Providing a template for seizing the opportunities offfered by digital business technologies, this book presents six real-life cases to demonstrate both the power and risks involved. The authors - both experienced professionals in management education and telecommunications - introduce Total Action concepts and methodologies - where every activity inside the organization is directly relevant for its customers. Winners use these to make front-line people the point of decision making, to unlock information about customers, and to manage the fulfillment of their commitments. The result is a discovery tour of new management concepts that will help your business triumph in todays digital world.
From the reviews: "This book is mandatory reading for every manager and professional." - Thomas Middelhoff, Chairman & CEO Bertelsmann AG; "This is a powerful and straightforward starting point for all managers and organizations seeking to master the new frontiers of business." A.-W. Scheer, Chairman of the Supervisory Board IDS Scheer AG

What are the trends affecting the marketing of services? How is the current tendency towards customer orientation, globalization, deregulation and technological change determining the ways in which leading service firms conduct their marketing activities? Why is cross-sector fertilization particularly useful for services, and what type of strategic response is most likely to shape business success of service firms in the future? These are some of the questions addressed in this collective volume by academics and practitioners working with and within the service sector.

Drawing on their own business experience as well as upon theoretical developments and concepts on marketing, strategic analysis, economics and organization theory, the authors present a fresh approach to questions of marketing strategies for services in global markets. They argue that in their marketing strategies, outstanding service firms increasingly emphasize results and performance, service technology, network structure and culture, lobbying, and global thinking in approaching markets and co-operation arrangements.

Given the strength of the adjustment shock affecting service producers and its certain continuation, this book - full of insights and unconventional thinking - is an important contribution to the literature of services management. It will be useful reading for all who wish to understand why old patterns in the marketing of services are breaking down, as well as what lies around the corner.

Interest in the study of family business has increased significantly over the last decade. The research on this subject - and the related subject of entrepreneurship - has developed in parallel within a number of different disciplines, making it the perfect candidate for an annotated bibliography. This book aims to catalog the major empirical, theoretical, and practical articles on family business. Included for each article listed are a summary of key findings, and a list of the methodologies and key conceptual models used. It also features a review of the literature, a discussion of how family businesses have been defined, and agenda for future research into both family business and entrepreneurship studies.

Social media is now the dominant online activity and drives more website traffic than online search. The implications for businesses are as profound as the rise of Google fifteen years ago. Delegating this opportunity to a social media team is not enough—today’s leaders must personally grasp the tectonic changes arising from today’s social, always-connected customer, and must re-architect business practices and models accordingly.

In The Social Business Imperative, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and renowned thought leader Clara Shih identifies powerful new opportunities created by social media across the entire customer lifecycle. The functional breadth of this book is critical for today’s leaders, who must deliver a consistent experience across every brand touchpoint, from marketing to sales to customer service, online to offline, because that is what the customer expects.

This guide is a must-read for all professionals—from boards of directors to front-line sales managers, and from chief marketing officers to recruiting, IT, and compliance directors—who need to understand the digital transformation taking place not only in their own department but in all departments. Only with this broader understanding can functional leaders effectively collaborate on delivering a cohesive customer experience spanning previous organizational silos.

Going far beyond her global best-seller The Facebook Era, Clara offers unprecedented insights into why and how traditional organizations must re-imagine their existing business processes to capture “the digital last mile” across social media, mobile messaging apps, the Internet of Everything, and the collaborative economy.

This volume is devoted to studies in the field of strategy in the marketing of information technologies. The topics covered include the strategic importance of information technology and the strategic implications of structural analysis in a telecommunication market.

The American economy and society are undergoing vast transformations, including a renaissance of capitalism, a great wave of technological change, and a restructuring of businesses and industries. A superindustrial society is evolving, and there is a new social cycle that initially offers a greater understanding of problems along with practical means to their solutions. This work addresses the changing state of America's economy and society in its global context, painting a serious but positive portrait of the United States in the next decade. In this context, Irving Leveson carefully explores long term trends and prospects, provides an integrated treatment of issues that are usually examined in discrete fragments, offers a context for planning and decision making, and contributes thorough analyses of specific trends and issues.

The book is structured around three major themes. The first is the need for longer term perspectives in both personal and business affairs; the second focuses on key trends, and the way in which some will be significantly weakened, nullified, or reversed in the 1990s; and the third details the serious business, social, and economic challenges that remain to be dealt with. Leveson charts the transformation of America and the economic conservatism and market orientation that resulted in the renaissance of capitalism, as well as the long cycle upswing of economic restructuring. He then turns to the coming superindustrial society and new social cycle, along with the challenges, opportunities, and problems that the 1990s and the next century will bring. Throughout the work, he offers perspectives on such topics as prospects for corporate restructuring, financial globalization and volatility, health futures, and the relation of business strategy to long cycle evolution. An accompanying appendix provides comparisons of long cycles, and the study concludes with a selected bibliography. This work will be a useful tool for corporate managers and executives, government officials, and policy planners, as well as a valuable resource for courses in economic studies and public policy. It will also be an important addition to the collections of both public and academic libraries.

Data analysis is an important part of modern business administration, as efficient compilation of information allows managers and business leaders to make the best decisions for the financial solvency of their organizations. Understanding the use of analytics, reporting, and data mining in everyday business environments is imperative to the success of modern businesses. Applying Business Intelligence Initiatives in Healthcare and Organizational Settings incorporates emerging concepts, methods, models, and relevant applications of business intelligence systems within problem contexts of healthcare and other organizational boundaries. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as rise of embedded analytics, competitive advantage, and strategic capability, this book is ideally designed for business analysts, investors, corporate managers, and entrepreneurs seeking to advance their understanding and practice of business intelligence.

The book addresses the concept of knowledge in a work and organizational context, professional or knowledge work, and knowledge-intensive firms. It provides a critical, moderate social constructivist understanding of these themes and the current interest in knowledge management, organization and the "knowledge economy". Professional service as well as science and high-tech work and firms are treated, reporting case studies of IT and management consultancy firms, advertising agencies and life science based companies. The concepts of knowledge and knowledge management are discussed and dominant functionalist thinking debunked. The ambiguity of knowledge in the input, process and output of professional work is emphasized. It is suggested that we should be careful in assuming too much about the nature, role and effects of "knowledge" in business life and instead take the constructed nature of knowledge seriously and scrutinize knowledge claims. Knowledge talk and claims may frequently be key elements in marketing and identity work as much as they inform us about key activities of professionals and knowledge-intensive firms. The book covers a fairly broad set of management, organization and working life aspects are addressed, including HRM themes and different forms of control including client control and regulation of identity. From a perspective emphasizing the ambiguity of social and business life, rhetoric, symbolism, image, politics of knowledge claims, identity and identity work are viewed as crucial for the understanding and management of professional/knowledge work and organizations. The book is provocative and challenges key assumptions in dominant knowledge and organization thinking, suggesting a novel theoretical approach. The book is intended for third year level undergraduates upwards, and aims to say things also of relevance for scholars. It mixes textbook and research ambitions. As a (moderately) constructivist text with a relatively broad focus, the book may have some potential as a text complementing more conventional textbooks also in general organization and management courses.

This book is a reality check on the trends in global sourcing of information technology and business services. While the vision of global sourcing networks that are agile, effective and cost efficient is available it requires an immense amount of trial and error and detailed management. Written by two internationally recognized academics in the field, with expert contributions, it covers IT outsourcing, offshoring, business process outsourcing and netsourcing and includes cases and commentaries on best practices.

"Technology has made it possible to apply a new management philosophy. Managers can let go and still be in control. Welcome to the executive dialogue centre."

Successful leadership of large organizations is best achieved by measuring and managing alignment between the corporate strategy and its execution. Yet for company leaders no amount of travel or motivational sessions can ever be enough to ensure that the strategy is communicated deep into the organization, understood, accepted and executed. CEOs need a proven model to allow them to delegate and decentralize. The management focus must be shifted from structured control to guided interaction.

Managing by strategic pull and operational push achieves this shift. To do so requires a permanent (often real-time) corporate dialogue between the CEO and key executives. From experience the authors of "Beyond Control" have learned that for this to work consistently over time, a dedicated communication infrastructure is needed. This executive dialogue centre is an Internet-based portal specifically designed as a virtual CEO office to manage the interaction between the CEO and his or her key people.

Introducing an executive dialogue centre allows the CEO to move to the middle of the operation but keep the corporate agenda alive. It also represents the ultimate commitment to a management style of strategic pull and operational push. By creating a well-defined operating arena that enables people to participate and thrive with clear, responsible freedom, the CEO can measure and manage strategic alignment. The result will be an organization that continuously outperforms the expectations of clients and stakeholders.

"Hidden Champions" are medium-sized, unknown companies with annual revenues under $5 billion that have quietly, under the radar, become world market leaders in their respective industries. In this new instalment to his worldwide bestselling Hidden Champions volumes, Hermann Simon takes readers on in-depth exploration of the ever changing operating conditions and the greater uncertainty and volatility that defines the global business sphere over the next ten years. In particular, in this book he focuses on China's continued impact on the business world since its rise in the global business and economic sphere over recent decades. In this regard, Dr. Simon shows the reader how the current status evolved, and then offers concrete and actionable recommendations. New driving forces such as digitalization, business ecosystems and sustainability receive special attention. While the main focus is on companies in German-speaking countries as they comprise 56 percent of the world's Hidden Champions, the success factors mentioned in this book can be applied globally to mid-sized companies in other regions as they strive to become global market leaders. Whether a company is a "Hidden Champion", aspires to be one, or wants to emulate their success model, Dr. Simon's new book provides essential food for thought as executives and managers chart their course into the future.

The first management book to describe with numerous original examples, how successful leaders combine 'the three agendas' of strategy, leadership and followers engagement. It is down to earth, pragmatic and offers a solid toolbox for leaders who are about to engage into a major, large scale change.

The global offshore outsourcing market for IT and business services exceeded $55 billion in 2008 and some estimates suggest an annual growth rate of 20% over the next five years. Furthermore, over 200 firms from the Forbes 2000 companies and 50 per cent of the Fortune Global 500 had offshored IT and business process activities through captive centres, making a total of about $9bn of business. The phenomenon of offshoring and offshore-outsourcing is certainly expanding. It has become increasingly important to understand the phenomenon, not least as a basis for suggesting what directions it will take, its impacts, how it has been conducted, and how its management can be better facilitated. This book offers a broad perspective on various issues relating to the sourcing of systems and business processes in a national and global context. The authors examine both the client's and the vendor's involvement in sourcing relationships by putting the emphasis on the capabilities that each side should develop prior to entering a relationship but also that they should develop as a result of their interactions with each other.

The Multinational Enterprise and the Emergence of the Global Factory brings together research papers authored by Peter J. Buckley, focusing on three of the most important empirical and theoretical issues in the global economy: the rise of the 'global factory'; the growth of FDI from emerging economies; recent developments in the theory of IB.

Based on in-depth study of the electronics giant Philips, Corporate Strategy, Public
Policy and New Technologies examines the key factors which have determined the
success or failure of new technologies and the global competitiveness of firms within a major
European consumer industry. Drawing on the insights gained from intensive empirical
research into the company's growth, structure and competitive strategy, the book traces the
reciprocal influences of Philips and of European Community policymaking on each other and
on the development of the industry since the 1970s.

The core of the book focuses on
detailed case studies of three major technological initiatives, and analyses the reasons for
their success or failure: the European VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) industry and Philips'
VCR 2000 format; Philips and the development of the European HDTV (High Definition
Television) system; and Philips' CD-i (Compact Disc-interactive) project. All three studies
raise important issues of competition, collaboration, technology and the role of public policy,
with a firm theoretical grounding in the most relevant and up-to-date academic
research.

In addition to providing an instructive analysis of the performance of an industry
at the levels of the firm, the state and the European Community, the book emphasises that the
strategies and policies discussed were adopted largely in response to the global challenge
from the USA and, above all, Japan.

This book focuses on the challenges of capacity building for flexible work organizations in Asia, and demonstrates how business enterprises practice reactive flexible capacity (in the form of adaptiveness and responsiveness) to cope with changing and uncertain business environments. The book provides examples of how this can be achieved by means of various organizational change initiatives, leadership strategies, re-engineering, innovation in products and processes, the use of information and communication technology, reshaping learning orientations, and more. As these topics are supported by research and case studies situated in different sectors and countries across Asia, the book will provide a useful resource for a broad readership including: management students and researchers, practicing business managers, consultants, and professional institutions.

The world's governments are overwhelmed with climate change, war and unrest, the global financial crisis and poverty but there is a promising invention in Global Action Networks (GANs). GANs mobilize resources, bridge divides and promote the long-term deep change and innovation work that is needed to address the global challenges.

One of the most important communication books Ive ever read. I highly recommend it!
­­Spencer Johnson, author of Who Moved My Cheese? and co-author of The One Minute Manager

...Ries and Trout taught me everything I know about branding, marketing, and product management. When I had the idea of creating a very large thematic community on the Web, I first thought of Positioning....
­­David Bohnett, Chairman and Founder of GeoCities

The first book to deal with the problems of communicating to a skeptical, media-blitzed public, Positioning describes a revolutionary approach to creating a position in a prospective customers mind-one that reflects a companys own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors. Writing in their trademark witty, fast-paced style, advertising gurus Ries and Trout explain how to:

• Make and position an industry leader so that its name and message wheedles its way into the collective subconscious of your market-and stays there
  
• Position a follower so that it can occupy a niche not claimed by the leader
  
• Avoid letting a second product ride on the coattails of an established one.
  

Positioning also shows you how to:

• Use leading ad agency techniques to capture the biggest market share and become a household name
  
• Build your strategy around your competitions weaknesses
  
• Reposition a strong competitor and create a weak spot
  
• Use your present position to its best advantage
  
• Choose the best name for your product
  
• Determine when-and why-less is more
  
• Analyze recent trends that affect your positioning.
  

Ries and Trout provide many valuable case histories and penetrating analyses of some of the most phenomenal successes and failures in advertising history. Revised to reflect significant developments in the five years since its original publication, Positioning is required reading for anyone in business today.

Every few years an idea comes along that changes the way we look at the world of business. Heartland is a book that encapsulates such an idea.

Old models of competitiveness are nearing exhaustion. Few firms are genuinely global, almost all are still tied to their home market. Most firms are increasingly alike, competing on the same grounds and with the same technology. Talented employees are in short supply and ever more fickle. Margins are under gathering pressure and global revenue growth is suffering its first serious check in ten years. The battle to differentiate has never been greater and the ideas for how to do so never in shorter supply. The need for a new model to take firms to the next stage of evolution is now acute.

This book proposes a new model that can transform the national firm into a global powerhouse, a competitive Heartland.

In this book leading scholars debate current issues and shed light on future prospects in the field of Knowledge Management. It presents new perspectives on knowledge and learning, including modes of knowing in practice, transactive knowledge systems, organizational narrations, and challenges conventional wisdom. It deals with emerging issues in knowledge and innovation embracing models of distributed innovation and forms of co-operation. It also includes problems in managing knowledge, leadership issues and how to measure knowledge.

This book discusses the concepts of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) that are the core of various paradigms used in strategic management to understand competitive advantage as well as flexibility in organizational boundaries. It serves as a valuable reference resource in the area of VUCA markets. An increase in the levels and types of uncertainty has important implications potentially for the durability of a company's advantages, the way firms learn and adapt, approaches for managing innovation and knowledge, and the attractiveness of different strategies and organizational models. In today's world, strategic flexibility in VUCA is essential for business leaders to sustain market advantage and attain a clear vision amid the chaos. Business leaders who stay focused and are aware of external volatility as the prevalent characteristic are successful, while those who are not flexible in this VUCA world and lock themselves into fixed positions lose out. The book includes empirical and conceptual research papers along with case studies and models discussing strategies for emerging markets in volatile and uncertain environments. It also covers a variety of issues, including innovation, people and processes, financial management, and leadership and strategies in VUCA markets. Apart from research fraternity and academia, the contents of the book will be useful for practitioners as well as industry watchers.

Frameworks for Market Strategy helps students understand how to develop and implement a market strategy and how to manage the marketing process. Marketing activity is the source of insight on the market, customers, and competitors and lies at the core of leading and managing a business. To understand how marketing fits into the broader challenge of managing a business, Capon and Go address marketing management both at the business and functional levels. The book moves beyond merely presenting established procedures, processes, and practices and includes new material based on cutting-edge research to ensure students develop strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills for success. In this European edition, Capon and Go have retained the strong framework of the book, but have updated the cases, examples, and discussions to increase the book's relevance for students outside the USA. Key features include: * A strong strategic focus, teaching students how to analyze markets, customers, and competitors to plan, execute, and evaluate a winning market strategy * Practical examples from a range of contexts, allowing students to develop the skills necessary to work in for-profit, public, or non-profit firms * Emphasis on understanding the importance of working across organizational boundaries to align firm capabilities * Full chapters devoted to key topics, including brand management, digital marketing, marketing metrics, and ethical as well as social responsibilities * Focus on globalization with a chapter on regional and international marketing * Multiple choice, discussion, and essay questions at the end of each chapter Offering an online instructor's manual and a host of useful pedagogy - including videos, learning outcomes, opening cases, key ideas, exercises, discussion questions, a glossary, and more - this book will provide a solid foundation in marketing management, both for those who will work in marketing departments, and those who will become senior executives.