The average business in the U.S. has a life expectancy lower than people living in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. The tragedy is that the suffering and premature death from the silent killers of businesses is preventable with the right diagnostics and strategies.

The tools included in this book help managers know when to stay the strategic course and when and how to change direction. The closest thing to a crystal ball in business will be yours from the:

self-assessments

knowledge of lifecycle analysis and

strategies tailored to transition and succeed in each lifecycle stage.

You'll anticipate changes in markets and competitive behaviors and know what actions should and shouldn't be taken. Whether for your business, investment portfolio or career, after reading this book, you'll find more valuable insights and opportunities in each day's news.

To make lifecycle analysis even more powerful, we've included a simple copyrighted seven step validation method. Case studies based on extensive research on scores of firms drawn from dozens of industries provide real world examples with loads of graphs and tables using actual data.

Imagine when you put lifecycle analysis to work for you:

Joining the organization where your career can soar;

Building a team of top performers;

Choosing the right business partners;

Recognizing if a competitor poses a serious threat;

Knowing when to buy and when to sell; and

Hitting your financial targets consistently;

Start leading your business and career to a long and prosperous life.

For years, clients and students of Jo Ann Romero have urged her to publish her proven methods and hard-earned lessons for making collaboration really work. "The Art of Collaboration" is the result of Romero's fifteen years of experience designing and facilitating workshops on collaborative efforts for businesses and individuals throughout the United States. Until now, little has been written on the most important business activity of all-working together. Romero has created a definitive guide to developing reciprocal, harmonious partnerships, no matter how ambiguous or political your environment.

In "The Art of Collaboration," you will learn how to quickly establish rapport and gain trust by finding common ground with others. Romero describes in detail how to "listen to discover others," and provides a practical list of do's and don'ts for building mutually beneficial partnerships. Also included is a complete set of methods for organizing and implementing collaborative efforts of any kind, as well as a set of checklists and diagnostic tools for anticipating, assessing, and resolving conflicts and issues.

If you're ready to achieve positive action and lasting synergy when working with others, "The Art of Collaboration" provides all the practical tips, lessons, and models you'll need to initiate, develop, and sustain the key alliances critical to your professional and personal success.

International Management and Intercultural Communication consists of cases of direct observation and personal involvement in a wide variety of communication challenges in international management settings; and discusses them in terms of management theories. The cases explore interactions across national cultures and regional boundaries, demonstrating both traditional and unusual approaches to problems that sooner or later are likely to challenge all managers who operate internationally. The book is presented in two volumes. Volume 1 contains case studies concerning different aspects of international management and intercultural communication in business, marketing and politics. Volume 2 deals with cases of international management in social and educational settings.

Getting a message across on paper and presenting a proposal in a clear and persuasive form are vital skills for anyone in business. This book provides practical advice on how to impress, convince and persuade. This fully updated 6th edition now features even more practical exercises, useful templates and top tips that will help you to write succinctly and with impact across different media. How to Write Reports and Proposals will give you the tools to put over a good case with style. The Creating Success series of books... Unlock vital skills, power up your performance and get ahead with the bestselling Creating Success series. Written by experts for new and aspiring managers and leaders, this million-selling collection of accessible and empowering guides will get you up to speed in no time. Packed with clever thinking, smart advice and the kind of winning techniques that really get results, you'll make fast progress, quickly reach your goals and create lasting success in your career.

Recipient of the 1988 Outstanding Research Publication Award from the Organizational Communication Division of the Speech Communication Association Organizations cannot function without one vital component--communication. With the rapid expansion of corporations and technology, the quickly evolving field of organizational communication has undergone enormous, unprecedented growth . . . and change. Handbook of Organizational Communication is the first volume to pull together many loose threads in various strands of thinking and research about organizational communication. Its renowned contributors are leading scholarly pioneers in the field--drawn equally from organizational behavior and management studies and from communication. From this multidisciplinary perspective, they analyze research, theory, and applications--considering wherever possible communication phenomena at the appropriate multiple levels of analysis (dyadic, group, organizational, and extra-organizational). Authors also provide valuable, original insights into directions for future research and theory in their respective areas. Handbook of Organizational Communication is a milestone in the creation and shaping of this new area of academic scholarship with practical applications. It will both establish and point the way toward new theories and empirical work that will advance a young and exciting field. This volume will be an essential tool for all professionals and students in organizational communication, management, organizational behavior, and organization studies. "The editors have done a superb job of conceptualizing the work. In addition, their section previews are quite extensive and serve to integrate beautifully the material that follows. This book may well become a classic graduate text much in the genre of the Redding and Sanborn book of twenty-five years ago. It is comprehensive, well organized, well researched, and quite well written. The authors and editors are to be congratulated on their fine product." --Administrative Science Quarterly "An invaluable resource. . . . Authors do a fine job of surveying even the most recent research in their areas; some offer exciting suggestions for further research." --Quarterly Journal of Speech "Finally, someone has pulled together the fragmented pieces of organizational communication research. This book integrates and synthesizes these sundry organizational communication perspectives. Without a doubt, the Handbook is the preeminent reference book for organizational communication. "Unquestionably, this book should be on the shelf of everyone interested in organizational communication. Whether one is just beginning the study of organizational communication or one is an established scholar, The Handbook of Organizational Communication is a necessary resource." --Management Communication Quarterly "An extremely thorough, carefully selected set of papers which as a whole form a first-rate indication of the state of the art. I would recommend this book to anyone who is seriously interested in organizational communication, be they a social scientist, a practicing manager, an information manager, or just an interested member of an organization. It is a unique and outstanding work and should have a place on the bookshelves of many offices in a wide array of different organizations. Researchers in the area will find this work extremely pertinent to their activities." --Journal of Applied Systems Analysis

"Susan Crossman has created one of the most comprehensive books on writing ever written. Whether you're writing a business report, an essay or a full-length novel, Crossman offers invaluable advice on making the process move more smoothly and efficiently. She also provides insightful tips on avoiding writer's block. If you want to be a truly effective and successful writer, this is the book you need."
- Michael B. Davie, author "Winning Ways "
Solid, expert advice from a professional writer and author of several critically acclaimed books. From tips on overcoming writer's block and engaging your audience to focusing on specific markets, Susan Crossman, also author of " Shades of Teale " and "Passages to Epiphany," delivers insightful commentary that will help anyone become a more efficient, effective and successful writer. Of tremendous benefit to business writers - and to anyone crafting works of fiction and non-fiction - a must-read
- Manor House Publishing Inc.
Susan Crossman on "The Write Way": "We all recognize that writing is a creative process but we also tend to think of the physical process of writing as a mechanical skill that takes good grammar and a decent vocabulary and somehow blends them all together to create clear communication. That's not a bad start but decades of experience have taught me that writing with impact is much more complex. This book provides tips on: - How to structure your written work - How to write with style and - How to engage an audience - Avoiding and overcoming writer's block - Writing for key markets and marketing your writing in a highly effective manner I hope The Write Way will help you write with more clarity and conviction and I also hope that it will make the task of writing that much more enjoyable."

No one will ever be able to identify and manage all of his or her organization's risks. Although you can't predict every disaster, you can ask the right questions and put strategies in place to ensure the survival of your business. "It is becoming increasingly evident that the knowledge of disaster recovery efforts must be accessible to far more than the (IT) experts Achieving success can only be found through the collective effort of a united public, its leaders and organizations." - Barack Obama, United States Senator "Progressive organizations with sound leadership now include business continuity and enterprise risk management as key parts of meeting stakeholder expectations and achieving organizational strategic objectives." - Michael G. Oxley, Vice Chairman, NASDAQ Michael Croy, an expert in risk assessment and disaster recovery, helps leaders understand what is needed to sustain business today. Through real-life examples, you'll understand what could affect your company-lost data, pandemics, terror threats-and by implementing plans for when something does happen, you're doing everything possible to ensure that employees still have jobs, customers are served, and stakeholders continue to support the company. Take the first step in proactively managing your company in good times and bad and ask yourself, Are We Willing to Take That Risk?

Get a solid grasp of the methods, processes, and issues surrounding marketing communications and develop your career with an industry-leading text that blends theory with contemporary marketing practice. Marketing Communications, 9th edition by Fill and Turnbull is the leading text that introduces you to the key topics of the subject. Ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students in Marketing and related fields, this textbook guides you through the processes and actions of engaging audiences with brands, products, and services, from theory to practice. From introducing the subject and setting learning expectations to analysing and interpreting consumer behaviour, this latest edition follows a clear, streamlined structure that focuses on the strategic and tactical aspects of how brands engage audiences. With an approachable style and language that is easy to understand, the text delivers a rich blend of academic and practitioner materials that will help you understand the complexities of marketing communications. The book includes examples of contemporary, innovative marketing practices drawn from some of the world's leading brands and agencies, allowing you to explore the theories and ideas and acquire critical insight into the marketing communications landscape. The plethora of useful features and examples will encourage you to discuss and consider multiple interpretations around the major topics, providing you with the tools you need to develop your career in the field. Marketing Communications is recognised as the authoritative text for professional courses such as The Chartered Institute of Marketing and is supported by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.

Companies are often their own worst enemies. We work in disconnected functional and geographic silos, making it impossible to achieve end-to-end effectiveness. We struggle to make optimal decisions due to our overwhelming lack of quality information. In Optimize Now (or else ), David Fisher identifies the source of many of these problems and attacks them at their core. He explores the critical importance of processes and information that represent both the root of our problems and our greatest opportunity for dramatic improvement. He introduces new leadership in the Chief Process and Information Officer and the Process and Information Department, and specifies how to position these roles for enterprise-wide success. He further introduces the Enterprise Optimization Framework, an innovative, metric-driven decision-making framework, to ensure decisions are no longer based on gut feel but rather on quantitative expected outcomes. Finally, he explores the do's and don'ts of outsourcing and information technology with specific guidance on how these resources can be utilized to advance end-to-end optimization. It's time to put an end to our own misery. downward spiral to Enterprise Extinction. Survival is at stake. We must Optimize Now (or else ).

Whether you seek financial backing or board consent, The Financial Times Essential Guide to Writing a Business Plan will give you the critical knowledge you need to get the go-ahead. By focusing clearly on your objective, it will help you to gather the necessary evidence and address all your backers concerns. This brand-new edition draws out the specific challenges faced by start-ups, particularly on pinning down your perceived market niche and determining your competitive advantage. There are new chapters on pitching the plan and performing against the plan, using key performance indicators and milestones. Finally, new appendices outline alternative sources of funding and display an example business plan from start to finish.Written by a seasoned practitioner with years of experience in both writing and evaluating business plans for funding, it will help you formulate a coherent, consistent and convincing plan with your backers needs in mind. Follow its guidance and your plan will have every chance of winning the backing you need for your business to succeed.

This book will enable students, researchers and practitioners with some background in applied linguistics and/or (business) communication to engage with most of the issues raised by the multidisciplinary field of business discourse. To applied linguists new to business communication, and to researchers with a business background and with an interest in language and communication, this book offers accessible, varied and well-documented material inspired by practice-shaping research in business contexts. The latest developments in research methodology are discussed through problem-solving case-studies; issues emerging from the field such as the role of new technology and of globalisation, are showcased to stimulate research projects that reflect the multicultural and multimedial reality of the corporate world. Readers are encouraged to adopt a reflexive, and where possible, multi-disciplinary and collaborative mode of action that is one of the strengths of business discourse research in practice. The book also illustrates the benefits of sustained dialogue and field-led applications across allied disciplines.