Authors: Ingvar Kamprad. Bertil Torekull.
Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: Collins
Publication Date: 1999-09-01


Reviews :

    Based on exclusive interviews with the legendary founder of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad, Leading by Design tells the inside story of Kamprad's humble roots and of the visionary concepts and innovative strategies that turned a small, Swedish mail-order company into a worldwide commercial giant.

When in 1943 at age seventeen Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA, he had no way of knowing that IKEA would come to represent dedication to quality, a distinct design style, and convenience to the harried modern consumer. Today, more than 195 million people worldwide frequent his 150 stores in thirty countries, and almost 100 million catalogs are printed each year.

As the grandson of German immigrants who went to Sweden in search of a better life, Ingvar Kamprad grew up on a farm in a rural village. But he was no farmer. Early in his life, he discovered his natural affinity for business. From cigarette lighters and fish to Christmas cards and pens, young Ingvar devoted himself to importing and selling anything he thought he could make a profit on. Furniture was just one item in a long and fairly undistinguished list'until, in an effort to best his main competitor, he took a chance on an armless nursing chair he called Ruth. It quickly sold out. Adding a coffee table and then a sofa bed and then a chandelier, Kamprad was astonished by how quickly the merchandise moved.

The rest is business history. In Leading by Design, Bertil Torekull, a well-known Swedish journalist, reveals the genius and the secrets behind IKEA's extraordinary success. With candor and detail, he offers insights into Kamprad's cutting-edge management strategies, his enthusiasm to embrace innovative methods (such as producing ready-to-assemble merchandise and using a car door factory to produce affordable products with universal appeal), and the tools he used to grow the IKEA brand into a veritable industry unto itself.

More than a standard business history Leading by Design captures the essence of Kamprad himself. It is a testament to the inspiration, the ideas, and the innovations that make a good business great....

    Leading by Design is really, of course, the story of Ingvar Kamprad, the Swedish furniture retailer who turned Ikea into a company that now has 41,000 workers at 150 stores in 30 countries who annually distribute 100 million catalogs and sell $6.25 billion in goods. And what a story it is. Based on extensive conversations with the subject, 100 additional interviews, and various documents both public and private, business journalist Bertil Torekull employs an unusual mixture of blunt first-person recollections and narrative overviews delivered with literary flair to peel away the intricacies of Kamprad's life. Along the way, Torekull reveals the creative forces that propelled Kamprad's distinctive entrepreneurial drive and fashioned a successful company. "Imagine one of the coldest little countries in the world. Think of the most barren part of that country. See in front of you a godforsaken place deep in the wild spruce forests," Torekull begins. "This book is about a man who grew up in that harsh environment, which was to mark his whole life and fundamentally color the philosophy with which he built his vast empire." Delving into a fascinating career that began taking shape at the unlikely age of 5, Torekull presents this tale in a way that entertains as well as educates. --Howard Rothman...

Authors: William B. Rouse.
Hardcover, 182 pages
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Publication Date: 1998-01-23
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Strategic planning expert William Rouse cuts to the heart of the most common causes of failed business plans and strategies and shows how to overcome them. He encourages strategic thinkers and planners to spend much more time analyzing a situation instead of jumping to ready solutions. The tone is tongue-in-cheek, but the keen observations and sage advice Rouse offers aptly address a serious subject. It's a fast-track primer in critical thinking and evaluation planners and managers at every level can use to approach their work more effectively....

Authors: Herrington J. Bryce. Herrington Bryce.
Paperback, 816 pages
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Publication Date: 1999-12-17
Edition: 3

Reviews :

    "Elegant, helpful, accessible, and most of all pragmatic."--Regina E. Herzlinger, Nancy McPherson Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, Harvard University

"An indispensable resource for teachers and managers concerned with ensuring the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations.... Nonprofit organizations require professional knowledge and skill if they are to succeed in their missions. The new edition of this book is essential to that success."--Lawrence Lynn, Sydney Stein, Jr. Professor of Public Management, Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago

"Bryce effectively weaves legal and ethical considerations into his comprehensive treatment of nonprofit strategy and finance. A sound knowledge of the rules of the game is increasingly important for nonprofit leaders in making strategic choices."--Gregory Dees, Miriam and Peter Haas Centennial Professor in Public Service, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

"A must read for practitioners--managers as well as directors--of nonprofit management, particularly those whose focus is on the money-strategy interface. It should also serve as a useful text for graduate courses in nonprofit management."--Raymond Horton, chair of the Management Division and director of the Public and Nonprofit Management Program, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University

Now in its third edition, the highly successful Financial and Strategic Management for Nonprofit Organizations provides an encyclopedic account of all the key financial, legal, and managerial issues facing nonprofit executives. Organized into twenty detailed chapters, this comprehensive reference provides a firm grounding in the five fundamental pillars of effective nonprofit management: Mission, Money, Marketing, Management, and Membership. It then shows managers and trustees how to strengthen operations in each of these vital areas ethically, legally, and efficiently.

Many of the popular models and forms that appeared in the previous editions have returned in this latest volume. Bryce explores such diverse topics as nonprofit law, financial planning, fundraising, compensation and benefits, strategic planning, risk management, and more. He also adds several new features. These include:
* An expanded section explaining all the technical and legal foundations of managing a nonprofit
* Timely advice on developing ethical procedures to protect the organization against fraud and incompetence
* New and practical discussions on tax-exempt status, American and Canadian law for associations, corporate contributions, trust management, audits, anti-trust issues, program evaluation, partnerships, business revenue, and more


Written for serious nonprofit executives in general management, human resources, finances, and fundraising--as well as for nonprofit professors--this enduring handbook offers practical ideas and suggestions for achieving legal and financial success seamlessly....

Authors: Marilyn Loden. Judy B. Rosener.
Hardcover, 260 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Publication Date: 1990-11-01
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    This best seller shows how to recognize and rectify problems that can inhibit the full particpation of a diverse workforce and create an environment that capitalizes on the creativity and richness that increased diversity offers....

Authors: Harvard Business School Press.
Paperback, 323 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Publication Date: 2006-11-14
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    In an age of stiffening competition, everyone in an organisation must develop a strategic mind-set - by understanding the company's competitive strategy and helping the firm execute it. In this essential resource, readers will find guidelines for creating the HR initiatives, policies, and departmental structures that will ensure success. You're developing crucial strategies for numerous HR efforts - workforce planning and talent retention, compensation, training and development, and recruitment and selection. How do you ensure that these HR strategies deliver as promised - and help hone your company's competitive edge?...

Authors: Harry S. Dent.
Hardcover, 336 pages
Publisher: Free Press
Publication Date: 2004-09


Reviews :

    For over fifteen years, New York Times bestselling author Harry S. Dent, Jr., has been uncannily accurate in predicting the financial future. In his three previous works, Dent predicted the financial recession of the early nineties, the economic expansion of the mid-nineties, and the financial free-for-all of 1998-2000.

The Next Great Bubble Boom -- part crystal ball, part financial planner -- offers a comprehensive forecast for the next two decades, showing new models for predicting the future behavior of the economy, inflation, large- and small-cap stocks, bonds, key sectors, and so on. In taking a look at past booms and busts, Dent compares our current state to that of the crash of 1920-21, and the years ahead of us to the Roaring Twenties. Dent gives advice on everything from investment strategies to real estate cycles, and shows not only how bright our future will be but how best to profit from it.

Dent gives us all something to look forward to, including:

• The Dow hitting 40,000 by the end of the decade
• The Nasdaq advancing at least ten times from its October 2001 lows to around 13,500, and potentially as high as 20,000 by 2009
• Another strong advance in stocks in 2005, with a significant correction into around September/October 2006
• The Great Boom resurging into its final and strongest stage in 2007, and even more fully in 2008, lasting until late 2009 to early 2010

Dent's amazing ability to track and forecast our financial future is renowned, and here he takes that ability to the next level, showing not only what our economy will look like but also how it will affect us as individuals, as organizations, and as a culture. From the upcoming wealth revolution to the essential principles of entrepreneurial success, the book describes a new society where economic and philanthropic development go hand in hand.

In The Next Great Bubble Boom, Dent shows not only how the economic growth of the late 1990s was a prelude to the true great boom right around the corner but how all of us can reap its benefits....

Authors: Annabelle Gawer. Michael A. Cusumano.
Hardcover, 336 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Publication Date: 2002-04-29
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    It is the fundamental challenge of the high-tech sector: A firm must innovate internally to succeed - yet its success may equally depend on corresponding innovations by external firms. Whether a company develops a ubiquitous operating system or the software that runs on it, a VCR or the movies we play on it, every participant in a high-tech network is vulnerable to the innovative moves of its partners and competitors. Yet, in spite of this perilous situation, some firms have developed strategies that have made them industry powerhouses and world-class innovators. How? By becoming platform leaders - companies that provide the technological foundation on which other products, services, and systems are built.Platform leadership is the Holy Grail of high-tech industries, but it is difficult to achieve. In "Platform Leadership", high-tech strategy experts Annabelle Gawer and Michael A. Cusumano reveal how Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco, as well as companies including Palm and NTT DoCoMo, have orchestrated industry innovations to support their products - and, in the process, established dominant market positions.Based on these in-depth case studies and on incisive analysis, the authors present their Four Levers Framework for designing and implementing a successful platform strategy-or for improving an existing strategy: Determine the scope of the firm - Is it preferable to create product complements internally or let the "market" produce them? ; Design product technology strategically - What degree of modularity is appropriate? Should product interfaces be open or closed? What information should leaders disclose to outside firms?; Shape relationships with external complementors - How can the company balance competition and collaboration with outside players?; Optimize internal organizational structures - What processes and systems will allow the company to manage internal and external conflicts of interest most effectively?For executives, strategists, and entrepreneurs in many high-tech arenas, this book shows how firms can orchestrate innovation to ensure their own competitive futures - and drive the evolution of their industry. Annabelle Gawer is Assistant Professor of Strategy and Management at INSEAD. Michael A. Cusumano is the Sloan Management Review Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School, editor-in-chief and chairman of the board of the Sloan Management Review, and coauthor of the bestseller "Microsoft Secrets"....

    Certain products, like the VCR and the microprocessor, are far more valuable as the center of a network of ancillary items than they ever could become on their own. Platform Leadership, by Annabelle Gawer and Michael A. Cusumano, examines how a handful of firms has maximized this position--or are attempting to do so--and proposes a framework that other businesses can use to establish similar game plans. Combining original research with analysis that draws upon their experiences as professors specializing in high-tech strategy, Gawer and Cusumano focus on Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Palm, NTT DoCoMo, and supporters of the Linux operating system to show how to establish and expand this vital hub positioning. Their four-pronged approach concentrates on scope (what firms produce on their own and encourage others to produce), technology (how much detail about product architecture and design they should disclose to outsiders), alliances (how collaborative or competitive their relationships with those outsiders should be), and organization (what structures best balance subsequent external and internal conflicts). The examples selected illustrate varying methods for walking the fine line required to achieve "platform leadership" and will provide food for thought along with practical guidance for others interested in attaining similar status. --Howard Rothman ...

Authors: Ming Zeng; Peter J. Williamson.
Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Publication Date: 2007-06-12


Reviews :

    The new competitive challenge from Chinese businesses is like nothing seen by Western companies since the Japanese arrived twenty years ago with their cars and consumer electronics. To fend off these fierce competitors, managers must forget yesterday's image of Chinese companies as producers of cheap, low-quality imitations flooding world markets. In fact, by strategically implementing what the authors call cost innovation, Chinese firms are advancing into high-end products and industries and competing for such high-value activities as engineering, design, and even R&D. The first book to examine this new competitive force, "Dragons at Your Door" exposes the strategies, strengths, and weaknesses of these fast-rising Chinese competitors, surfaces the underlying logic that enables Chinese firms to attack high-end industries, and provides critical new insight into these very different competitors....

Authors: Frank Ostroff.
Hardcover, 272 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: 1999-02-04
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    The vertical/functional hierarchy has been the mainstay of business since the industrial revolution. But it has its problems. In fact, the vertical design all but guarantees fragmented tasks, overspecialization, fiefdoms, turf wars, the urge to control from the top--all the negatives that foster organizational paralysis. In The Horizontal Organization, Frank Ostroff provides executives with the first truly viable alternative to the age-old vertical alignment. Indeed, he offers nothing less than the first full view of what the organization of the future looks like and how it works.
The concept of horizontal organization has been hailed in Fortune as "a model corporation for the next fifty years" and in a Business Week cover story as "the real thing." But until now, management books have offered only piecemeal accounts of what the organization of the future might look like. Ostroff, a key developer of the concept of the horizontal organization, offers the first workable road map. He describes what the horizontal organization is, what it looks like, why it is important, how it helps improve performance, where it is appropriate, and how to develop it. The book contains real case examples that show how major international corporations (and one federal agency) have used Ostroff's concepts to meet their competitive goals. For instance, we see how Ford Motor Company's Customer Service Division turned to the horizontal organization to meet a highly ambitious goal--to get the customer's car fixed right, on time, the first time, at a competitive price, in convenient locations. We see how a horizontal design radically improved the performance of OSHA (the federal agency that oversees occupational safety), transforming it from a bureaucratic enforcer of regulations to a proactive problem-solver in a concerted effort to improve working conditions and save lives. And we see how Xerox combined both vertical and horizontal designs successfully, a case that underscores when a firm can best use the horizontal organization to achieve their goals. Ostroff also looks at a General Electric plant in North Carolina, Motorola's Space and Systems Technology Group, and the home finance division of Barclays Bank, highlighting how these major corporations have also used the horizontal organization to radically improve productivity.
Many successful business books, such as Reengineering the Corporation and Beyond Reengineering, have given managers only a piece of the puzzle. Ostroff gives us the complete picture. The Horizontal Organization offers the first usable roadmap to the twenty-first-century firm. It is a book everyone who desires to radically improve the performance of their organization will want to read....

    The Horizontal Organization, by institutional-change specialist Frank Ostroff, is a blueprint for the future development of public and private infrastructures that have outgrown the vertical, or "top-down," hierarchy that has been standard in the business community since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. "It is increasingly apparent that the long-favored vertical model is, by itself, no longer capable of meeting all the different needs of business," Ostroff writes. "It has been rendered inadequate for today's demanding competitive, technological, and workforce environments by its inherent shortcomings." The time is therefore right, he continues, completely to overhaul this outdated corporate structure and prepare for the next 50 years as some major establishments--such as Ford Motor Company's Customer Service Division, Xerox, and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)--already have done. Through well-reasoned arguments and the help of these and other real-world examples, Ostroff convincingly shows how his concepts might be employed to eliminate bureaucracy, improve productivity, and solve common long-term organizational problems. And by presenting the entire picture where only small pieces have previously been revealed, he makes a compelling case for radical change in the corporate world as well as in the public sector and non-profit universe. --Howard Rothman...

Authors: Laura Klepacki.
Hardcover, 264 pages
Publisher: Wiley
Publication Date: 2005-04-11
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    A Winning Formula for Selling to Women Around the World

Avon has come a long way since handing out its first perfume sample back in 1886. The company, long famous for ringing customer doorbells, is now the world's largest direct sales organization-with almost five million representatives in more than 140 countries.

AVON: Building the World's Premier Company for Women is the first book ever to show how this cosmetics juggernaut achieved such incredible success, while revealing secrets any business can use to effectively market products of all kinds-especially to women.

Through this entertaining journey, you'll not only learn the colorful Avon story, but also see how every company, big or small, can benefit from its unique approach to sales and product development.

"By providing women with an unlimited opportunity for career success, Avon harnessed the power of a committed sales force to win customers and grow the business. The company's success story is testimony to the importance of focusing on your core business while recognizing the changes taking place with your customers and the environment."
-Mary Sammons, President and CEO, Rite Aid Corporation

"The book is an excellent primer on how to successfully make alternative forms of distribution work."
-Allen Burke, Director of Merchandising, QVC, Inc.

"The author's incisive revelations . . . capture the extraordinary personalities and entrepreneurial strategies of one of America's most spellbinding success stories."
-Annette Green, President Emeritus, The Fragrance Foundation...