Viable Vision: Transforming Total Sales into Net Profits by Gerald I. Kendall

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Description

ISBN-193215938X

Developed by industry guru and mega best-selling author Eli Goldratt, Viable Vision is a proven strategic plan and approach that lays out the steps to transform an organization’s current total sales into net profits within 4 years.

This book explains the Viable Vision concept and provides readers the proven frame of reference and roadmap for achieving exponential growth in profits, without relying on minor miracles such as a new product breakthrough.

Supported by significant testing and proven results in real companies, it is now conceivable that even large companies can grow profits at double digit rates.

Concisely packed with the proven principles of 25 years of scientific research and real-life application, readers will learn about the holistic implementation of constraints management in strategic planning, operations, supply chain/logistics, sales and marketing, project management, technology, metrics and finance.

Whether or not you are one of the millions of people who have read “The Goal” or other fine books on the Theory of Constraints, you will gain enormous benefits from reading this book.

Viable Vision is a must read for anyone interested in rapidly increasing their company’s net profits.

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Harvard Business Review, July-August 2010

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Description

Harvard Business Review is the world’s acknowledged authority on business leadership for managers responsible for success in the global economy.

Now published monthly times a year, HBR delivers entrepreneurial ideas and insights that help managers strengthen their leadership power.

Every issue shows how to use technology for competitive advantage. Guides strategic decision making in times of change. Profiles innovative leaders. Tells how to motivate today’s workers. Shares the details of successful online alliances, and more.

July–August 2010 Issue Features

• Executive Summaries
• The Big Idea: No, Management Is Not a Profession by  Richard Barker
• The HBR Interview: “We Had to Own the Mistakes” by  An Interview with Howard Schultz
• Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers by  Matthew Dixon , Karen Freeman , and Nicholas Toman
• Are You Ignoring Trends That Could Shake Up Your Business? by  Elie Ofek and Luc Wathieu
• Innovation’s Holy Grail by  C.K. Prahalad and R.A. Mashelkar
• The Globe: Singapore Airlines’ Balancing Act by  Loizos Heracleous and Jochen Wirtz

Spotlight

• Spotlight on the Effective Organization
• The Execution Trap by  Roger L. Martin
• How Hierarchy Can Hurt Strategy Execution
• Stop the Innovation Wars by  Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble
• Power Play by  Jeffrey Pfeffer
• Empowered by  Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler
• Finding the Right Path by  Laurence Capron and Will Mitchell

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Strategic Training: Putting Employees First by Daniel Wentland

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Book Description

ISBN-0874259339

The ultimate solution for developing highly trained employees and achieving organizational success.

Your organization s survival depends on employee training – to brush off the importance of upgrading the skills of your employees is a dangerous strategic mistake.

This book will show organizational decision-makers and human resource practitioners how to make quality employee training an integral part of the strategic planning process – and ensure the competitiveness of the organization.

Strategic Training: Putting Employees First introduces a comprehensive managerial tool called Strategic Training of Employees Model (STEM) a methodology for developing training based on the belief that every organization must deal with scarcity and constraints.

The model offers a comprehensive framework for analyzing specific training situations and requirements. At the same time, it is flexible enough to allow organizations a wide range of solutions. Use STEM to:

• Decide if a training issue poses a significant strategic objective for your organization
• Determine the most appropriate training solution – such as an in-house program, less formal setting or college class
• Continually evaluate the training to ensure its quality does not diminish

Author Daniel Wentland provides fresh, new insight into how to address the important training challenges every organization faces.

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Strategic Planning for Results by Sandra S. Nelson

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Description

ISBN-0838935737

“Strategic Planning for Results” is the fully revised version of “Planning for Results”, the foundational book in this groundbreaking series.

“The PLA Results Series” has long served to help public librarians envision, evaluate, and respond to community needs with distinctive programs and services.

Building from this proven model, “Strategic Planning for Results” is the fully revised version of “Planning for Results”, the foundational book in this groundbreaking series.Sandra Nelson, senior editor of the “Results Series”, focuses on the essential steps to draft a results-driven, strategic planning process that libraries can complete over the course of four months, regardless of organizational structure or size.

Reflecting on the current planning environment for public libraries, Nelson makes the case for strategic rather than long-term planning and includes a wealth of information about understanding and managing the change process to help staff.It helps readers to: assess the change-readiness of the library and preparing staff to implement forthcoming changes; simplify data collection and decision-making processes through the use of 14 reproducible workforms; identify service priority options and reach agreement as a group; and, successfully present and communicate within their library.

Included in the newly revised and adopted Public Library Service Responses are case studies, workforms, and tool kits. “Strategic Planning for Results” offers librarians a wealth of ideas to effectively meet changing community needs.

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Strategic Business Forecasting: A Structured Approach to Shaping the Future of Your Business by Dr. Simon Ramo and Dr. Ronald Sugar

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Description

ISBN-0071621261

What’s Your Next Big Move?

At the turn of the century, Western Union passed on the chance to dominate the telephone industry. Later, General Electric concluded that a new invention called television was doomed to fail.

And very recently, decision makers at the highest level were taken off-guard when the global economy dropped from under their feet–and took their companies with it.

Today, only those business leaders with the power of long-term foresight will seize and hold true competitive advantage. But can managers really predict the future? Yes, to a greater extent than one might expect.

Strategic Business Forecasting shows how to identify and quantify possible events that may affect your business. Applying creativity, personal experience, and the lessons of history, you can use such forecasting to develop plans that will help your organization compete.

Drs. Simon Ramo and Ronald Sugar, two giants of the aerospace industry, share their Four-Measures Rating system to help you explore the world of possibilities–thoroughly and systematically. Under their tutelage, you will be equipped to:

* Create a comprehensive list of possible scenarios concerning your business

* Utilize a scoring system to rate each scenario’s merit as a serious and useful prediction

* Develop an effective plan that strategically shapes the future of your organization

The authors provide vivid illustrations of the Four-Measures system at work with real-world examples of both forecasting failures and successes.

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Sales Force Design for Strategic Advantage by Andris Zoltners, Prabha Sinha, and Sally Lorimer

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Description

ISBN-1403903050

This book focuses upon the role of the sales force in today’s changing world and how to design a sales force for strategic advantage.

It includes sections on how to assess the current sales force design and how to implement change and covers customer segmentation, market strategy, structuring and sizing, alignment, metrics and managing change.

This is an excellent and insightful book! It describes the core fundamentals necessary in understanding the sales process, go-to-market strategies, proper sales force size and structure determination, and creating the optimal alignment of sales territories.

It takes into consideration the analytical side of sales force design from a market research perspective, as well as human factor elements involved, from the viewpoint of the sales representative.

The text contains clear and concise real-world case studies from numerous industries, and graphical illustrations, to enhance, support, and clarify all the concepts.

This is a great read, especially for those involved in sales and marketing.

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Mastering Business Planning and Strategy: The Power and Application of Strategic Thinking by Paul M. Elkin

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Description

ISBN-185418329X

This is the ideal book for anyone seeking an introduction to business planning and strategic thinking that is both comprehensive and accessible.

Paul Elkin explains all the key concepts, skills, and techniques for developing successful business plans and strategies in a way that will leave you fully prepared to apply them in practice.

The book is designed for executives who have recently taken on a strategic role in the organization; entrepreneurs running their own business; marketing, finance, or production managers who need a proper grasp of the subject; and business and management students.

Leading businesses tend to concentrate on three areas: how to ensure they satisfy customer needs, how to achieve and maintain competitive advantage, and how to develop and build on the company’s strengths.

Directed at meeting these objectives, the book provides valuable techniques for profiling your business, powerful strategic thinking, focused option appraisal, effective decision making, as well as analyzing the market and your competitors.

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Strategic Staffing: A Comprehensive System for Effective Workforce Planning by Thomas P. Bechet

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Description

ISBN-0814409385

Many organizations understand the benefits of a longer-term approach to staffing: reduced turnover and hiring costs, improved efficiency and morale, and ultimately greater profits.

Unfortunately, traditional approaches to staffing are often more effective on paper than in the workplace. Completely updated, this new edition of Strategic Staffing shows how to identify staffing needs and opportunities through qualitative and quantitative measures, and presents several effective, nontraditional approaches to their hiring needs.

Featuring full case studies and dozens of examples, the book is both enlight­ening and practical. And to help readers create their own staffing plans, the online forms offer a trove of invaluable tools, including: customizable Excel spread sheets assessment and evaluation forms * calcula­tions and analyses * sample staffing plans, Powerpoint slide presentations, and much more.

This book is a detailed, process-oriented guide that offers all the tools staffing professionals need.

This book is packed with good information and it’s one of the better books out there for helping someone understand the strategic staffing/workforce planning process.

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The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company by Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, and James Noel

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Description

ISBN-0787951722

For every organization that’s ever reached beyond its own borders for top leadership only to have those high-profile, high-salary top leaders bungle and exit as abruptly as they appeared, this smart, substantive, and clear-eyed book is a godsend.

Written by three genuine experts in management development (one of them helped design GE’s deservedly famous succession-development process), The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company finally shows organizations how to undo the knots and clogs in their in-house “leadership pipeline” so they can constantly groom the best people at every level to move up to the next rung of leadership.

Not only do the authors identify the six transition phases, or “turns,” of the pipeline–from self-manager (individual worker), first-line manager, and managers’ manager to function manager, business manager, group manager and enterprise manager (the last essentially being a CEO)–they describe each with remarkable insight; these six levels of leadership growth, for example, exist at the base of every midsize or large organization regardless of how each structures its individual hierarchy.

With each, they take care to point out both the new skills and values (there is a difference) one must acquire before making a turn, as well as how to measure whether someone has them before moving them along.

They also show how to determine whether candidates are embodying those skills and values once they’ve made the transition, and how to groom them for the next level right from day one.

The result? Not just one potentially qualified in-house candidate for a top leadership position (the kind of dearth that forces companies to look outward for expensive and often short-lived leadership “stars”), but a whole generation of them, not to mention younger generations to succeed them.

The book includes sample scenarios (from both fictional and real-life organizations), definitions, checklists and charts that break down and illustrate its main points in every chapter.

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Strategic Learning: How to Be Smarter Than Your Competition and Turn Key Insights into Competitive Advantage by Willie Pietersen

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Description

ISBN-0470540699

How to use Strategic Learning to rapidly respond to change and gain a sustainable advantage over your competitors

What’s even harder than creating a breakthrough strategy? Making it stick.

As companies are fighting to survive in a tough economy, this new book by Willie Pietersen demonstrates the power of the Strategic Learning process, a four-step dynamic cycle guaranteed to create and sustain winning performance.

Adopted by a wide range of corporations and not-for-profit organizations, the Strategic Learning process builds on eight years of practicing, adapting and honing the original concepts Pietersen first introduced in Reinventing Strategy to explain how organizations can generate superior insights about their customers and competitors, craft a Winning Proposition, focus on a vital few key priorities, create buy-in throughout the organization and achieve success – again and again.

* Teaches organizations to make smarter decisions that help them win customers and earn superior profits

* Explains how to instill a culture of openness, learning, and courage that can face and respond to the constantly changing business environment

* Is a tool that can benefit leaders at all levels, in organizations both large and small, global and domestic, for-profit and not-for-profit

* Author Willie Pietersen, a former president of Tropicana and Seagram USA, is a professor of management at Columbia Business School, and the author of Reinventing Strategy, from Wiley

Strategic Learning shows you how your business or nonprofit organization can develop better, more effective strategies for long-term competitive advantage.

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How to Be a Fierce Competitor: What Winning Companies and Great Managers Do in Tough Times by Jeffrey J. Fox

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Description

ISBN-0470408545

Economic downturns separate the winning companies from the struggling. And as best-selling author shows, tough times also give solid companies, strong managers, and potential rainmakers the opportunity to seize market share.

In this eminently readable, practical resource for business leaders and managers, author explains exactly how the savvy few who rise to the top stay focused and alert, get new market share, hire good recently fired talent, increase investments into customer service, speed innovation, train all customer facing people, make acquisitions, get rid of underperformers, build brand names, pay for measurable performance, and lots more.

Author explores the best practices of fierce competitors and how they gain market share, seize opportunity, and win when the stakes are the highest.

With multiple bulleted lists of key action items, he swiftly covers a wide array of timely topics, including why bad times are actually good times, the benefits of piling up cash in tough times, and being cautious while showing fearlessness.

He also encourages executives to play relevant “what if” games, always have a plan, stay off magazine covers, and be obsessive about execution.

Of particular value are the sections on employee relations, which offer counterintuitive actions that reap big rewards on reserved executive parking spots, unionization, nurturing those hired and acquired, pruning dead wood, and cutting out all bureaucracy.

This concise book will give motivated managers and executives the guidance they need to successfully bring their organizations to the next level.

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Harvard Business Review, June 2010

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Description

Harvard Business Review is the world’s acknowledged authority on business leadership for managers responsible for success in the global economy. Now published monthly times a year, HBR delivers entrepreneurial ideas and insights that help managers strengthen their leadership power.

Every issue shows how to use technology for competitive advantage. Guides strategic decision making in times of change. Profiles innovative leaders. Tells how to motivate today’s workers. Shares the details of successful online alliances, and more.

June 2010 Issue Features:

• The Big Idea: How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution by Daniel J. Isenberg
• Are You a High Potential? by Douglas A. Ready , Jay A. Conger , and Linda A. Hill
• The Coherence Premium by Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi
• Growing Green by Gregory Unruh and Richard Ettenson
• The Globe: The China Rules by Lynn S. Paine
• How I Did It: A Maverick CEO Explains How He Persuaded His Team to Leap into the Future by Vineet Nayar

Spotlight: Spotlight on Strategies for a Changing World

• The Decision-Driven Organization by Marcia W. Blenko , Michael C. Mankins , and Paul Rogers
• The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less by Tony Schwartz
• Change for Change’s Sake by Freek Vermeulen , Phanish Puranam , and Ranjay Gulati

Idea Watch

• From the Editor: “Modesty, Humility, and Humanity” by Adi Ignatius
• Why Dinosaurs Will Keep Ruling the Auto Industry by John Paul MacDuffie and Takahiro Fujimoto
• Debunking Four Myths About Employee Silence by James R. Detert , Ethan R. Burris , and David A. Harrison
• Time for Investors to Get Social by David Teten and Chris Farmer
• Off-Ramps and On-Ramps Revisited by Sylvia Ann Hewlett , Laura Sherbin , and Diana Forster
• What We’re Watching in Cloud Computing
• Defend Your Research: The More People Want Something, the Less They’ll Like It by Uzma Khan
• Vision Statement: Six Ways to Find Value in Twitter’s Noise by Scott Berinato and Jeff Clark
• Column: Why Is It So Hard to Tackle the Obvious? by C.K. Prahalad
• Column: You Are What You Measure by Dan Ariely

Experience

• Managing Yourself: Turn the Job You Have into the Job You Want by Amy Wrzesniewski , Justin M. Berg , and Jane E. Dutton
• Case Study: When the CEO’s Personal Crusade Drives Decisions by Randle D. Raggio
• Recommended: Poverty, Inc.
• Life’s Work: Joe Girardi

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Leaders Talk Leadership: Top Executives Speak Their Minds by Meredith D. Ashby and Stephen A. Miles

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Description

ISBN-0195152832

Leaders Talk Leadership is an impressive collection of interviews with some of the world’s most respected corporate leaders and management scholars.

Edited by Ashby and Miles of the preeminent executive search firm Heidrick and Struggles, this compilation of thought leadership spanning industries and geographies addresses the key issues facing executives today such as governance, leadership and strategy, how to lead in volatile times or through a corporate transformation, how to best leverage human capital, and how to achieve competitive advantage in today’s environment.

Some of the CEOs featured in the book include Ken Chenault of American Express, Steve Reinemund of PepsiCo, Heinrich von Pierer of Siemens, Ken Lewis of Bank of America, Edward Tian of China Netcom, Fred Smith of FedEx, Hank McKinnell of Pfizer, A.G. Lafley of Procter & Gamble, Klaus Zumwinkel of Deutsche Post World Net, William Haseltine of Human Genome Sciences, Linda Sanford of IBM, Larry Weinbach of Unisys, and Michael Dell of Dell Computer.

Framing these cutting-edge concepts are interviews and written essays by preeminent academics, including Jay Conger from London Business School, Jim Collins of Good to Great, Mohanbir Sawhney of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University.

Serving as the line executive’s roadmap to recruiting, retaining, and developing talent, and an encyclopedia for MBA students worldwide, this book represents path-breaking leadership perspectives from path-breaking leaders.

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Strategic Marketing Management, Third Edition: planning, implementation and control by Richard M.S. Wilson and Colin Gilligan

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Description

ISBN-0750659386

Widely known as the most authoritative, successful and influential text in the sector

This third edition of Strategic Marketing Management confirms it as the classic textbook on the subject. Its step- by- step approach provides comprehensive coverage of the five key strategic stages:

• Where are we now? – Strategic and marketing analysis
• Where do we want to be? – Strategic direction and strategy formulation
• How might we get there? – Strategic choice
• Which way is best? – Strategic evaluation
• How can we ensure arrival? – Strategic implementation and control

This new revised and updated third edition has completely new chapters on ‘The Nature and Role of Competitive Advantage’ and ‘The Strategic Management of the Expanded Marketing Mix’, and extensive new material covering:

• The changing role of marketing
• Approaches to analysing marketing capability
• E-marketing
• Branding
• Customer relationship management
• Relationship management myopia
• The decline of loyalty

The book retains the key features that make it essential reading for all those studying the management of marketing – a strong emphasis on implementation, up to date mini cases, and questions and summaries in each chapter to reinforce key points.

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Harvard Business Review on Strategies for Growth

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Description

ISBN-0875848850

Designed to aid managers master specific topics, the books in this series cover a number of aspects of business in the late-20th century. This text deals with strategies for growth.

The Harvard Business Review series is designed to bring today’s managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world.

Here are the landmark ideas that have established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for ambitious business people in organizations around the globe.

The Harvard Business Review on Strategies for Growth presents the latest tactics–including acquisitions, diversification, and innovation–for helping managers find and exploit the best opportunities for growth and profitability.

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The Powell Principles by Oren Harari

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Book Description

ISBN-0071411097

The Powell Principles details the decision-making habits, success strategies, and leadership philosophies of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Filled with insights that are as refreshingly honest as they are grittily real, this concise, no-nonsense book reveals the keys to Powell’s unprecedented success, keys that include:

• Walk the talk
• Be a dis-organizer
• Let change lead growth
• Be prepared to piss people off
• Check your ego at the door
• Push the envelope
• Let situation dictate strategy
• Challenge the pros
• Trust those in the trenches
• Prepare to be lonely

Colin Powell rose from the hardscrabble streets of the Bronx to become the man Newsweek calls “…the most respected figure in American public life.”

Let The Powell Principles introduce you to the principles that drove him to the top and provide you with a blueprint for inspiring anyone–including yourself–to achieve extraordinary levels of professional success.

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How GE is Disrupting Itself by Govindarajan, Trimble, Jeffrey, Vijay, Chris Immelt (HBR Article)

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Abstract

In May 2009, General Electric announced that over the next six years it would spend $3 billion to create at least 100 health-care innovations that would substantially lower costs, increase access, and improve quality.

Two products it highlighted at the time—a $1,000 handheld electrocardiogram device and a portable, PC-based ultrasound machine that sells for as little as $15,000—are revolutionary, and not just because of their small size and low price.

They’re also extraordinary because they originally were developed for markets in emerging economies (the ECG device for rural India and the ultrasound machine for rural China) and are now being sold in the United States, where they’re pioneering new uses for such machines.

We call the process used to develop the two machines and take them global reverse innovation, because it’s the opposite of the glocalization approach that many industrial-goods manufacturers based in rich countries have employed for decades.

With glocalization, companies develop great products at home and then distribute them worldwide, with some adaptations to local conditions.

It allows multinationals to make the optimal trade-off between the global scale so crucial to minimizing costs and the local customization required to maximize market share.

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“A Players” or “A Positions”? The Strategic Logic of Workforce Management by Mark A. Huselid, Richard W. Beatty, and Brian E. Becker (HBR Article)

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Description

Companies simply can’t afford to have “A players” in all positions. Rather, businesses need to adopt a portfolio approach to workforce management, systematically identifying their strategically important A positions, supporting B positions and surplus C positions, then focusing disproportionate resources on making sure A players hold A positions.

This is not as obvious as it may seem, because the three types of positions do not reflect corporate hierarchy, pay scales, or the level of difficulty in filling them.

A positions are those that directly further company strategy and, less obviously, exhibit wide variation in the quality of the work done by the people who occupy them.

Why variability? Because raising the average performance of individuals in these critical roles will pay huge dividends in corporate value. If a company like Nordstrom, for example, whose strategy depends on personalized service, were to improve the performance of its frontline sales associates, it could reap huge revenue benefits.

B positions are those that support A positions or maintain company value. Inattention to them could represent a significant downside risk. (Think how damaging it would be to an airline, for example, if the quality of its pilots were to drop.)

Yet investing in them to the same degree as A positions is ill-advised because B positions don’t offer an upside potential. (Pilots are already highly trained, so channeling resources into improving their performance would probably not create much competitive advantage.)

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How to Write a Great Business Plan by William A.Sahlman (HBR Article)

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Description

Judging by all the hoopla surrounding business plans, you’d think the only things standing between would-be entrepreneurs and spectacular success are glossy five-color charts, bundles of meticulous-looking spreadsheets, and decades of month-by-month financial projections.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, often the more elaborately crafted a business plan, the more likely the venture is to flop.

Why? Most plans waste too much ink on numbers and devote too little to information that really matters to investors. The result? Investors discount them.

In How to Write a Great Business Plan, William A. Sahlman shows how to avoid this all-too-common mistake by ensuring that your plan assesses the factors critical to every new venture:

The people–the individuals launching and leading the venture and outside parties providing key services or important resources

The opportunity–what the business will sell and to whom, and whether the venture can grow and how fast

The context–the regulatory environment, interest rates, demographic trends, and other forces shaping the venture’s fate

Risk and reward–what can go wrong and right, and how the entrepreneurial team will respond

Timely in this age of innovation, How to Write a Great Business Plan helps you give your new venture the best possible chances for success.

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How Venture Capital Works by Bob Zider (HBR Article)

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Description

In this article, Bob Zider, president of the Beta Group, a California-based firm that invests in commercializing new technologies, presents an analysis of present-day venture capitalists and shows why its practitioners have a lot more in common with investment bankers than you might think.

The popular mythology surrounding the U.S. venture-capital industry derives from a previous era. Venture capitalists who nurtured the computer industry in its infancy were legendary both for their risk taking and for their hands-on operating experience.

But today things are different, and separating the myths from the realities is crucial to understanding this important piece of the U.S. economy. Today’s venture capitalists are more like conservative bankers than the risk takers of days past.

They have carved out a specialized niche in the capital markets, filling a void that other institutions cannot serve. They are the linchpins in an efficient system for meeting the needs of institutional investors looking for high returns, of entrepreneurs seeking funding, and of investment bankers looking for companies to sell.

Venture capitalists must earn a consistently superior return on investments in inherently risky businesses. The myth is that they do so by investing in good ideas and good plans. In reality, they invest in good industries–that is, industries that are more competitively forgiving than the market as a whole.

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Read the rest of How Venture Capital Works by Bob Zider (HBR Article)

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