среда, 20 июня 2012 г.

Advice on business literature from Helen Edwards

Here comes Helen Edwards with her new business literature recommendations. We wish you an exciting reading experience!

The start up owner's manual: the step-by-step guide for building a great company
Steve Blank and Bob Dorf
K & S Ranch, 2012.
608 pages
ISBN: 9780984999309

This comprehensive and authoritative books tells the new entrepreneur everything they need to know about starting a business. It provides a step by step guide to how to develop customers using tools such as the business model canvas and metrics for measuring results. A start up is not a small version of a big company and using standard product development and launch processes can lead to disaster. Instead it is critical to get out, talk to customers, experiment with what works and learn from mistakes.

Seeing the big picture: business acumen to build your credibility, career and company
Kevin Cope
Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2012.
vii, 184 pages.
ISBN: 9781608322466

Think of an employee who, in his own opinion, is doing an excellent job. Unfortunately without taking into account the big picture, such an employee may unwittingly be sabotaging his companies real goals - for example with a focus on efficiency and saving money rather than customer service and growth. The first part of this book describes the interplay of the 5 key drivers of any business: cash, profits, assets, growth and people. The second half shows how to use an understanding of these 5 drivers to better understand financial statements.

The power of habit: why we do what we do and how to change
Charles Duhigg
William Heinemann, 2012.
xx, 371 pages.
ISBN: 978043020362

Habits can become hard wired and difficult to change in both individuals and organisations. Investigative reporter Charles Duhigg shows how techniques such as changing one thing, making detailed plans for overcoming deficits in willpower and using habits to predict behaviour can have powerful effects. He tells the stories of Alcoa where the new CEO's focus on a single understandable issue, employee safety, had far reaching effects on entrenched behaviours across the company; how Starbucks rewrote their training manuals to focus on preparing employees for difficult and unpleasant customer interactions; and how Target uses its huge customer databases to predict life events and focus its marketing at the level of the individual.



Why nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity and poverty
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
Profile books, 2012.
xi, 529 pages
ISBN: 9781846684296

Why are some countries much richer than others? This book takes wide historical and geographical perspectives to identify the factors which distinguish economically successful and unsuccessful countries. These authors believe that it is a nation's institutions which makes the difference. Those countries which allow the mass of people to take advantage of economic opportunities benefit from greater wealth. With cases ranging from the Industrial Revolution to the Arab Spring the book illustrates why this is so.

Sinicization and the rise of China: civilizational processes beyond east and west
Peter J. Katzenstein (editor)
Routledge, 2012.
xv, 296 pages
ISBN: 9780415809528

This book aims to present the complexity of China. It contains six case studies by experts in the field covering China's border issues and relations with Taiwan, its traditions and economic success, cultural identity and the meaning of being Chinese. In his conclusion Katzenstein believes that sinicization or "being Chinese" incorporates both cultural imperialism, where China imposes the norms of its civilisation, and the adoption of selective imported practices and policies to create the hybrid China is today.

2 комментария:

  1. I have the power of habit which I really love reading. Interesting books indeed. Thanks a lot for the share.

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  2. Good company guidance is important when beginning up your business; it can make a significant distinction between attaining achievements and becoming one of the failing research within 5 decades.

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