Book picks similar to
Contemporary Strategy Analysis by Robert M. Grant
business
strategy
management
non-fiction
HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations
Nancy Duarte - 2010
TAKE THE PAIN OUT OF PRESENTATIONS.Terrified of speaking in front of a group? Or simply looking to polish your skills? No matter where you are on the spectrum, this guide will give you the confidence and the tools you need to get results.Written by presentation expert Nancy Duarte, the
HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations
will help you:• Win over tough crowds• Organize a coherent narrative• Create powerful messages and visuals• Connect with and engage your audience• Show people why your ideas matter to them• Strike the right tone, in any situation
The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers
Gillian Tett - 2014
This organizational structure results in both limited information and restricted thinking. The Silo Effect asks these basic questions: why do humans working in modern institutions collectively act in ways that sometimes seem stupid? Why do normally clever people fail to see risks and opportunities that later seem blindingly obvious? Why, as psychologist Daniel Kahneman put it, are we sometimes so “blind to our own blindness”?Gillian Tett, journalist and senior editor for the Financial Times, answers these questions by plumbing her background as an anthropologist and her experience reporting on the financial crisis in 2008. In The Silo Effect, she shares eight different tales of the silo syndrome, spanning Bloomberg’s City Hall in New York, the Bank of England in London, Cleveland Clinic hospital in Ohio, UBS bank in Switzerland, Facebook in San Francisco, Sony in Tokyo, the BlueMountain hedge fund, and the Chicago police. Some of these narratives illustrate how foolishly people can behave when they are mastered by silos. Others, however, show how institutions and individuals can master their silos instead. These are stories of failure and success.From ideas about how to organize office spaces and lead teams of people with disparate expertise, Tett lays bare the silo effect and explains how people organize themselves, interact with each other, and imagine the world can take hold of an organization and lead from institutional blindness to 20/20 vision.
The Norton Anthology of Poetry
Margaret Ferguson - 1970
The anthology offers more poetry by women (40 new poets), with special attention to early women poets. The book also includes a greater diversity of American poetry, with double the number of poems by African American, Hispanic, native American and Asian American poets. There are 26 new poets representing the Commonwealth literature tradition: now included are more than 37 poets from Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Caribbean, South Africa and India.
Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms
Jeffrey Bussgang - 2010
To do that, you need to woo, impress, and persuade venture capitalists to back your endeavor. That task alone is a challenge. But finding and choosing the right investor can be harder still. Even if you manage to get backing, you want your VC to be a partner, not some dictator who will undermine your vision and take control of your life's work. Jeffrey Bussgang is one of a very few people who have played on both sides of this high-stakes game. By his early thirties, he had helped build two successful start-ups-one went public, the other was acquired. Now he uses his experience and unique perspective on "the other side" as a venture capitalist helping entrepreneurs bring their dreams to fruition. In the book, Bussgang offers high-level insights, colorful stories, and practical advice gathered from his own experience as well as from interviews with dozens of the most successful players on both sides of the game, including Twitter's Jack Dorsey and LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman. He reveals how to get noticed, perfect a pitch, and negotiate a partnership that works for everyone. An insider's guide to the secrets of the world venture capital, Mastering the VC Game will prove invaluable for entrepreneurs seeking capital and successful partnerships.
The End of Competitive Advantage: How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Business
Rita Gunther McGrath - 2013
Dramatic changes in business have unearthed a major gap between traditional approaches to strategy and the way the real world works now.In short, strategy is stuck. Most leaders are using frameworks that were designed for a different era of business and based on a single dominant idea—that the purpose of strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Once the premise on which all strategies were built, this idea is increasingly irrelevant.Now, Columbia Business School professor and globally recognized strategy expert Rita Gunther McGrath argues that it’s time to go beyond the very concept of sustainable competitive advantage. Instead, organizations need to forge a new path to winning: capturing opportunities fast, exploiting them decisively, and moving on even before they are exhausted. She shows how to do this with a new set of practices based on the notion of transient competitive advantage.This book serves as a new playbook for strategy, one based on updated assumptions about how the world works, and shows how some of the world’s most successful companies use this method to compete and win today.Filled with compelling examples from “growth outlier” firms such as Fujifilm, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Infosys, Yahoo! Japan, and Atmos Energy, The End of Competitive Advantage is your guide to renewed success and profitable growth in an economy increasingly defined by transient advantage.
Ultimate Sales Machine
Chet Holmes - 2007
And his advice starts with one simple concept: focus! Instead of trying to master four thousand strategies to improve your business, zero in on the few essential skill areas that make the big difference. Too many managers jump at every new trend, but don’t stick with any of them. Instead, says Holmes, focus on twelve critical areas of improvement—one at a time—and practice them over and over with pigheaded discipline. The Ultimate Sales Machine shows you how to tune up and soup up virtually every part of your business by spending just an hour per week on each impact area you want to improve. Like a tennis player who hits nothing but backhands for a few hours a week to perfect his game, you can systematically improve each key area. Holmes offers proven strategies for: • Management: Teach your people how to work smarter, not harder • Marketing: Get more bang from your Web site, advertising, trade shows, and public relations • Sales: Perfect every sales interaction by working on sales, not just in sales The Ultimate Sales Machine will put you and your company on a path to success and help you stay there!
What I Didn't Learn in Business School: How Strategy Works in the Real World
Jay B. Barney - 2010
He's a new MBA graduate who's landed a job with a strategy consultancy. His engagement team is on a mission: help HGS Inc., a specialty chemicals firm, define and execute a strategy for exploiting a textile technology the company developed.Justin and his team deploy state-of-the-art strategy tools to analyze the attractiveness of potential markets for the technology. But they soon realize the tools don't help them grapple with the human side of strategy--including political forces swirling within HGS. Everyone involved in the engagement is biased and insecure, brilliant and hardworking, selfish and lazy, loyal and dedicated.Justin and his cohorts aren't "real"--What I Didn't Learn in Business School is a business novel. But they're realistic: they're just like us. Their story reveals the limitations of strategy tools and demonstrates tactics for navigating the messy, human dynamics that can make or break a company's strategy efforts.This engaging book uses the power of story to present potent lessons for anyone seeking to excel at strategy management. It's a compelling read--whether you're an MBA grad struggling to apply what you learned or in the fray and eager to see what MBAs get wrong when they land in the real world.
Jugaad Innovation: A Frugal and Flexible Approach to Innovation for the 21st Century
Navi Radjou - 2012
Whether to find ingenious solutions to problems or turn adversity into opportunity—Indians swear by it. In this seminal book, Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu, and Simone Ahuja challenge the very way a traditional organization thinks and acts. Leading companies such as Facebook, Future Group, GE, Google, PepsiCo, Philips, Renault-Nissan, Siemens, Suzlon, Tata Group, and YES BANK, among others, are already practising jugaad to generate original ideas and pioneer growth. In the midst of rising global competition and swelling R&D budgets, Jugaad Innovation presents ways to innovate, be flexible, and do more with less. Peppered with examples of innovative entrepreneurs in emerging markets such as Africa, India, China, and Brazil, Jugaad Innovation illuminates paths to engender breakthrough growth in a complex and resource-scarce world.
M: Marketing
Dhruv Grewal - 2007
This course is usually the first course taught at the undergraduate level. Marketers understand that even the best products and services will go unsold if they cannot communicate the value to the customer. Understanding this value-based approach is critical for marketing students today, and is at the forefront of this text, setting it apart. This approach is emphasized throughout the text, and demonstrated through the use of the Adding Value boxes found in each chapter. Presents a concise, impactful, and easy to read approach to Principles of Marketing. The text delivers value to both instructor and student through the engaging style and online assignment and assessment options. With monthly updates provided in a newsletter and the dynamic video program, the instructor support provided will bring marketing to life in any class setting.
International Economics: Theory and Policy
Paul Krugman - 1988
and around the world. International Economics: Theory and Policy is a proven approach in which each half of the book leads with an intuitive introduction to theory and follows with self-contained chapters to cover key policy applications. The Eighth Edition integrates the latest research, data, and policy in hot topics such as outsourcing, economic geography, trade and environment, financial derivatives, the subprime crisis, and China's exchange rate policies.
Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach
Hal R. Varian - 1987
The Seventh Edition has been carefully updated and revised, adding a wealth of new applications and examples that analyze the important lessons offered by eBay, Google, Verizon, IBM, Microsoft, Bank of America, drug companies, the Yellow Pages, and more.
Sony Vs Samsung: The Inside Story of the Electronics Giants' Battle for Global Supremacy
Sea-Jin Chang - 2008
Samsung is business history at its best! It explores the divergent fortunes of these two electronics giants in the last decade and identifies the true reasons behind Sony's decline and Samsung's rise. Contrary to popular belief, Chang shows that success (or failure) does not simply arise from different strategies. Rather, it emerges from major decisions that are deeply rooted in the companies' organizational processes and their executives' political behavior. This book is a must-read for any senior executive. --Constantinos Markides, Robert P. Bauman Professor of Strategic Leadership and Chairman, Strategy Department, London Business School Sea-Jin Chang has produced that rarity in a business book--one that is as valuable to practicing managers as it is insightful to academic researchers. In this fascinating comparison of two modern global giants, he applies his high resolution research microscope to their changing fortunes by dissecting their contrasting strategies, and providing interesting insights into their divergent organizational processes and management practices. This is a very valuable contribution to the international business literature. It will end up in as many corporate boardrooms as faculty seminars. --Christopher A. Bartlett, Thomas D. Casserly Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School Sea-Jin Chang has written a fascinating comparison of Sony and Samsung that will be valuable to anyone interested in strategy, organizations or international business. The interwoven and very detailed case studies of two very different companies in overlapping industries illuminate problems such as adaptation to technological change (analog to digital), organizational flexibility and globalization. His attempt to analyze both strategic development and implementation is successful and very useful. Both academics and practitioners will learn a lot from this book. --Stephen J. Kobrin, William Wurster Professor of Multinational Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Refreshingly original and entertaining, this book analyzes major strategic decisions of Samsung and Sony and highlights organizational processes and top management leadership that have shaped their performances. This is a must-read for all executives who want to understand the strengths and weaknesses of Asian competitors. It also provides penetrating insights to other Asian companies with global ambitions. --Myoung Woo Lee, President and CEO, iriver
Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters
Ryan Singer - 2019
"This book is a guide to how we do product development at Basecamp. It’s also a toolbox full of techniques that you can apply in your own way to your own process.Whether you’re a founder, CTO, product manager, designer, or developer, you’re probably here because of some common challenges that all software companies have to face."
Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure-Proofing Your Project
Tom Kendrick - 2003
Important projects tend to be time constrained, pose huge technical challenges, and suffer from a lack of adequate resources. It's no wonder that project managers are increasingly focusing their attention on risk identification.Identifying and Managing Project Risk is a practical guide to minimizing the possibility of failure in critical projects. The book takes readers step by step through every phase of a project, showing them how to consider the possible risks involved at every point in the process. Relevant figures and diagrams support the text and illustrate key scenarios. At the end of each chapter is an analysis of how the principles just discussed applied to a supreme example of what many once considered a truly impossible project: the building of the Panama Canal.Packed with real-world information, this book is essential reading for any project manager seeking to complete projects smoothly and successfully."
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
Andy Hunt - 1999
It covers topics ranging from personal responsibility and career development to architectural techniques for keeping your code flexible and easy to adapt and reuse. Read this book, and you'll learn how toFight software rot; Avoid the trap of duplicating knowledge; Write flexible, dynamic, and adaptable code; Avoid programming by coincidence; Bullet-proof your code with contracts, assertions, and exceptions; Capture real requirements; Test ruthlessly and effectively; Delight your users; Build teams of pragmatic programmers; and Make your developments more precise with automation. Written as a series of self-contained sections and filled with entertaining anecdotes, thoughtful examples, and interesting analogies,
The Pragmatic Programmer
illustrates the best practices and major pitfalls of many different aspects of software development. Whether you're a new coder, an experienced programmer, or a manager responsible for software projects, use these lessons daily, and you'll quickly see improvements in personal productivity, accuracy, and job satisfaction. You'll learn skills and develop habits and attitudes that form the foundation for long-term success in your career. You'll become a Pragmatic Programmer.