In this thoughtful and elegantly written book, Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu explodes the myths and conventional wisdoms about Africa's quest for economic growth in a globalised world with a paradigm-shift perspective on the continent's future. Masterfully deploying arguments grounded in philosophy, economics and strategy across a & Acirc; range of subjects; from capitalism to transformation agendas, finance to foreign investment, and from innovation and human capital to world trade, he demonstrates persuasively how Africa's progress in the 21st century will require nothing short of the reinvention of the African mind.
The New Corporate Facts of Life: Rethink Your Business to Transform Today's Challenges
Still myopically chasing quarterly profits, producing the same product the same way, issuing directives to increasingly disengaged employees? Too many organizations cling to outdated practices--to their detriment and almost certain demise. In today's unpredictable, interconnected world you cannot rely on the old rules of business to get stellar results. "The New Corporate Facts of Life "charts a clear path through the obstacles facing all companies--disruptive innovation, economic instability, environmental degradation, increasing stakeholder power, and other global forces--explaining exactly how to transform each challenge into competitive advantage. Based on interviews with over 50 top executives and thought leaders, including Coca-Cola Enterprises CEO John Brock, Georgia Tech President G.P. "Bud" Peterson, and author Peter Senge, the book recounts how leading-edge companies have begun re-shaping strategy, culture, vision, engagement, and leadership to succeed in this brave new world. Change is the only constant in business. Packed with inspiring stories and compelling examples, "The New Corporate Facts of Life" offers a bird's-eye view of the shifting landscape and reveals how any organization, large or small, can begin creating a profitable, sustainable future.
Tilt - Shifting Your Strategy From Products To Customers
Shift your strategy downstream.
Why do your customers buy from you rather than from your competitors? If you think the answer is your superior products, think again.
Products are important, of course. For decades, businesses sought competitive advantage almost exclusively in activities related to new product creation. They won by building bigger factories, by finding cheaper raw materials or labor, or by coming up with more efficient ways to move and store inventory & mdash;and by inventing exciting new products that competitors could not replicate.
But these sources of competitive advantage are being irreversibly leveled by globalization and technology. Today, competitors can rapidly decipher and deploy the recipe for your product & rsquo;s secret sauce and use it against you. & ldquo;Upstream, & rdquo; product-related advantages are rapidly eroding.
This does not mean that competitive advantage is a thing of the past. Rather, its center has shifted. As marketing professor Niraj Dawar compellingly argues, advantage is now found & ldquo;downstream, & rdquo; where companies interact with customers in the marketplace.
Tilt will help you grasp the global nature of this downstream shift and its profound implications for your strategy and your organization. With vivid examples from around the world, ranging across industries and sectors, Dawar shows how companies are reorienting their strategies around customer interactions to create and capture unique value. And he demonstrates how, unlike product-related advantage, this value is cumulative, continuously building over time.
In an increasingly customer-centered world marketplace, let Tilt serve as your guide to shifting your strategy downstream & mdash;and achieving enduring competitive advantage.
Sonic Boom: A Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the New Global Economy
What can a spell-checker tell you about economic trends? Why is the world & rsquo;s supply of ideas about to double? What did America get right in the nineteenth century that it & rsquo;s getting wrong in the twenty-first? If Karl Marx were alive today, would he be hosting a show on Fox News?These are just a few of the provocative questions asked by Sonic Boom, a (mainly) optimistic look at the near future. Sonic Boom tells why the world & rsquo;s economy is likely to be just fine, with prosperity increasing; why globalization will soon drive us even crazier than it does today; why & ldquo;a chaotic, raucous, unpredictable, stress-inducing, free, prosperous, well-informed, and smart future is coming. & rdquo; The book is rich with specific examples and advice on how to navigate your own way through the craziness that & rsquo;s ahead. Forbes calls Gregg Easterbrook & ldquo;the best writer on complex topics in the United States, & rdquo; and Sonic Boom will show you why.
Logistics & Supply Chain Management - 4th Edition - Financial Times Series
Effective development and management of a supply chain network is an invaluable source of sustainable advantage in today & rsquo;s turbulent global marketplace, where demand is difficult to predict and supply chains need to be more flexible as a result.
This updated 4th edition of the bestselling Logistics and Supply Chain Management is a clear-headed guide to all the key topics in an integrated approach to supply chains, including:
& bull; The link between logistics and customer value.
& bull; Logistics and the bottom line measuring costs and performance.
& bull; Creating a responsive supply chain.
& bull; Managing the global pipeline.
& bull; Managing supply chain relationships.
& bull; Managing risk in the supply chain.
& bull; Matching supply and demand.
& bull; Creating a sustainable supply chain.
& bull; Product design in the supply chain.
A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. For millions of years, humans have been seeking out tribes, be they religious, ethnic, economic, political, or even musical (think of the Deadheads). It's our nature.Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost, and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get bigger. But more important, they're enabling countless new tribes to be born & mdash;groups of ten or ten thousand or ten million who care about their iPhones, or a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming.
And so the key question: Who is going to lead us?The Web can do amazing things, but it can't provide leadership. That still has to come from individuals & mdash;people just like you who have passion about something. The explosion in tribes means that anyone who wants to make a difference now has the tools at her fingertips.
If you think leadership is for other people, think again & mdash;leaders come in surprising packages. Consider Joel Spolsky and his international tribe of scary-smart software engineers. Or Gary Vaynerhuck, a wine expert with a devoted following of enthusiasts. Chris Sharma leads a tribe of rock climbers up impossible cliff faces, while Mich Mathews, a VP at Microsoft, runs her internal tribe of marketers from her cube in Seattle. All they have in common is the desire to change things, the ability to connect a tribe, and the willingness to lead.
If you ignore this opportunity, you risk turning into a "sheepwalker" & mdash;someone who fights to protect the status quo at all costs, never asking if obedience is doing you (or your organization) any good. Sheepwalkers don't do very well these days.
Tribes will make you think (really think) about the opportunities in leading your fellow employees, customers, investors, believers, hobbyists, or readers. . . . It's not easy, but it's easier than you think.
Scaling Up Excellence - Getting To More Without Settling For Less
Amazon Best Books of the Year list, Business & Investing Inc.com 10 Best Business Books of 2014Financial Times - The Pick of 2014's Management BooksThe Globe & Mail & rsquo;s list of 5 Best Business Books in 2014Library Journal & rsquo;s list of 5 Best Business Books in 2014
In Scaling Up Excellence, bestselling author Robert Sutton and Stanford colleague Huggy Rao tackle a challenge that determines every organization & rsquo;s success: scaling up farther, faster, and more effectively as a program or an organization creates a larger footprint. Sutton and Rao have devoted much of the last decade to uncovering what it takes to build and uncover pockets of exemplary performance, to help spread them, and to keep recharging organizations with ever better work practices. Drawing on inside accounts and case studies and academic research from a wealth of industries & ndash; including start-ups, pharmaceuticals, airlines, retail, financial services, high-tech, education, non-profits, government, and healthcare -- Sutton and Rao identify the key scaling challenges that confront every organization. They tackle the difficult trade-offs that organizations must make between & ldquo;Buddhism & rdquo; versus & ldquo;Catholicism & rdquo; -- whether to encourage individualized approaches tailored to local needs or to replicate the same practices and customs as an organization or program expands. They reveal how the best leaders and teams develop, spread, and instill the right mindsets in their people -- rather than ruining or watering down the very things that have fueled successful growth in the past. They unpack the principles that help to cascade excellence throughout an organization, as well as show how to eliminate destructive beliefs and behaviors that will hold them back.
Scaling Up Excellence is the first major business book devoted to this universal and vexing challenge. It is destined to become the standard bearer in the field.
Business Process Outsourcing: The Competitive Advantage
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is becoming the new revolution as company's of all sizes are seeking to take advantage of this source of competitive advantage.This book provides a step-by-step approach to understanding the application of Business Process Outsourcing, assessing the BPO opportunity in the company, and then managing the transition to BPO. It serves as a guide to implementing BPO and as a reference source to solving the variety of issues that may arise during a BPO initiative. Each chapter features a case study, insight from a practitioner, focus on how BPO affects people, and ethical considerations.* Discusses both the how and why of business process outsourcing with a straightforward "how to" approach.* Provides managers with the tools to analyse the BPO opportunities for their own firms, as well as techniques and strategies for managing a BPO initiative.* Empowers businesses of all sizes to take advantage of this all-encompassing business revolution.
With acquisition activity running into the trillions of dollars, the acquisition alternative continues to be the favorite corporate growth strategy of this generation's executives. Unfortunately, creating shareholder value remains the most elusive outcome of these corporate strategies. After decades of research and billions of dollars paid in advisory fees, why do these major decisions continue to destroy value?Building on his groundbreaking research first cited in Business Week, Mark L. Sirower explains how companies often pay too much -- and predictably never realize the promises of increased performance and competitiveness -- in their quest to acquire other companies. Armed with extensive evidence, Sirower destroys the popular notion that the acquisition premium represents potential value. He provides the first formal and functional definition for synergy -- the specific increases in performance beyond those already expected for companies to achieve independently. Sirower's refreshing nuts-and-bolts analysis of the fundamentals behind acquisition performance cuts sharply through the existing folklore surrounding failed acquisitions, such as lack of "strategic fit" or corporate culture problems, and gives managers the tools to avoid predictable losses in acquisition decisions.Using several detailed examples of recent major acquisitions and through his masterful integration and extension of techniques from finance and business strategy, Sirower reveals:
The unique business gamble that acquisitions represent
The managerial challenges already embedded in current stock prices
The competitive conditions that must be met and the organizational cornerstones that must be in place for any possibility of synergy
The precise Required Performance Improvements (RPIs) implicitly embedded in acquisition premiums and the reasons why these RPIs normally dwarf realistic performance gains
The seductiveness and danger of sophisticated valuation models so often used by advisers
The Synergy Trap is the first expos & eacute; of its kind to prove that the tendency of managers to succumb to the "up the ante" philosophy in acquisitions often leads to disastrous ends for their shareholders. Sirower shows that companies must meticulously plan -- and account for huge uncertainties -- before deciding to enter the acquisition game. To date, Sirower's work is the most comprehensive and rigorous, yet practical, analysis of the drivers of acquisition performance. This definitive book will become required reading for managers, corporate directors, consultants, investors, bankers, and academics involved in the mergers and acquisitions arena.
