of their respective success comes down to a few factors, including product quality, brand, service, account mgmt, marketing, tailored information delivery and commitment (not fees!).

But, these outliers or black camels (swans are so 2009) are not exclusive to the financial world.

I am on the west coast for board presentations, having lunch at “top of the market” while overlooking the bay area – what better time to write about…

Apple yesterday moved past Microsoft to become the most valuable IT company in the world, largely around its ability to innovate with a few distinct products – complex products featuring great simplicity, at a premium.

As the NY times said, “the click-clack of the keyboard has ceded ground to the swipe of a finger” across a multi touch screen. Simplicity wins.

The future battle seems to be between Apple and Google, not Microsoft. Ballmer seems to have realized it and this week reshuffled his management team.

Our research along with case studies around best selling companies and their respective business drivers shows that doing a few basic things right – or wrong – alongside sometimes fortuitous timing, largely determines on which end of the list companies end up.

Top kill.

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Our new writeup, “Mapping Fund Opportunity and Expansion Against Global Financial Risks”, features Europe’s debt crisis, the recent “flash crash”, and rising volatility compared to the $1.3 trillion of global fund inflows in the past year. We discuss these along with insights from our dinner with Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan; a preview of SI’s new research on global distribution; a Japan case study of innovation in asset management, as a cloud computing and smart grids fund raises over $1 billion; and managing alternative strategies, financial technology, and complexity. http://www.strategicinsightglobal.com