Corporate Communication: Tactical Guidelines for Strategic Practice

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The chief communication officer at a Fortune 500, multi-national corporation today faces the challenges of a rapidly changing global economy, a revolution in communication channels fueled by the Internet, and a substantially transformed understanding of what a 21st century corporation stands for. This book investigates these forces and the specific communication challenges that they pose for the global corporation.The chief communication officer at a Fortune 500, multi-national corporation today faces the challenges of a rapidly changing global economy, a revolution in communication channels fueled by the Internet, and a substantially transformed understanding of what a 21st century corporation stands for. This book investigates these forces and the specific communication challenges that they pose for the global corporation. Examining these forces and how they are interrelated should offer insights and strategies for students of the corporate communication discipline and business leaders to help them deploy effective communication as a strategic business asset in the contemporary global economy. This book focuses on the process of communication in a corporate context; and explores, analyzes, integrates, and applies the theory, practice, and functions of corporate communication. The combination of a theoretical framework for understanding how these forces influence corporate communication with practical guidelines for effective communication within this framework will also be of value to practitioners as well as students of the communication discipline. Designed for the professional whose position requires the creation and management of an organization’s communications, this book applies strategic approaches to tactical written and oral communication, and includes a particular emphasis on problem solving and analytical techniques appropriate to global corporate environments. Essential to effective communication in corporate and organizational environments is the ability to understand and apply the concepts of corporate communication as strategic management functions.

Communication Strategies for Today’s Managerial Leader

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Given that communication is the lifeblood of an organization, managerial leaders need to understand how to use communication strategies to build their teams to achieve organizational objectives. Studies repeatedly point to the impact communication skills have on the ability of managerial leaders to succeed or fail. Too often individuals move into managerial leadership roles without awareness of the need to improve their communication skills. These individuals may be subject matter experts whose technical skills allowed them to succeed as individual team members, but when placed in managerial leadership roles, they fail because they lacked the relationship building skills needed to foster teamwork. Therefore, this book provides the communication principles that are so critical for today’s managerial leader. It builds a solid foundation while it guides readers in strategies to enhance their written, oral, and interpersonal communication skills. Most research has stated, and the author has found true in her own managerial leadership roles, a leader spends the majority of his or her day interacting with others. As managerial leaders, individuals face many challenging situations such as determining how to inspire a shared vision about goals and objectives, building trust within their unit, listening with an open mind, giving feedback, and encouraging collaboration, to name a few. The focus switches for the managerial leader from doing things to leading others. Therefore, this book is for anyone who currently serves as a managerial leader or for anyone who desires to manage and lead others. Most managerial communication books focus on the important written and oral communication skills. While the author believes these skills are critically important, she found in her role, as a managerial leader, she devoted the majority of her time to interpersonal communication. Leaders need to build teams and to maintain relationships with all stakeholders. The best way to make that happen is through skills such as listening, asking questions, and giving feedback. Therefore, this book includes an emphasis on interpersonal communication. As Chris M. Martin stated in a recent article, ‘The ability to communicate effectively may be the number one management quality.’ Therefore, this book will raise awareness relative to oral, written, and interpersonal communication skills so that individuals can become better managerial leaders.

Pricing Segmentation and Analytics

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Pricing analytics uses historical sales data with mathematical optimization to set and update prices offered through various channels in order to maximize profit. A familiar example is the passenger airline industry, where a carrier may sell seats on the same flight at many different prices. Pricing analytics practices have transformed the transportation and hospitality industries, and are increasingly important in industries as diverse as retail, telecommunications, banking, health care and manufacturing.Pricing analytics uses historical sales data with mathematical optimization to set and update prices offered through various channels in order to maximize profit. With this outstanding contribution to this subject, you will learn just how to identify and exploit pricing opportunities in different business contexts. Each chapter looks at pricing from an economist’s viewpoint beginning with the basic concept of pricing analytics and what type of data are needed to use this powerful science; the common assumptions regarding the customer population’s willingness- to-pay are discussed along with the price-response functions that result from these assumptions; examples from several industries and organizations; dynamic pricing, with a special emphasis on the most common application–markdown pricing; the new field of customized pricing analytics, where a firm responds to a request-for-bids or request-for-proposals with a customized price response; and the relevant aspects of behavioral science to pricing. Additional examples include the asymmetry of joy/pain that customers feel in response to price decreases/increases.

Setting Performance Targets

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Clearly, even in archery, hitting the target is more than just will and effort but rather judgment, ability and the likelihood of hitting the target under environmental conditions. This book discusses not only the science but also the art of target setting.
Targets are an important part of our work life, whether we are setting them or meeting them. Target setting forms part of the budgeting process and the performance management of business units and individuals. Unfortunately the behavioral impacts of target setting on performance are not well understood, and this can lead to serious consequences such as game playing. Target setting is an under-researched area. This book will help you fill the gap in target setting for performance. The pivotal issue in target setting is that it is an art as well as a science. Perhaps more of an art, requiring a balance between the psychologies of the people taking initiatives, the science of estimating probabilities and aligning with strategies, coupled with the effects of incentives. Another feature of this book is how the authors drew on ideas and research across disciplines, which is rarely done in this field. Inside this book, you will be introduced to some of the important methods in target setting such as forecasting, sensitivity analysis, and probability analysis; all of which include practical examples to show how these techniques can be directly applied. In the end, you’ll learn how interrelated the various parts of organizational activities are and how they impact on each other, which is important since target setting must include an understanding of the organizational context (e.g., people, competitive environment, structure, strategy) as well as the impact of incentive compensation and information flows.

Trade Promotion Strategies: Best Practices

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New opportunities are emerging constantly, as part of the globalization process creating new markets, with new players and challenging current business practices. Creating or exploiting opportunities on an individual basis is not the best practice: it is much more productive (and much less risky) to participate in national Trade Promotion Programs designed and implemented with government assistance. In recent years, Trade Promotion Institutions have developed national strategies and new tools to support the business sector, helping enterprises to find new markets and trade opportunities.New opportunities are emerging constantly, as part of the globalization process creating new markets, with new players and challenging current business practices. Creating or exploiting opportunities on an individual basis is not the best practice: it is much more productive (and much less risky) to participate in national Trade Promotion Programs designed and implemented with government assistance. In recent years, Trade Promotion Institutions have developed national strategies and new tools to support the business sector, helping enterprises to find new markets and trade opportunities. What are these national strategies, how are they designed and implemented? Special attention is given to evaluation tools created to assess results and provide justification for investment expenditures. Best practices will be considered and reviewed on the basis of selected countries having introduced innovative national trade promotion programs, such as Finland, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand and Singapore.

The Strategic Management of Higher Education Institutions:Serving Students as Customers for Institutional Growth

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If you are a professional interested in reorganizing or restructuring your higher education or postsecondary institutions, youll need this book. Inside, the author smartly examines the needs of learners in the 21st century, the rise of for-profit highereducation institutions, and the technological innovations impacting postsecondary education. Kazeroony provides examples of administrative processes and how to satisfy regulatory agencies standards to take advantage of a particular marketing niche for attracting students. He addresses the changing environment of higher education, the administrative structure, challenges, and the requirements for successful execution of start-up operations or changing strategies for existing institutions, as well as provides a summary of findings and additional recommendations.

Conversations About Job Performance: A Communication Perspective on the Appraisal Process

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Organizational appraisals systems are often ineffective and result in unnecessary spending on the part of a company and unnecessary anxiety on the part of employees. Written for practitioners and advanced students, this book presents an alternative approach to the performance appraisal process that focuses on communication rather than evaluation. In this communication-centered approach to performance, the appraisal process is designed to facilitate meaningful and open interaction between employees and their supervisors.

Global Supply Chain Management

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Thanks to the development of internet- and network-based information and communication systems, virtually every product and service produced today has a supply chain that extends around the globe. For the last twenty-five years, companies such as Wal-Mart, Dell, and Toyota have enjoyed strong competitive advantages in their respective markets as a result of their world-class supply chains. As the supply chain increasingly lengthens, managers at all levels of the organization must understand the unique challenges of working with suppliers and customers located around the world–and the opportunities that can build new competitive advantages. This book will introduce readers at all levels of experience to cutting-edge methods and strategies for global sourcing and global distribution through the discussion of current research and case study vignettes from companies in every corner of the world.

Working with Economic Indicators: Interpretation and Sources

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Read the full review from Choice Magazine Editors who ‘recommend’ this book in the June issue! Executives and managers hear or read headlines about recent economic data nearly every business day. Most important economic statistics are the products of programs designed to collect and analyze data to report summary results at regular intervals. Properly interpreted, these economic indicators provide useful barometers for different aspects of the economy and identify trends that aid better planning decisions. Economic indicators are available at the national level, state level, and even the regional and municipal level. This text focuses on economic indicators for the overall U.S. economy, identifying major categories of economic indicators and describing the key indicators in each of the categories. The text will also provide guidance for interpreting indicators expressed in terms of an index (which reports values as percentage of a base period value) or in real dollar values (which remove the impact of inflation.) Most key economic indicators are reported promptly on the World Wide Web and provided as formatted time series that can be readily downloaded and analyzed. The text will include links to the sources for key economic indicators as well as websites that maintain calendars of upcoming announcements and consensus forecasts of the indicators shortly prior to a formal announcement. This book is a companion to two other Business Expert Press by the authors that address managerial economics and time series data/forecasting. Together these books will equip the manager and the student with a solid understanding of economic indicators and how to analyze them.