How Cool Brands Stay Hot: Branding to Generation Y


Joeri Van Den Bergh - 2011
    Three times the size of Generation X, they have a much bigger impact on society and business. In How Cool Brands Stay Hot, Joeri Van den Bergh and Mattias Behrer address what drives Generation Y as consumers and how marketers can develop the right brand strategies to reach this generation of 16-33 year olds.The authors' insights on what drives the consumer preferences of this new "Dot-com" generation are based on interviews with 5,000 Generation Y consumers. This new research provides understanding of the consumer psychology and behavior of the generation also known as the "Millennials." It helps marketers connect with the new generation of consumers by understanding their likes and dislikes, and guides them on advertising, marketing, and branding relevant to them.How Cool Brands Stay Hot contains guidance and checklists for marketing plans and campaigns, as well as case studies of Nokia, Nivea, PlayStation, Coca Cola, Volkswagen, Smirnoff, Red Bull, H&M, and Levi's. It offers creative and effective ideas on how to position, develop and promote brands to one of the largest and most influential generations of consumers today.Visit the website at http://www.howcoolbrandsstayhot.com/

Design Crazy: Good Looks, Hot Tempers, and True Genius at Apple


Max Chafkin - 2013
    is one of the most successful—and influential—companies of our time, the transformational innovator that made computers not just personal but beautiful everyday objects. Technology met design, and our culture was altered forever.And yet very little is known about life inside Apple. The company is pathologically secretive—even with its own designers—about how it comes up with its groundbreaking products: iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and the next “insanely great” thing on the horizon. Here, for the first time, the men and women who worked for and alongside Steve Jobs share their remarkable, nearly forty-year-old story. How Apple survived nearly catastrophic failure early on. How Jobs and his team came to understand and execute design like no one else. And how their philosophy ultimately changed the world.This Fast Company/Byliner Original is unlike any other book about Apple. Author Max Chafkin led a team of “Fast Company” reporters that spent months interviewing more than fifty former Apple execs and insiders, many of whom had never spoken publicly about their work. The result is a compelling and deeply revealing oral history of how design evolved at the most creative enterprise of our time, the company that one entrepreneur says “taught the world taste.”In these interviews, former colleagues describe Jobs at his most brilliant and bombastic—hurling unsatisfactory products across the lab and insulting employees, yet also singling out and celebrating craftsmanship and original work. Without a doubt, Jobs is the single most important figure in the company’s history. But overlooked in Apple’s carefully cultivated mythology are the other ingenious men and women who’ve left an indelible mark on Apple, some of whom think they deserve much more of the credit. At Apple, the stakes were big, and so were the egos.“Design Crazy” takes us behind the mystique and reveals Apple to be a deeply misunderstood company. And the greatest business story of the past two decades is far from over. Two years after the death of Steve Jobs, with many of his former colleagues now at startups like Tesla, Evernote, and Nest Labs, some think the end of Apple’s dominance is only a matter of time. The company has risen to the challenge before, but still the question lingers: Can Apple be Apple without Jobs?ABOUT THE AUTHORMax Chafkin is a contributing writer with “Fast Company.” His work has also been published in “Inc.”, “Vanity Fair,” “The New York Times Magazine,” and “The Best Business Writing 2012.” He lives in Brooklyn.

Digital Bank: Strategies to launch or become a digital bank


Chris Skinner - 2013
    Digital Bank not only includes extensive guidance and background on the digital revolution in banking, but also in-depth analysis of the activities of incumbent banks such as Barclays in the UK and mBank in Poland, as well as new start-ups such as Metro Bank and disruptive new models of banking such as FIDOR Bank in Germany. Add on to these a comprehensive sprinkling of completely new models of finance, such as Zopa and Bitcoin, and you can see that this book is a must-have for anyone involved in the future of business, commerce and banking

The Effective Hiring Manager


Mark Horstman - 2019
    The author's step-by-step approach makes the strategies easy to implement and help to ensure ongoing success.Hiring effectively is the single greatest long-term contribution to your organization. The only thing worse than having an open position is filling it with the wrong person. The Effective Hiring Manager offers a proven process for solving these problems and helping teams and organizations thrive.The fundamental principles of hiring and interviewing How to create criteria to hire by How to create excellent interview questions How to review resumes How to conduct phone screens How to structure an interview day How to conduct each interview How to capture interview results How to make an offer How to decline a candidate How to onboard candidates Written by Mark Horstman, co-founder of Manager Tools and an expert in training managers, The Effective Hiring Manager is an A to Z handbook to the successful hiring process. The book explores, in helpful detail, what it takes to hire the right person, for the right job, and the right team.

The Elephant Catchers: Key Lessons for Breakthrough Growth


Subroto Bagchi - 2013
    Those who hunt Rabbits are rarely able to rope in Elephants. Many organizations, even those that may have a brilliant start, falter in their attempts to achieve transformational growth in their later phases. In The Elephant Catchers, Subroto Bagchi distils his years of on-the-ground learning to explore why this happens and what such organizations and their people must do to climb to the next level and beyond. Through a combination of engaging anecdotes from his experiences as co-founder and subsequently Chairman of Mindtree Ltd and insightful stories from our everyday world, Bagchi demonstrates a crucial point: Organizations with real ambition to get to the top need to embrace the idea of scale and then ensure that it systematically pervades every aspect of its functioning. In doing this, he leads you to evaluate: Is your organization's infrastructure designed to evolve and ultimately mimic the simultaneity of a living organism? Are you constantly nurturing and renewing your brand identity or letting it stagnate and decay? Does your sales force have as many hunters as it has farmers or is it dominated by a grizzly who just waits for the salmon to land in its mouth? In a fiercely competitive environment, are you really stepping 'out of the box' and learning from unusual sources? Are leaders in your organization truly building capacity or merely solving problems?Practical advice on real issues, from how to deal with consultants to the question of succession, words of caution on strategy traps and M&A's and invaluable insights into a whole range of growth-related issues - The Elephant Catchers has it all. Engaging, wise and thoroughly accessible, this book is a must-read for everyone in every organization seeking breakout success.

The New Age of Innovation


C.K. Prahalad - 2008
    C.K. Prahalad, the world's premier business thinker, and IT scholar M.S. Krishnan unveil the critical missing link in connecting strategy to execution--building organizational capabilities that allow companies to achieve and sustain continuous change and innovation.The New Age of Innovation reveals that the key to creating value and the future growth of every business depends on accessing a global network of resources to co-create unique experiences with customers, one at a time. To achieve this, CEOs, executives, and managers at every level must transform their business processes, technical systems, and supply chain management, implementing key social and technological infrastructure requirements to create an ongoing innovation advantage.In this landmark work, Prahalad and Krishnan explain how to accomplish this shift--one where IT and the management architecture form the corporation's fundamental foundation. This book provides strategies forRedesigning systems to co-create value with customers and connect all parts of a firm to this processMeasuring individual behavior through smart analyticsCeaselessly improving the flexibility and efficiency in all customer-facing and back-end processesTreating all involved individuals--customers, employees, investors, suppliers--as uniqueWorking across cultures and time-zones in a seamless global networkBuilding teams that are capable of providing high-quality, low-cost solutions rapidlyTo successfully compete on the battlefields of 21st-century business, companies must reinvent their processes and culture in order to sustain innovative solutions. The New Age of Innovation is a complete program for achieving this transformation to meet the needs of the end consumer of the future.

Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job


Emily Bennington - 2010
    As an up-and-coming professional, you’ll learn how to transform yourself from entry-level employee into skilled, invaluable all-star during your first year on the job.Accomplished young professional Emily Bennington and her mentor, seasoned manager Skip Lineberg, empower you to: • Establish yourself as a top performer from day one• Use every task—even grunt work—as an opportunity to shine• Earn the respect of your boss, colleagues, and clients • Cope with conflict, mistakes, and toxic coworkers• Land key assignments and gain greater responsibility • Manage projects and lead teams like a pro Packed with practical advice, useful resources, and wisdom from former newbies, this savvy hand-book gives you the tools, knowledge, and confidence you need to reach your highest potential.

Business Analysis


Debra Paul - 2006
    Business analysts must respond by developing practical, creative and financially sound solutions and this excellent guide gives them the necessary tools. It supports everyone wanting to achieve university and industry qualifications in business analysis and information systems. It is particularly beneficial for those studying for ISEB qualifications in business analysis.

Guerrilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business


Jay Conrad Levinson - 1984
    Based on hundreds of solid ideas that really work, Levinson’s philosophy has given birth to a new way of learning about market share and how to gain it. In this completely updated and expanded fourth edition, Levinson offers a new arsenal of weaponry for small-business success including* strategies for marketing on the Internet (explaining when and precisely how to use it)* tips for using new technology, such as podcasting and automated marketing* programs for targeting prospects and cultivating repeat and referral business* management lessons in the age of telecommuting and freelance employeesGuerrilla Marketing is the entrepreneur’s marketing bible -- and the book every small-business owner should have on his or her shelf.

Opportunity Knocks: The Story of How Hope and Opportunity Can Change Everything


Tim Scott - 2020
    As the son of a single mother from North Charleston, South Carolina, he struggled to get through school and had his dreams of a college football career shattered by a car wreck. But thanks to his mother and a few mentors along the way, he learned that "failure isn't failure unless you quit." He also learned that it's hard work and perseverance, not a government handout, that will get you ahead in life.Today, Senator Scott is the only black Republican in the Senate, and he believes that investment and commerce are the best ways to rebuild our most impoverished communities. This is the idea behind his signature piece of legislation, the "opportunity zones" program, which President Trump has strongly endorsed. The program provides tax incentives for businesses that invest in low-income urban areas, seeking to replace things like welfare and government assistance. In Opportunity Knocks, Senator Scott will tell his life story with a focus on adversity and opportunity. He will teach readers about the principles of hard work and hope while addressing the dangers of veering too far toward socialist policies. The book will also not shy away from discussions of racism and racial inequality in the United States, and will recount some of Senator Scott's own brushes with racism as well as the many discussions he's had with people who want to help, including President Trump.

The Mind of the Strategist: The Art of Japanese Business


Kenichi Ohmae - 1982
    The author does not purport to be inventing strategy in this book or to be revealing the secrets of Japanese business and strategic planning. Rather, he is exploring with the reader the ways in which the strategist must think, the key principles and thought patterns that real-world strategists have used to move their companies forward in Japan and throughout the world. He explores the relationship of the Strategic Triangle formed by the company, the customer, and the competition and shows how these factors must be the basis for all strategic thinking and planning.

Growing Pains: Transitioning from an Entrepreneurship to a Professionally Managed Firm


Eric G. Flamholtz - 1990
    In the fourth edition of Growing Pains, authors Eric Flamholtz and Yvonne Randle have thoroughly revised and updated the book to include new ideas and concepts including information about strategic planning, Sarbanes-Oxley, family businesses, and overcoming growing pains, as well as new examples and cases of companies.