A new way of approaching start-ups which encourages a more flexible plan that allows for uncertainty and change
Business plans do not allow for the unexpected. Often written at the outset of a new business proposal, there is little room for change or learning from experience once the venture is underway.
Beyond the Business Plan provides 10 new principles for starting a new business venture which guarantee the flexibility to face any uncertainties. These principles can be used as an alternative to a traditional business plan or even alongside one allowing it to adapt when needed. This book does not dictate how to run a business but provides the insight needed to overcome unforeseen obstacles, to adapt, grow, and change as necessary. This fresh approach teaches how to be responsive to uncertainty and demonstrates that flexible development can navigate the changing world economy better than any business plan.

"Value and Strategy: Competing Successfully in the NinetieS" presents fresh ideas, concepts, and practical suggestions for decision makers who must sustain growth and profitability in today's competitive business environment. Clearly written and illustrated with examples, graphics, and a glossary, this compact volume propels the idea of customer value to the forefront of business strategy. Value has emerged as a key idea in strategy because, as never before, customers can from pick and choose from among many different products and services. As a result, their expectations and demands for value, including quality, innovation, and affordability, have reached new heights. Shenkman thus begins by showing how a valuing process is used in everyday life: how a buyer thinks about value; how the idea of value operates in the processes of buying and selling; and how value and profits are created in the course of a relationship between a business and its customers. Dr. Shenkman then shows how in today's markets businesses both compete and cooperate in order to establish a leading position for their products and services. These efforts are necessary to ensure profitability, but they also combine to create powerful forces that limit the viability of any product or service over time. Market forces thus fuel the phenomenon of turnover that requires constant innovation and organizational responsiveness.

"Value and Strategy" outlines practical steps managers can take to ensure their organization's success. It helps decision makers see more clearly into the dynamic and ambiguous situations that arise each day as a result of relentless market pressures. It provides new insights that help to foster meaningful organizational change, while ensuring that employees have a personal stake in the business's profitability. Shenkman believes that work can play a constructive and creative role in people's lives. Using the strategy presented in this volume, managers can create the organizational conditions in which people can work together to innovate, solve problems, and create new opportunities for the business.

Is it possible for visionary leaders to adhere to their idealism and integrity without becoming casualties of corporate conservatism and executive-level politics? This book says "yes," arguing for the need for visionary change agents in organizations and resolving the paradox of visionary change in a bureaucratic environment. Why do many companies state they want change but then often fire employees who truly rock the boat in their efforts to shift the paradigm to make improvements? How should "disposable visionaries"-leaders who are passionate about new ideas, but who underestimate or intentionally ignore the political environment that supports maintaining the status quo and consequently are in danger of losing their jobs-keep their passion regardless of the opposition... and also keep their jobs? Written with wit and filled with poignant insights and well-documented examples, this book provides practical advice and encouragement to those who are driven to promote new ideas and reach new levels of achievement. Not just for executive-level corporate leaders frustrated by their company's resistance to change, the information and inspiration presented will be enlightening to anyone who has ever been puzzled or annoyed by obstructive internal politics at work. Readers will come away with effective ways to deal with politics, champion breakthrough innovation, be recognized as their organization's most valuable asset, and unlock their potential to change the competitive playing field. The book will also be invaluable for business students who need to be aware of potential obstacles they will likely face as they embark on their careers. Helps visionaries to identify their character traits, both positive and negative, and gives them direction on how to hang on to their idealism while more clearly perceiving how their actions affect others in the organization, including their managers, corporate leadership, or board of directors Describes a previously undocumented yet common dynamic that has frustrated many ambitious employees, told from the visionary's own viewpoint Explains how to manage visionaries more effectively by encouraging them to make meaningful contributions that can be embraced and claimed by others in the organization Enables leaders who are change agents to improve their chances of staying in an executive position long enough for their ideas to gel and take positive effect Features interesting profiles of (ultimately) successful visionaries-maverick leaders who were often initially fired or smothered for their methods and mindsets-throughout the book

To understand international joint ventures (IJV) creation and management one has to know how cross-border firms actually decide to form and operate a new company jointly. One has to "be there," say volume editors Woodside and Pitts. One must understand IJVs in "real life" and particularly the interactions among people, their behaviors and decision-making over time. What are the key success factors? The micro-managerial details? Written by a team of international experts, Creating and Managing International Joint Ventures provides just that perspective, in a blend of theory and application seldom found in the literature. Executives with international development responsibilities and academics researching and teaching international business strategy, management, and marketing will find here a research-based source of information and knowledge that is both thought provoking and immediately applicable.

This book presents unique insights and advice on defining and managing the innovation transformation journey. Using novel ideas, examples and best practices, it empowers management executives at all levels to drive cultural, technological and organizational changes toward innovation. Covering modern innovation techniques, tools, programs and strategies, it focuses on the role of the latest technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence to discover, handle and manage ideas), methodologies (including Agile Engineering and Rapid Prototyping) and combinations of these (like hackathons or gamification). At the same time, it highlights the importance of culture and provides suggestions on how to build it. In the era of AI and the unprecedented pace of technology evolution, companies need to become truly innovative in order to survive. The transformation toward an innovation-led company is difficult - it requires a strong leadership and culture, advanced technologies and well-designed programs. The book is based on the author's long-term experience and novel ideas, and reflects two decades of startup, consulting and corporate leadership experience. It is intended for business, technology, and innovation leaders.

The changing dynamics of business worldwide have led organizations to look beyond traditional managerial practices while at the same time attempting to retain their core competitive advantages. This development has called upon academicians and practitioners alike to reassess the different aspects of business management such as macroeconomic variables, the nature of the market, the changing features of the workplace, the new work ethos, and/or employer-employee exchanges. In this context, the book provides essential insights on industry innovations, academic advances and policy movements with regard to recovering markets in India and around the globe. The individual papers highlight potential avenues that could allow industry to better understand and respond to the global crisis. The book collects research papers presented at the Global Conference on Managing in Recovering Markets (GCMRM), held in March 2014. Seven international and 120 national business schools and management universities were represented at the conference, the first in a series of 13 planned under the GCMRM agenda for 2014 17. The book includes more than 30 research papers chosen from a pool of 118 presented at the conference, all of which have undergone a rigorous blind review process."

This book covers cross-border strategies to understand and profit from intellectual property. It starts with a basic overview of IP before focusing specifically on international business contexts. The book then explores factors that affect IP-related business activities in different countries. Next, follows a discussion of the importance of managing IP valuation, people, and products, which leads into an examination of strategies for obtaining value from IP-related activities, including licensing. This edition updates the contents and adds new contemporary cases, such as internet-based crimes and trademarked sport brands. Readers will gain an understanding of the significance of IP to corporate success in the increasingly globalized world. With updated knowledge on deriving value from IP, this book will provide insights for practitioners to deal with cross-border issues of IP, and for scholars across disciplines to advance studies of cross-border issues and conflicts in IP.

Newly expanded and thoroughly revised to reflect and meet the demands of a high-velocity global business environment, the Fourth Edition of this popular book and its companion CD-ROM help small and mid-sized businesses as well as non-profit organizations and public-sector agencies to achieve effective, efficient, and disciplined business development, proposal development, and knowledge management (KM) processes. Among an extensive array of updates and new material, the Fourth Edition discusses storytelling as a proposal art, the value of front-end proposal planning and storyboarding, the importance of honoring the customer mission in proposals, and the latest trends in performance-based acquisition (PBA). CD-ROM Included! Features a searchable directory of government agencies, easy-to-use proposal templates, and an extensive list of acronyms.

The decision to engage in corporate social action (CSA), and the debates regarding its costs, benefits and implications to corporate performance represent a demanding issue for scholars and managers. Research is inconclusive regarding the causal relations between CSA, corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP), despite numerous empirical and theoretical studies devoted to the issue. This book presents an in-depth study of corporate social action and the factors influencing a decision to engage in it. Going beyond the causal relationship between CSA and firm performance, the book stresses the link between CSA and a firm's core managerial policies and practices, reflecting the complexity and varied facets of CSA and the numerous internal and external factors that influence its outcomes. The book draws on the experiences of various industrial sectors to reveal the importance of a range of issues such as top management pay dispersion and ownership structure, which may influence the firm's decision to engage in CSA. It also explores some of the external influences on firms, such as institutional norms, the geopolitical environment and the industrial sector. The first part of the book provides an overview of the thematic issues of CSA and performance. The second part presents a series of empirical studies that examine factors and determinants of CSA. The third part presents case studies to illustrate the processes and outcomes of CSA policy and strategy in environmentally hazardous industries.

Using the Enel case, this volume unpacks the effective implementation of an ambidextrous perspective on adaptation and change, providing some key lessons for managers and scholars. It begins by exploring Enel's recent history, before mapping the steps of a remarkable transition from public monopolist to a successful transnational group.

Today every business is an e-business, and whether you are selling golf outings over the Internet or manufacturing the carts, there is no escaping the fact that every aspect of organizational design is profoundly affected by the new rules of the electronic economy. What many people and organizations overlook, however, is the degree to which these new rules are requiring a fundamentally different style of leadership. In E-Leader , Robert Hargrove identifies the new mindset and skills that leaders must develop in order to thrive in a world where wealth is built on relationships and experiences, not products or even technology. The old model of leader as "steward," protecting the company's brands and assets, is being replaced by a model of leader as "entrepreneur," searching constantly for new sources of wealth creation establishing creative ventures with suppliers, distributors, and even competitors and discovering new ways to attract, retain, and nurture talent- all at the speed of light. E-Leader captures the energy of the mavericks who are redefining leadership on the electronic frontier and shows managers in all types of organizations how to manage for the future, not for the past or even the present.

The goals of Management and the Gospel: Luke's Radical Message for the First and Twenty-First Centuries may appear to be simple: it describes what management theory and practice looked like in the first century, uses this as a lens to examine what the Gospel of Luke says about management, and draws out implications for today. However, the book is quite profound in finding that management is a dominant theme in the Gospel, that its message is consistently counter-cultural, and that Luke contains a four-phase 'how to' process model to help readers to implement change. Readers will acquire a new way to understand the Gospel as well as the moral foundations of modern management.

A unique, non-traditional, Organizational Behavioral-oriented book that is geared toward flexible leadership, and that offers a series of funny, yet thought-provoking, motivating, growth-oriented jokes and humor anecdotes that will help readers tap into their internal locus of control.

A casebook that discusses all the mega mergers and acquisitions in terms of value, that have happened in different industry sectors such as pharmacy, technology, telecommunications, media and entertainment, electrical and electronics, energy, finance, consumer goods, metals, and automobile and airlines.

BASED ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, THIS BUSINESS GUIDE SHARES PRINCIPLES, TECHNIQUES, STRATEGIES, AND TACTICS TO HELP SELF-FUNDED ENTREPRENEURS IMPROVE THEIR CHANCES OF SUCCESS.

Statistics indicate more than 50 percent of all new businesses will fail within five years, and 50 percent of the survivors will fail during the following five-year period. But there are ways to survive and thrive. In "Unlocking Your Entrepreneurial Potential," author and entrepreneur Tim S. McEneny shares insights from his thirty-year entrepreneurial career to help other self-funded entrepreneurs unlock their potential and improve their probability of success.

McEneny discusses his mistakes, his successes, and his important business lessons; he also provides tips on such topics as hiring great people, investing, dealing with stress, and selling more to existing customers. He covers the basic information an entrepreneur needs to understand while navigating the life cycle of a business. From the perspectives of mind-set, marketing, money, and management, "Unlocking Your Entrepreneurial Potential describes principles and techniques for a start-up business's seven stages:
Preparation and planning Launch through breakeven Achieving and maintaining profitability Growth Reinvention Decline (and cost-cutting) Selling the company.

More than a self-help book, "Unlocking Your Entrepreneurial Potential" provides a prescription for economic prosperity-for the individual, the United States, and entrepreneurs throughout the world.

Globalized marketing strategies continue to increase the development of global business through its latest advances in technology. The adoption of new technologies for businesses and organizations fluctuate throughout different regions of the world. Global Diffusion and Adoption of Technologies for Knowledge and Information Sharing provides diverse insights from researchers and practitioners around the world to offer their knowledge on the comparisons of international enterprises. This book is useful to managers and practitioners to improve business practices and keep an open dialogue about global information management.

While implementing IS and IT in support of their business strategies, companies are looking for ways to bridge the gap between their competitive position and technological investment, including ways to use this investment to the advantage of the organization. Critical Reflections on Information Systems: A Systemic Approach faces this challenge by offering ways to incorporate IT into such organizations while also successfully giving the company an edge over its competitors.

This book encompasses eleven chapters dealing with some of the most important issues in the field of human resource management through the exploration of four key themes: drawing the scenario, the pivots of human capital, measuring human capital, and good practices from abroad.

The increasing use of innovative technologies by global businesses has sparked debate about their application in crisis resolution. Resolution tools can be used by global businesses to manage various types of crisis situations, such as natural disasters, information security issues, economic downturns, health crisis situations, and sustainability issues in education, among others. Further study and consideration of the uses of technology in the areas of crisis and change management and intra-company communication practice in the context of global business must be done to ensure successful and sustainable businesses. Future Role of Sustainable Innovative Technologies in Crisis Management raises awareness of the multifaceted field of new technology in crisis management that has resulted in a paradigm shift in the way contemporary industries and global businesses communicate and conduct their daily business operations. This book defines the scope of innovative technologies as the application of new technologies to support the resolution of various types of crisis situations to achieve regulatory compliance and improved risk management in an effective and automated manner. Covering topics such as sustainable business and disaster scenarios, this reference work is ideal for managers, entrepreneurs, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.

In this volume, the authors apply insights from a variety of perspectives to explore the alignment among strategy, organization design, process and human resource management, and e-business practices on developing successful social networking programs-with particular regard to applying such initiatives against the backdrop of the global financial crisis and challenges to traditional business models. Showcasing in-depth case studies, the authors present emerging approaches to analyze the impact of investment in social networking sites, aligning internal resources, and measuring effects on positioning, branding, and new business creation. The fact that a growing proportion of the world population has a relationship with social networking sites could prove very valuable for companies. The question is whether this represents a business opportunity, whether companies know how to make the most of it and if they will make the necessary efforts to adapt to these new platforms. In the modern world, social networking sites have enormous potential for large as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); most companies are aware of the need for a presence on social networking sites, but at present their e-business strategies are part of their medium and long-term strategic planning and only a small percentage have been put into practice. In short, this book attempts to answer the following questions: Is there a business opportunity for companies on social networking sites? Do they know how to make the most of it? Are they willing to make the necessary effort to adapt? Can e-business strategies contribute to company creation and the success of already existing businesses? And if so, how?

This book examines how the emergence of new media brings brought challenges to the North American sport industry, discussing challenges in terms of a shift from an information economy to an attention economy perspective. Historically, the arrival of new forms of media, including radio and television, were not universally supported by sports leagues, wary of existing industry relationships with stakeholders, and new media have made the multi-sided market model of professional sports leagues - which has focused on protection and exploitation of league content - inefficient, and calls for a new model to integrate new media into the market. By integrating platform theory with the Service Dominant Logic (SDL) of marketing we describe how the multi-sided market of professional sports is evolving into a platform ecosystem, and the role of its most important customers - the fans - will also evolve from end users, to value co-creators, complementors and innovators. This book will create a new way of understanding the evolution of professional sports leagues and future growth of the industry, and lay the foundation for new research within the academic realm of sport management and sports marketing.

This book examines the adverse effects of complexity, information asymmetries, transaction costs, and uncertainty on investors' decision making. It suggests mitigating those effects using appropriate and matching signals, and analyzes a sample of 903 German startups to quantitatively highlight the distinct financing patterns and characteristics of high-tech startups. It then investigates the reasons for these patterns on the basis of a qualitative study that includes 34 interviews with investors and entrepreneurs in the US and Germany and an international expert panel. Lastly, it presents a framework that matches complexity factors with appropriate productive signals.

There is a much better chance to politically establish a strategy in your company if strategy development is already tactically thought-out and all involved persons are included in an intelligent manner. This book demonstrates how to shape this process to ensure that a sustainable strategy is generated that ensures economic stability, uniquely positions the company and can readily be implemented. After all, strategy for its own sake is worthless - what counts is implementation and results. The centre stage of strategy process is taken by the intelligent use and combination of methodological tools. Numerous case studies from enterprises and medium-sized businesses illustrate strategy work in a vivid and clear manner. "