This book will focus on the up-front activities required for product and service differentiation, the learning methodologies that contribute to arriving at that differentiation, and the role that technology plays in implementing the process. The book will show how technology factors into such entrepreneurial activities as engaging in business planning and utilizing creativity and innovation, and how creative innovation, in turn, is achieved and enhanced through an understanding of two different modes of learning: ‘learning about’ and ‘learning by doing’. A successful product introduction depends on an efficient supply chain, a strong brand, and the ability of a manufacturer or provider to differentiate it successfully in the marketplace. New Product and Services Development demonstrates how differentiation, this last critical component, can be secured by the strategic use of technology and by engaging in two key learning methodologies.
Family businesses are a breed unto themselves. Though they share many features in common with other business models, they possess unique traits that clearly differentiate them. Similarly, though consultation to family buisnesses is in many respects what other businesses experience when seeking assistance, those features that set family business consultation apart are so distinctive that failure to honor and understand them can (and does) too often lead to disaster. The needs of those family members seeking consultation share a portrait in some ways similar to those in non-FOBs, but in a majority of situations are so distinctive and potentially explosive that disaster lurks on the edges, ready to appear if not respected. The audience of this book are both consultants to family businesses and family members who are looking for such assistance. Both require knowledge of each other’s spheres of experience and perspective for effective consultation to occur – for the consultant, an awareness of family dynamics as intertwined with family business; for family members, a clarification of what can be expected and delivered. In addition to the interface between family dynamics and the family’s business, we will explore the key tasks in family business consultation: succession planning, selection of the successor, conflict resolution, defining the role of family members in the business, how to involve the management team in succession planning, determining what happens after succession and building a board of advisors.
The purpose of this book is to trace the history of globalization and its impact on supply chain management and to look at the problems and some of the solutions facing global supply chains in the current era. The current challenge is surviving the challenge of global competition. Good supply chain management can be a valuable tool in winning this competition.
Every company must continually wrestle with the problem of deciding the right quantity and mix of products or services that it should produce as well as when and where to produce them. The problem is challenging because the decision must be made with uncertain and conflicting information about future demand, available production capacity, and sources of supply. The decision is in fact a highly complex balancing act, involving tradeoffs along many dimensions – for example, inventory targets vs. customer service levels, older products vs. newer ones, direct customers vs. channel partners – and requiring the compromise of constituents – sales, marketing, operations, procurement, product development, finance, as well as suppliers and customers – with varied objectives. The ability of a company to nimbly navigate this decision process without giving too much influence to any of the parties involved largely determines how well the company can respond to changing market conditions and ultimately whether the company will continue to thrive. This book focuses on the complex challenges of supply chain planning – the set of business processes that companies use for planning to meet future demand. Supply chain planning comprises a variety of planning processes within an organization: demand planning, sales & operations planning, inventory planning, promotion planning, supply planning, production planning, distribution planning, and capacity planning. Of course, not all companies engage in all of these planning activities and they may refer to these activities by other names but they all struggle with the on-going effort of matching demand with supply. Many textbooks address supply chain planning problems and present mathematical tools and methods for solving certain classes of problems. This book is intended to complement these texts by focusing not on the mathematical models but on the problems that arise in practice that either these models do not adequately address or that make applying the models difficult or impossible. The book is not intended to provide pat solutions to these problems, but more to highlight the complexities and subtleties involved and describe ways to overcome practical issues that have worked for some companies.
Growth and competitive advantage are about effective positioning. Building effective positioning is challenging today for firms facing new and stronger competition, volatile and uncertain markets, and shifting customer desires and demands. The 3-Circle Model facilitates speed of understanding and action by focusing attention on the most critical strategy concepts in this uncertain environment. Growth strategy emerges in the model from systematically addressing four key strategy directives in a deep and disciplined way: define, build, and defend the unique value you create for customers; correct, eliminate, or reveal value that is failing customers or of which they’re not aware; potentially neutralize the unique value created for customers by competitors; explore and exploit new growth opportunities through deep understanding of customers’ unmet needs.
This book is based upon detailed research on the behavior and skills of successful negotiators. From this research, the book extracts Five Golden Rules along with simple tools and techniques which, if applied, guarantee a successful negotiation outcome. The book itself is based upon a fictional buyer- salesperson relationship. The book starts with the two protagonists meeting over lunch on the day the Buyer is due to retire. They begin to discuss their business relationship over the years and the book uses different episodes/meetings during that time to bring out the above Golden Rules and other negotiation concepts. The book provides simple tools to help apply the Golden Rules and each chapter concludes with a summary of the key points and questions to be considered.
The book highlights research undertaken by marketers, social researchers and anthropologists who have an interest in this field. Anti consumption is of relevance to practitioners and academics as it is important to understand consumer trends and values. The book has a particular relevance to professionals employed in marketing, retail and associated industries, who need to consider anti consumption as an influence on their target markets. The study of anti consumption can be seen as the ‘flip side’ to marketing which aims to understand promotion of consumption.
This book provides an overview of the organizational mechanisms of TMT impact. When having finished this book, readers will know how a TMT exerts influence and have more insight in how to make TMTs more effective in their organizations. Insight into the ways in which TMTs influence their organizations can benefit practicing top managers, as well as non-executive directors, consultants, team coaches etc. It may help them in establishing early indicators of organizational performance, selecting new TMT members, diagnosing dysfunctional TMT behavior, and assessing the TMT’s interaction with middle managers. Therefore, I expect this book to be interesting for a wide audience of practitioners and researchers.
“Want to generate more profits? Applying the 80/20 rule, Top Market Strategy lays out an easy-to-follow, research-based way to increase your profits.” —Ken Bernhardt, Taylor E. Little Professor of Marketing, Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University Virtually every business seeks to increase its profit from customers, but few business executives realize that a universal principle governs their customer profitability. They may be applying the 80/20 rule to sales, quality control, investing, production, or other business functions without realizing that the 80:20 ratio actually summarizes the Pareto distribution of inputs to outputs. According to his equilibrium theory of relationships, stability is reached when inputs in the top 20% generate 80% of the outputs while inputs in the bottom 80% generate 20% of the outputs. Recently mathematicians confirmed that the Pareto distribution is as universal as the normal “bell-shaped” distribution, but is log linear and predicts results, rather than probabilities. Applying this universal principle to customer profitability, a typical business can predict that customers in the top 20% generate 80% of customer profitability (four times more profit than expected), whereas customers in the bottom 80% generate only 20% (one-fourth as much as expected). This means the 20% most profitable customers tend to be 16 times more profitable than the 80% least profitable customers. In order to capitalize on the Pareto principle, a business should 1. segment its customers by their profitability, 2. distinguish the top 20% of its customers in top market segment from the bottom 80% of the customers in the bottom market segment, and 3. target the top market segment with its marketing strategies. The purpose of this book is to show business students and executives how to implement this process and thereby achieve the predicted results.
This book will walk you through the five ingredients of transformation: The subject of organizational change is receiving increasing attention. Whether it is re-inventing government, re-engineering corporations, or reforming churches, all kinds of organizations are attempting major transformations. This book will “walk” you through our framework of the five ingredients of transformation: Burning Platform, why should you do anything; Vision, where are you going; Leadership, are you leading the effort, and do you have the skills necessary to lead; Technical Plan, how will you close the gap between the vision and the burning platform; Social Plan, how will you enroll others in the plan. At the end of reading this book, you will understand why change efforts fail, what ingredients are needed to ensure success, and what skills are needed at the organizational, group, and individual level to maximize improvement efforts.
