Authors: Michael A. Cusumano.
Paperback, 528 pages
Publisher: Free Press
Publication Date: 1998-12-04
Edition: 1st Touchstone Ed

Reviews :

    Today, Microsoft commands the high ground of the information superhighway by owning the operating systems and basic applications programs that run on the world's 170 million computers. Beyond the unquestioned genius and vision of Bill Gates, what accounts for Microsofts astounding success?

Drawing on almost two years of on-site observation at Microsoft headquarters, eminent scientists Michael A. Cusumano and Richard W. Selby reveal many of Microsoft's innermost secrets. This inside report, based on forty in-depth interviews by authors who had access to confidential documents and project data, outlines the seven complementary strategies that characterize exactly how Microsoft competes and operates, including the "Brain Trust" of talented employees and exceptional management; "bang for the buck" competitive strategies and clear organizational goals that produce self-critiquing, learning, and improving; a flexible, incremental approach to product development; and a relentless pursuit of future markets.

Cusumano and Selby's masterful analysis successfully uncovers the distinctive way in which Microsoft has combined all of the elements necessary to get to the top of an enormously important industry -- and stay there....

    This is a "facts ma'am, nothing but the facts" examination of how Microsoft works, both internally, and in the marketplace. Unlike the raft of gossipy Bill-bios or sardonic and shrill pro- or anti-screeds, this book is focused clearly (if sometimes ploddingly) on one central question: the relationship between business strategies and software development. And, as Microsoft becomes increasingly focused on the Internet, it is essential reading not just for software companies, but for all Internet companies as well. Highly Recommended....

Authors: David Greising.
Paperback, 334 pages
Publisher: Wiley
Publication Date: 1999-05-25


Reviews :

    Robert Goizueta created more stockholder wealth than anyone in history. Here's how he did it...

The late Roberto Goizueta helped catapult the successful but stagnant Coca-Cola into the world's most powerful brand and one of the greatest generators of stockholder wealth in history. At the time of his death, he was hailed in papers around the world as one of the most innovative and successful CEO's of our time. Yet little is known of this corporate maverick. This is his story....

    David Greising's biography of Roberto Goizueta is the story of how Coca-Cola became one of the world's leading brands. The story follows Goizueta, a chemical engineer, who first worked for Coca-Cola in Cuba. After the revolution, Goizueta came to the United States and went on to become the youngest vice-president ever at Coca-Cola. In 1980, Goizueta became president of Coca-Cola and presided over the world's largest soft drink company until his death from lung cancer in 1997.

Greising presents a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at some of the most high-profile business stories that happened during Goizueta's tenure, such as Coca-Cola's purchase and subsequent sale of Columbia Pictures; the disastrous reformulation of the New Coke; how Coca-Cola swept Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall; and Goizueta's dealings in bringing the Olympics to Atlanta in 1996. Compelling and easy-to-read, I'd Like the World to Buy a Coke is a must for those interested in how one company created and marketed a brand like no other....

Authors: Peter Schweizer.
Hardcover, 352 pages
Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc.
Publication Date: 1998-09


Reviews :

    The dark shadow of America's entertainment giant....

Authors: Thomas J. Watson. Peter Petre.
Perfect Paperback, 480 pages
Publisher: Bantam
Publication Date: 2000-02-29


Reviews :

    In this eloquent first-person account of a family drama that changed the face of American business, the man who transformed IBM into the world's largest computer company reflects on his lifelong partnership with his father--and how their management style and shared dedication to excellence united to create a unique corporate culture that became the blueprint for the entire technology boom.

In the course of sixty years Thomas J. Watson Sr. and his son, Thomas J. Watson Jr., together built the international colossus that is IBM. This is their story: a riveting and revealing account of two men who loved each other--and fought each other--with a terrible fierceness.

But along with the story of a father and son, this is IBM's story too. It chronicles the management insights that shaped its course and its unique corporate culture, the style that made Thomas Watson Sr. one of America's most charismatic bosses, and the daring decisions by Thomas Watson Jr. that transformed IBM into the world's largest computing company. One of the greatest business-success stories of all time, Father, Son & Co. is a moving lesson for fathers who dream for their children, as well as a testament to American ingenuity and values, told in a disarmingly frank and eloquent voice.


Promising to remain an important business reference as we move into the next century, FATHER, SON & CO. takes a look at the management insight that helped to shape IBM's course and unique corporate culture. It looks at Watson, Sr., one of America's most charismatic bosses, and Watson, Jr., who spurred IBM into the computer age.

Ten years after its original publication, FATHER, SON & CO. remains a uniquely honest book. Watson's willingness to write about the loving but ferociously combative relationship he had with his father and the turbulent battles behind some of IBM's most far-reaching decisions gives readers rare insights into the realities of leadership. -->...

Authors: Edgar H Schein.
Paperback, 317 pages
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication Date: 2004-08-09


Reviews :

    Digital Equipment Corporation achieved sales of over $14 billion, reached the Fortune 50, and was second only to IBM as a computer manufacturer. Though responsible for the invention of speech recognition, the minicomputer, and local area networking, DEC ultimately failed as a business and was sold to Compaq Corporation in 1998. This fascinating modern Greek tragedy by Ed Schein, a high-level consultant to DEC for 40 years, shows how DEC's unique corporate culture contributed both to its early successes and later to an organizational rigidity that caused its ultimate downfall....

Authors: Bill Vlasic. Bradley A. Stertz.
Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Collins Business
Publication Date: 2001-07-01


Reviews :

    Here is the book that exposed the Daimler-Chrysler "merger of equals" as a bold German takeover of an industrial icon. Taken for a Ride reveals the shock waves felt around the world when Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler for $36 billion in 1998. In a gripping narrative, Bill Vlasic and Bradley A. Stertz go behind the scenes of the defining corporate drama of the decade -- and in a new epilogue chart its chaotic aftermath.

...

    It all started with a misunderstanding. Kirk Kerkorian, the Las Vegas wheeler-dealer, thought Chrysler's management would back him up if he tried to take the company private. Chrysler's management thought they'd made it clear they had no interest in such a deal. As the two sides faced off--Kerkorian and legendary Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca on one side, current Chrysler boss Bob Eaton and his top executives on the other--Mercedes-Benz CEO Helmut Werner stepped in. The result is the company now known as DaimlerChrysler. But Vlasic and Stertz make clear no one really knows the result of the deal. It's far too early to tell if blending the manufacturer of sleek German luxury sedans with the Detroit-based progenitor of the minivan will succeed in the global marketplace. Instead, they show in riveting detail how the deal came to be, and the immediate aftermath. They give us private moments with the major players and show us the multilayered considerations that crop up when two gigantic companies merge. Another book will have to judge the ultimate success of the merger, but the immediate results aren't exactly promising. By late 1999, a share of the original Chrysler was worth a few pennies less than it had been before the merger was announced, and only about a dollar more than before Kerkorian made his move back in April 1995. --Lou Schuler ...

Authors: Philip F. Gura.
Hardcover, 376 pages
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication Date: 2003-09-29


Reviews :

    The Martin is considered the finest acoustic guitar in the world, a distinction it has held for more than 150 years. Philip Gura chronicles the career of C. F. Martin from his humble start as an importer and repairman of musical instruments in New York City in the 1830s through the founding of C. F. Martin & Company and its move to Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

Gura is the first historian to study thoroughly the Martin company records dating back to the 1830s: letters, account books, inventories, and other documents. Using this rich archive, he establishes how a German immigrant from Saxony's guild tradition became the finest American guitar maker of his time and created a uniquely American business that successfully eclipsed its competition.

As Gura shows, Martin's success was based on his astute navigation of the rapid economic expansion and industrialization of his time. Martin adapted his artisanal craft to modern industrial methods, maintaining quality while meeting increased demand. After Martin's death in 1873, the company continued to grow, and it thrives today, producing instruments that are still the most sought after in the world.

With more than 175 illustrations, many of them in color, this book is a handsome and valuable history of the nineteenth-century American music trade told through one man's participation in it....

Authors: Robert H. Smith. Michael K. Crowley.
Hardcover, 448 pages
Publisher: OakHill Press
Publication Date: 2000-01-01


Reviews :

    Dead Bank Walking is a stunningly candid portrait of the historic merger between Security Pacific Bank and Bank of America, a combining of two giants that set in motion the fever of banking marriages we now witness. This book not only answers the WHO, WHAT and WHY of the mega-merger, but stands alone as an object lesson on all mergers. It evokes the humor and frantic chaos surrounding a deal that is still regarded as either a brilliant coup or a tragic swan song to banking sovereignty and independence. In Dead Bank Walking, Robert H. Smith, former Chairman and CEO of Security Pacific (and later President of Bank of America) spins a tale that will enthrall business people and mesmerize readers who never thought they could be interested in an epic about bankers. Part business thriller and part interpersonal drama, the story details the final paroxysms of a 120 year old institution revered by Wall Street for its leading edge thinking and entrepreneurial spirit--until it got into trouble.

Dead Bank Walking begins innocently enough when Smith assists real estate developer Charles Keating in his acquisition of Lincoln Savings. This act and the resulting S&L crisis trigger a chain reaction of legislation, regulatory crackdowns, and economic difficulties that threaten the very existance of Security Pacific.

The story includes a virtual Who's Who of politics and Wall Street: Warren Buffett, Donald Trump, Alan Greenspan, Bill Seidman, Carl Reichardt, Pete Wilson, Bob Campeau, Chris Hemmeter, Peter Ueberroth and many other movers and shakers.

Dead Bank Walking shuttles the reader from elaborate bankers conventions in Hawaii to contentious Board Rooms. It peeks through the crevices of high finance, as Smith and Richard Flamson--an outspoken and gutsy chairman dying of a rare blood disease--embark on a strategic acquisition spree that ultimately extends the bank's vision to include worldwide securities companies and a controversial and ultimately dangerous Merchant Bank.

Too far too fast? Absolutely. When economic recession pounds California and Security Pacific's stock slides, consultants warn management to halt the acquistions and if possible locate a merger partner. If Smith can't, the Board will find someone who can. A potentially momentous merger with Wells Fargo Bank falls through at the eleventh hour and an uncanny sequence of events brings Security Pacific to the brink of disaster. Smith's colorful management team labors to solve the problems and ultimately embarks on a year-long odyssey with Richard Rosenberg, Chairman and CEO of Bank of America.

Smith recounts in vivid detail, the triumphs, disasters, mind-games, insults, ego trips, walk-outs, and layoffs as he and Rosenberg work, sometimes at cross purposes, to create the most powerful bank in the United States, often in the face of ridiculous forces that seek to derail the merger at every juncture. Near the end, Smith realizes that he stands to lose everything--from his personal wealth to his reputation--should the deal collapse. In a final life and death episode, he faces a potential $1 billion penalty that may represent a material breach of the merger agreement. Smith partners up with brilliant attorneys for an almost hallucinatory last dance with the Internal Revenue Service in order to preserve the merger and save his own scalp. And lingering beneath the deal is the unfathomable bureaucracy of Bank of America, a foreboding maze of committees which in the end destroys the most unique and valuable assets of the institution it works so hard to acquire.

Fifty percent comedy, fifty percent tragedy, Dead Bank Walking is an exhilarating, timely and supremely unique business story populated by a cast of characters one would expect to find only in a work of fiction. Read it, and never think of your bank--or the people who run it--in the same way again....

Authors: Alecia Swasy.
Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: 1994-09-01
Edition: 1st Touchstone Ed

Reviews :

    Behind Procter & Gamble's wholesome image is a control-obsessed company so paranoid that Wall Street analysts, employees, and the chairman himself refer to it as "the Kremlin." P&G's wealth and power ensure that it gets what it wants, from tax breaks to the eager services of Washington lobbyists.

In this explosive expose, Wall Street Journal reporter Alecia Swasy tells the chilling story of life within P&G.

Wonderfully readable, impeccably researched, Soap Opera is a sobering look at the price of success in American business....

Authors: Edwin S. Rockefeller.
Hardcover, 124 pages
Publisher: Cato Institute
Publication Date: 2007-10-25


Reviews :

    Many successful American businesses have been accused of anti-competitive practices. Drawing on 50 years of experience with U.S. antitrust laws, attorney and author Edwin S. Rockefeller sheds light on why lawmakers, bureaucrats, academics, and journalists use arbitrary and irrational laws and enforcement mechanisms to punish capitalists rather than promote competition. The Antitrust Religion argues that everything most people know about antitrust is wrong. The orthodox view is that antitrust was created to protect competition. But Rockefeller's account is strikingly different. He argues that antitrust in practice has often benefited, not the public, but specific businesses that wanted to take down their competitors. In cases ranging from early antitrust targets like Standard Oil to the more recent IBM and Microsoft cases, he reveals why some companies are punished for being winners in the market. Rockefeller vividly shows how antitrust has been transformed into a quasi-religious faith. He explains that this antitrust religion relies on economic theories that bestow a veneer of objectivity and credibility on law enforcement practices that actually rely on hunch and whim. On issues such as mergers and price fixing, Rockefeller thoroughly examines arbitrary antitrust laws that lead to ill-informed juries and bureaucratic abuse. He concludes that those laws also create a perverse incentive for entrepreneurs to hold down sales volume and avoid improvements in price, quality, and service. Otherwise, such entrepreneurs could become the next targets of the antitrust priests. The Antitrust Religion will greatly assist business professionals, journalists, policymakers, professors, judges, and all others interested in government regulation of business in understanding how our antitrust laws actually work....