Book Description
Updated to include new communication technology and its unique issues
For more than 50 years, The Gregg Reference Manual has been recognized as the best style manual for business professionals and students. The basic rules that apply to the most frequent problems are covered as thoroughly as the fine points of the problems that occur less often. The colorful examples and illustrations offer easy-to-follow models to help resolve the difficulties encountered in everyday communications from e-mail messages to formal reports. New features include:
- Up-to-date coverage on dealing with online source material and precautions to observe when citing electronic material
- New searchable index: the website accompanying the book allows the reader immediate access to definitions and information on specific topics
- Updated e-mail rules and expanded plagiarism coverage to meet the needs of changing technology
Customer Reviews:
Great Product, Great Seller.......2007-10-19
Item came to my home in perfect condition, half the price of what it would have cost me @ the campus bookstore. Thanks again. Awesome experience doing business with this seller. Thanks
very good, well-written manual. it is a must!.......2007-10-11
I think that this product is truly a must for anyone taking business english classes, anyone working at an office, or anyone teaching an english class. this is the best manual there is!
Gregg Manual.......2007-07-25
The Gregg Manual is outstanding and any office worker - whether secretary or the boss, needs it to be sure that letters and documents are perfect. It's a little pricey but worth every penny.
Not For Beginners..........2007-06-12
This book is not really geared for the beginner; it is for those who have a decent/modest/working command of the English writing/language with a basic understanding of sentence structure but need tweaking here and there to help perfect their skill. It covers EVERYTHING from punctuation, tense and subject agreement, spelling, word use--everything that goes into writing. The book is very busy in that it is LOADED--it covers everything you need to write properly/correctly. The book's section-numbering-system might be a bit of a tickle, but give it a scratch and you'll be on your way. The numbering system helps you locate/move from one area of grammatical treatment to another quickly; it allows this full coverage monograph to be printed into a portable size book. There are no "filler text", no speeches, no stories, no editoralizing--just concise writings on proper writing. It also provides clear examples, valuable notations, and alternative sentence formations. You WILL get your $ worth! (I didn't have time to check the book for this review, so mistakes are mine. ;>)
Great General Reference for Writers and Editors.......2007-05-09
I am a medical editor so my Bible is the AMA guide, but I needed a more general reference for my regular grammar/English queries. A co-editor who has been relying on and loving his Gregg Manual for years recommended it to me. His recommendation proved most helpful because so far, this book is great. I have yet to have a grammar question the Gregg Manual couldn't answer. It's great for editors and writers regardless of industry, and would be helpful for students as well.
Book Description
ASW's Introduction to Management Science: A Quantitative Approach to Decision Making provides thorough, application-oriented coverage in a very readable writing style. This is the leading text on the market. Simply put, it's a classic! The problem-scenario approach introduces quantitative procedures through situations that include both problem formulation and technique application. The extensive linear programming coverage includes problem formulation, computer solution, and practical application. The text covers transportation, assignment, and the integer programming extension of linear programming, as well as advanced topics like waiting line models, simulation, and decision analysis. A large selection of problems includes self-test problems with complete solutions and case problems. Excel spreadsheet appendices are included as well.
Customer Reviews:
Good program with textbook.......2007-08-22
I had to use this text for a sophmore level management science course. While the book is extensively detailed, it is written for graduate school level course work. The program that comes with the text is much more useful for the undergrad student tackling business statistics.
Graduate Students Guide.......2006-03-10
This book is an essential guide for every graduate student. It makes mathematical and technical concepts of management science understandable and useful.
Good college textbook.......2006-02-25
This book provides thorough explanations, good tables, graphs, examples and self-test questions with most of the answers in the back of the book.
katz.......2005-04-19
Trust Me. This is the only book that you'll need to get started started in this area. The authors have done an excellent job in producing such a work, that takes care to explain all the details of management science.
I used this text for my professional exams (CIMA) and the it was great. All the chapters in this book are cleanly written to take that I doesn't leave anything unexplained. However, the following chapters are the ones that I like the most in this book:
1. Introduction to LP
2. LP: Sensitivity Analysis: Amazing work here.
3. LP Applications: formulation of problems in this chapter may be bit difficult at first, but keep reading and you'll learn and appreciate the work that the authors have put in.
4. LP - Simplex Method: My favorite chapter. Is highly readable. This one chapter alone is worth the book.
5. LP - Simplex Sensitivity.
6. Integer LP
7. Project Scheduling - Great, well written chapter, another favorite of mine.
8. Decision Analysis - Good but the problems are repetative.
9. Markov Process - An introduction only, but the application of markov process to accounts receivable anlaysis is very useful for anyone wondering about the applications of markov processes.
Overall a great book that is worth its price.
Book Description
In just the last few years, traditional collaboration—in a meeting room, a conference call, even a convention center—has been superseded by collaborations on an astronomical scale.
Today, encyclopedias, jetliners, operating systems, mutual funds, and many other items are being created by teams numbering in the thousands or even millions. While some leaders fear the heaving growth of these massive online communities, Wikinomics proves this fear is folly. Smart firms can harness collective capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success.
A brilliant guide to one of the most profound changes of our time, Wikinomics challenges our most deeply-rooted assumptions about business and will prove indispensable to anyone who wants to understand competitiveness in the twenty-first century.
Based on a $9 million research project led by bestselling author Don Tapscott, Wikinomics shows how masses of people can participate in the economy like never before. They are creating TV news stories, sequencing the human genome, remixing their favorite music, designing software, finding a cure for disease, editing school texts, inventing new cosmetics, or even building motorcycles. You'll read about:
• Rob McEwen, the Goldcorp, Inc. CEO who used open source tactics and an online competition to save his company and breathe new life into an old-fashioned industry.
• Flickr, Second Life, YouTube, and other thriving online communities that transcend social networking to pioneer a new form of collaborative production.
• Mature companies like Procter & Gamble that cultivate nimble, trust-based relationships with external collaborators to form vibrant business ecosystems.
An important look into the future, Wikinomics will be your road map for doing business in the twenty-first century.
Customer Reviews:
The Mass Collaboration Gold Mine.......2007-10-19
This book hammers home a 21st century no-brainer. "It's all based on a principle the new generation of Web start-ups learned from the open source software community: There are always more smart people outside your enterprise boundaries than there are inside."
While it has mixed reviews ("made me feel alternately like Christopher Columbus and Grandpa Simpson"), it's an important addition to your organization's resource library.
Tapscot and Williams deliver fascinating case studies of companies that have opened up their internal secrets/data to the world so "mass collaboration" can help them solve big problems. Procter & Gamble did it and so did a failing Toronto-based gold-mining firm. In 2000, Goldcorp, Inc. ran a contest, the "Goldcorp Challenge," with $575,000 in prize money--and posted all of the mine's proprietary data on the web. The request: help us find more gold. The result: "More than 1,000 virtual prospectors from 50 countries got busy crunching the data."
Mass collaboration from the most unlikely sources and disciplines targeted new mother lodes on their 55,000-acre property. It worked: $100 invested in the company in 1993 was worth more than $3,000 in 2006.
There's a core value here (a biblical one) for faith-based organizations and churches: it's all kingdom work. It's time to open up and work together versus holding your ministry close to the vest. (It's not your ministry anyway!)
Read this book and then ask your team these questions: 1) What's our biggest challenge in the next 12 months? 2) Would mass collaboration help us solve it? 3) Do we operate as if the smartest people are INSIDE our organization or OUTSIDE our organization? Why?
Future Shock 2.0.......2007-10-14
Reading this 2006 book made me feel alternately like Christopher Columbus and Grandpa Simpson. Co-authors Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams define a near-term future of breathtaking wonder and innovation, yet I came away finding their best-case scenario hard to swallow.
"Wikinomics" describes existing business models in various industries, from which it extrapolates their ongoing development as part of a larger revolution of revolutionary openness, "on par with the Italian renaissance or the rise of Athenian democracy," the authors write. "Mass collaboration across borders, disciplines, and cultures is at once economical and enjoyable."
Like a lot of other posted reviewers here, I found "Wikinomics" too gushy and jargony, throwing up random-sounding words like "ideagoras" and "prosumers" as if their very existence connoted concreteness of often-fuzzy notions. The book's airy dismissal of copyright law and the protection of intellectual property rights as old thinking annoyed me immensely. And the notion of a future of non-hierarchal business enterprises strikes me as a terribly naive misreading of the most important aspect of the equation: the human element.
But give Tapscott and Williams points for presenting their case for futurism in a way that often feels quite compelling. They start with perhaps the best such example, by presenting the case of a Canadian mining company that, stymied in their search for gold, opened their records up to the outside world through online file sharing, soliciting ideas about where in their vast mine network they should dig for rich veins. The resulting influx of new thinking catapulted Goldcorp from a $100 million company to one worth $9 billion.
Tapscott and Williams take the success of Goldcorp and look for other industries where similar ideas have been practiced with similar results. With some, like this website, the fruits of innovation are immediate and obvious. With others, like old-guard conglomerate Procter & Gamble, success has been nearly as profound in more subtle ways.
The authors score some points, but also spout a lot of obvious Panglossian hyperbole. Wikipedia is as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica (better check that with John Seigenthaler). The youth-oriented website TakingITGlobal is like a new United Nations in embryonic form.
But their viewpoint has obvious value, too, and applicability in the world around us, even beyond the net world from which "Wikinomics" springs. Looking at the reinvention of BestBuy through its acquisition of Geek Squad, or how the workplace itself is changing shape to adapt to faster-moving, less-centralized structuring, is "Wikinomics" at its most challenging, and best reading.
I didn't put down this book convinced I saw the future, let alone a good future. But I did feel myself thinking differently about life and work than when I first picked "Wikinomics" up. Maybe that's the point.
Great Book to Read.......2007-10-02
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
As I refresh my professional career for the second decade of the 21st Century, I decided ro read this book, and I was not wrong. This is a most read book for everyone that's looking to stay relevant in the digital economy and the disrupting collaboration paradign. I highly recommeded.
Good, but not critical enough and scores high on the buzzword-meter.......2007-09-12
The book gives a quick tour of the new collaborative ways in which people aggregate and process information. It points out that collaboration can also be applied to produce new 'stuff', outside of software and even applying to manufacturing. It makes for interesting reading for people who a) know something about open source and want to know about its business implications and b) managers who don't know about open source/collaboration but would like to.
It is, imho, less interesting for those who want in-depth answers to the real thorny _business_ problems around open-source. I.e. How to make money at it, if you want to. It hints at important questions such as rewarding the community at large, not losing the family jewels as you open up, etc. Unfortunately, it never quite gets down to specific recommendations beyond "you have to find the right mix of proprietary vs. open source IP".
Not to criticize it overmuch. Wikinomics often jars your thinking with insightful nuggets. For example, it cites Goldcorp as the example of a mining company which opened up its secret prospection data to outsiders. Wikinomics, probably rightly, uses that as a counter-intuitive example of enlisting external help for a type of company that never shares that kind of data. Hmmm, why not share? If the prospection data applies to land on which only your company can operate, isn't that a pretty safe gamble? I don't know, really, but the point is that the anecdote makes you think of things differently. Same with IBM's success at getting a new OS (Linux)almost for free, while gathering goodwill from the community and genuinely collaborating. How far Big Blue's embarrassing anti-trust proceedings seem now...
Less helpful is Wikinomics' recurring use of cherry-picked anecdotes by sector, rather than a broad analysis of various businesses. First of all, it rarely compares its chosen 'smart companies' to their competitors. Yes, BMW is opening up. Does that make their cars any better? How is their stock doing? vs. Toyota? How is their reliability? How innovative are their cars?
Red Hat is a huge success story in Linux, but its dominance also highlights the relative failure of other Linux vendors. No explanation is given for that - network effects? first mover?
I would have welcomed some case studies of failures for big corporations in opening up. What caused those failures? What can be learned from them?
Google is also cited as a big example of openness. That is only partially true and could have served to highlight the necessary(?) split between proprietary information and public openness. Google opens up its APIs and the search is certainly free. I am a big fan myself. However, they have not chosen to release much code back to the community (cf. MapReduce) , mostly by sidestepping the GPL because they don't distribute their software. Their choice, and probably motivated by good business logic. Apple also walks a fine line between leveraging open source and keeping its business very much a secret.
This is just the kind of case studies Wikinomics could sink its teeth into, but it spends way too much time gushing over all the boundless possibilities of collaboration.
Conclusion: a good eye-opener but take it with a grain of salt. Note that my perspective is that of a developer interested in open source _and_ business profits.
An interesting read........2007-09-04
I liked this book, and it opened my eyes to many other "community-driven" technologies/companies. While I thought a lot of the ideas were very "common sense", it was well written, and had some great anecdotes. I recommend this book for anyone interested in social networking, building communities, etc.
Amazon.com Audiobook Review
We're constantly negotiating in our lives, whether it's convincing the kids to do their homework or settling million-dollar lawsuits. For those who need help winning these battles, Roger Fisher has developed a simple and straightforward five-step system for how to behave in negotiations. Narrated soothingly by NPR announcer Bob Edwards, Fisher adds the meaty portions of the material with a sense of playfulness. The blend of voices makes this tape easy to listen to, especially the real-life negotiating scenarios, in which negotiating examples are given. This is a must-have tape for every businessperson's car. (Running time: one hour, one cassette) --Sharon Griggins
Book Description
Getting to Yes is a straightorward, universally applicable method for negotiating personal and professional disputes without getting taken -- and without getting angry.
It offers a concise, step-by-step, proven strategy for coming to mutually acceptable agreements in every sort of conflict -- whether it involves parents and children, neighbors, bosses and employees, customers or corporations, tenants or diplomats. Based on the work of Harvard Negotiation Project, a group that deal continually with all levels of negotiations and conflict resolutions from domestic to business to international, Getting to Yes tells you how to:
- Separate the people from the problem
- Focus on interests, not positions
- Work together to create opinions that will satisfy both parties
- negotiate successfully with people who are more powerful, refuse to play by the rules, or resort to "dirty tricks"
Customer Reviews:
I'm glad we could swap the blue and red ones........2007-10-18
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In This book certainly shows how to save face - showing how to accomlish an objective without giving in. It also is easy to read and an excellent start for the 'beginner' stepping into this area of reading, with a view to acting on the information provided. I recommend this as well as "Getting Past No" by the same author, for the beginner and the novice negotiator.
Okay.......2007-09-30
I was better off buying the book from the regualr store. The book cost me more due to S/H.
A positive-sum game.......2007-09-02
Despite the common perception, negotiation is not about winning, it's about coming up with a resolution which benefits both sides. In order to develop such an agreement you have to be willing to listen, and to understand the opposing side on both the personal and business levels. 'Getting to Yes' teaches us how to develop these skills. From personal issues, to tactics, to psychological tricks, to best alternative (BATNA) analysis, Roger Fisher covers a lot of ground in this classic. The book is short and to the point, and serves as a great launchpad for further research in the area.
The Godfather of all Negotiation.......2007-08-27
I have purchased the unabridged audio versions to save time. Harvard developed principled negotiation which causes an unsurpassable system for negotiation. This is the book everyone should read if there's only one book in the world on negotiation! Nearly one hundred raving five star reviews from readers, lawyers, business people, professionals, students, teachers, and negotiators can't be wrong.
Yes, this is a "must read".......2007-08-19
Reviewing a book 15 years after its publication might seem a bit pointless. But that depends on the book. In this case, we're talking about a book that has near cult status in the business community.
Over the past 15 years, this book has been referred to and revered in thousands--if not millions--of articles, seminars, college course, and training programs. In fact, as of the date of this review over 100 published books cite Getting to Yes.
If you're in business and haven't read this book, you are operating with less than full power. But the book has value well beyond the business world. If you've ever had a disagreement end in a way that left you or the other party feeling cheated or manipulated, that ending probably came about because you were either bargaining about position or confusing the people with the problem. Either strategy guarantees at least one loser. Unfortunately, most disagreements follow one or both of these losing strategies.
With discipline and practice, you can apply the knowledge in this book so that you:
* Preserve relationships without giving in (go along to get along).
* Can satisfy the interests of both parties.
* Ensure both parties are motivated to uphold their end of the bargain.
* Feel good about the agreement reached and the people who reached it.
The strategies have nothing to do with tricking other people or playing games. The strategies have everything to do with respecting other people and refusing to play games.
In the publishing world, "thud factor" is a major consideration. Many readers expect filler, in the form of anecdotes and stories (as if they want the author to assume they are too daft to understand assertions made directly in plain English). Getting to Yes is 200 pages long, with the last 50 pages or so being basically a review and a "Cliff Notes" of the first 150. So, you have the book followed by a summary of the book. What you don't have is 150 pages stretched to 300 pages with stories that a busy executive would rather skip.
The concise writing is a huge plus to many people, but some reviewers see it as a minus. So, you may also read reviews saying that other books are "better" because they are thicker.
I have two proposed solutions to that:
1. Read the first 150 pages of Getting to Yes twice. This will equal 300 pages.
2. Read the book, then practice it. Take 150 pages of notes regarding your experiences. You now have the stories and filler you wanted.
The authors wrote this book not to entertain, but to educate. It gets to the point. There is no obfuscation, meandering, or distraction. That same communication style is required in a negotiation. The occasional anecdote may be helpful, but to lead a negotiation to a successful conclusion you must focus on the real issues. That is what this book does. And that's why it's a classic in the classroom and in the boardroom, and in executive suites and staterooms throughout the world.
Be sure to read Getting Past No and The Power of a Positive No, as well.
Book Description
A grand and revelatory portrait of Wall Street’s most storied investment bank
Wall Street investment banks move trillions of dollars a year, make billions in fees, pay their executives in the tens of millions of dollars. But even among the most powerful firms, Lazard Frères & Co. stood apart. Discretion, secrecy, and subtle strategy were its weapons of choice. For more than a century, the mystique and reputation of the "Great Men" who worked there allowed the firm to garner unimaginable profits, social cachet, and outsized influence in the halls of power. But in the mid-1980s, their titanic egos started getting in the way, and the Great Men of Lazard jeopardized all they had built.
William D. Cohan, himself a former high-level Wall Street banker, takes the reader into the mysterious and secretive world of Lazard and presents a compelling portrait of Wall Street through the tumultuous history of this exalted and fascinating company. Cohan deconstructs the explosive feuds between Felix Rohatyn and Steve Rattner, superstar investment bankers and pillars of New York society, and between the man who controlled Lazard, the inscrutable French billionaire Michel David-Weill, and his chosen successor, Bruce Wasserstein.
Cohan follows Felix, the consummate adviser, as he reshapes corporate America in the 1970s and 1980s, saves New York City from bankruptcy, and positions himself in New York society and in Washington. Felix’s dreams are dashed after the arrival of Steve, a formidable and ambitious former newspaper reporter. By the mid-1990s, as Lazard neared its 150th anniversary, Steve and Felix were feuding openly.
The internal strife caused by their arguments could not be solved by the imperious Michel, whose manipulative tendencies served only to exacerbate the trouble within the firm. Increasingly desperate, Michel took the unprecedented step of relinquishing operational control of Lazard to one of the few Great Men still around, Bruce Wasserstein, then fresh from selling his own M&A boutique, for $1.4 billion. Bruce’s take: more than $600 million. But it turned out Great Man Bruce had snookered Great Man Michel when the Frenchman was at his most vulnerable.
The LastTycoons is a tale of vaulting ambitions, whispered advice, worldly mistresses, fabulous art collections, and enormous wealth—a story of high drama in the world of high finance.
Customer Reviews:
Oh, the memories.......2007-07-27
This book brought back so many memories of the time (late eighties/early nineties) and place. Looking back while reading this book, I realize how much I learned about people and industry while working in investment
banking (albeit a bit remotely) in NYC in those years. The level of detail
that Bill Cohan brings to the topic of Lazard is noteworthy. It's a fun
read for insiders and non-insiders alike. I hope things are better for
women now - my daughter wants to be an investment banker when she grows up!
A great book for "warped" people (like myself)!.......2007-06-11
660+ pages about the 150+ year history of Lazard Feres might put most people to sleep. Not me! As someone who actually likes this stuff, I found this book fascinating. The history of big money and finance is actually one of big personalties, and this book gives an inside look at several of the major players. Although tedious at times to read, I made it through the entire book in a couple of days. The most fascinating part of the entire story is simply that money at the levels discussed in this book doesn't seem real--most people could never fathom how corporate finance is conducted. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject of investment banking, especially those considering a career in that arena.
Long but worth it.......2007-05-30
extremely long, but it gives you a great description of how an organization rises and falls with the times and the great men who are at the wheel.
Destined to be a Classic.......2007-05-24
Cohan has brought to life a vivid and spellbinding tale of the legendary giants in the investment banking field (Meyer, Rohatyn, David-Weill, Rattner, and Wasserstein) at Lazard, offering a compelling and revealing portrait of the relentless personalities that invented, dominated and defined the last few decades of M&A banking. At the same time, The Last Tycoons is, at its core, a saga of ambition, egotism, greed, vanity and pride of Shakespearean proportions played out on the grand stage of corporate takeovers and national politics.
What emerges is not a noble picture of what these ostensibly "Great Men" purported themselves to be. Instead, it is apparent that at Lazard, the black arts of power and greed were the currency used to exhort and extort men of high ambition and intellect to achieve stature and enormous fees. The long shadow of Andre Meyer (unquestionably a Sith Lord) looms over the Lazard partnership and his protégés and successors, Felix Rohatyn and Michel David-Weill. Meyer was a brilliant financier with no peer with the exception of Bruce Wasserstein and it's fitting and deserving that the story of Lazard begins and ends with these two men. In between, Michel and Felix weave a complex and fascinating legacy of fear and loathing in the intervening decades.
For bankers and professionals in the field, Cohan's detail and emotional and psychological nuances will be tantalizing and relevant. For those aspiring to enter the field, it's a cautionary tale - it's very hard to play on the big stage on Wall St without darkening your soul. This story is destined to be a Classic amongst Barbarians and Den of Thieves
barbarians at the gates of central park .......2007-05-19
maybe the first casualty of wealth is self-knowledge. that is the takeaway from William Cohan's fine history of the fabled lazard freres banking house. in these pages we watch titans of finance gloat and preen while their castle crumbles from corruption and mismanagement.
Its a terrific story peopled with fascinating characters. who wouldn't, after reading this book, want to dine with the formidable felix rohatyn. He fled the Nazis as a boy, rescued New York from financial ruin and ditched Lazard at just the right moment to serve the nation as Bill Clinton's Ambassador to France. His intellect and achievement dominate the book, just as Felix dominated wall street for a generation. His departure from the firm caps the end of "the great man" era in investment banking. In Rohatyn's day only a select handful of wise men could be trusted to guide transactions. Nowadays all you need is armani and a spread sheet.
Even as he maps the tectonic movement in investment banking, Cohan keeps it light with plenty of well-researched dish on criminal investigations, love affairs, fabulous art collections, New Yorkana and the occasional drop to earth by some of Lazard's wax-winged partners. I closed the book -- a whopping 750 pp's -- edified and thoroughly entertained.
Book Description
Marketing, 8e by Kerin, Hartley, Berkowitz, and Rudelius continues a tradition of leading the market with contemporary, cutting-edge content presented in a conversational student-oriented style, supported by the most comprehensive, innovative, and useful supplement package available. This text and package is designed to meet the needs of a wide spectrum of faculty—from the professor who just wants a good textbook and a few key supplements, to the professor who wants a top-notch fully integrated multimedia program.
Customer Reviews:
Comprehensive overview of marketing fundamentals!!! .......2007-08-21
This book was actually used as a textbook for an online course Essentials of Marketing. The marketing fundamentals are divided into 5 parts; (i) Initiating the Marketing Process, (ii) Understanding Buyers and Markets, (iii) Targeting Marketing Opportunities, (iv) Satisfying Marketing Opportunities and (v) Managing the Marketing Process.
Part I lays the foundation for the entire book, explaining what marketing and strategic marketing process are, and relate the importance of environmental, ethical and social responsibility factors to the marketing actions. It mentions briefly the use of BCG (Boston Consulting Group) business portfolio analysis to quantify performance measures and growth targets to analyze a firm's business units. Similarly firms can also view growth opportunities using the market-product analysis. The 3 key phases in a strategic marketing process (planning, implementation and control) are introduced. More details on each step in the planning phase is provided, such as SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, threat) analysis, environment scanning, market-product grid, market segmentation, target markets, developing the marketing program 4Ps( product, price, place / distribution, promotion), budgeting, etc.
Part II discusses on the ultimate consumer and organizational (industrial, reseller, government) markets and buyer behavior. The NAICS allows the classification or common industry definitions of industrial, reseller and government markets for Canada, Mexico and US. The breakdown or definition of the NAICS is shown in detail. On a global perspective, the dynamics of the world trade is discussed. Porter's diamond of national competitive advantage shows the 4 key elements affecting world trade; factor conditions, demand conditions, related and supporting industries and company strategy, structure and rivalry. Further on, 4 global market-entry strategies are discussed next; exporting, licensing, joint venture and direct investment, in terms of the marketing mix (product, promotion, distribution and pricing) strategies.
Part III discusses the key marketing methods and then focuses on the marketing efforts on those key segments most likely to buy the product. The role of marketing research and the 5-step marketing research approach leading to marketing actions are defined. From the market research conducted, the 5-steps in segmenting and identifying the target markets, product positioning and sales forecasting techniques can be performed.
Part IV covers the 4Ps of the marketing mix that can be used to implement the marketing program. It provides correlation of the stages of the product life cycle (introduction, growth, maturity and decline) to the specific marketing objective (gain awareness, stress differentiation, maintain brand loyalty and harvesting/deletion) and the characteristics of the product, price, promotion and place strategy. 3 ways can be used to manage a product through its life cycle; modifying the product, modifying the market and repositioning the product. A brief discussion is on branding and brand management. The differences between products and services are highlighted. The 6 steps in setting price are discussed next. A few factors will affect the pricing decisions such as the type of competitive market (pure monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition, pure competition), the pricing objectives and constraints, the estimation of demand and revenue, the determination of cost, volume and profit relationships, etc. Various pricing strategies such as skimming, penetration, prestige, bundle, standard markup, cost-plus, target return on investment, loss leader, etc can help to select an approximate price level. Following this, the marketing channels of distribution is discussed next. The channels' terminologies (broker, wholesaler, retailer, distributor, dealer), functions (transactional, logistical, facilitating), structure (direct versus indirect channel) and organization (traditional, vertical marketing system) are introduced. An entire chapter is dedicated to supply chain and logistics management. This section concludes with the promotion factor of the marketing mix. The concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC) is introduced as designing marketing communications programs that coordinate all promotional activities (advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing) to provide a consistent message across all audiences. Guidelines are given on developing an IMC program. Since selling must be managed if it is going to contribute to a firm's marketing objectives, the sales management process is next explained.
The last part, part V, shows how marketing weave a myriad of controllable (4Ps of the marketing mix elements) and uncontrollable (environmental scanning) factors into interactive, traditional and multi-channel marketing programs. Among the marketing channels available, interactive marketing allows for interaction, individualization and customer relationship building through the choices of choiceboards, collaborative filtering, etc. The 3 phases (planning, implementation, control) in the strategic marketing process are again reviewed. Under planning phase, 3 marketing planning frameworks can be used; Porter's generic strategies, profit enhancement options and market-product synergies. Guidelines are provided for an effective marketing plan. As for the implementation phase, there is a need to schedule precise tasks, responsibilities and deadlines, as well as a marketing organization. The final control phase involves measuring results using sales analysis, profitability analysis and ROI marketing, and ends with taking appropriate marketing actions.
Overall, each chapter guides you on writing individual sections of the marketing plan. An example of a marketing plan is provided in Appendix A. In addition, there are case studies based on actual companies' experiences. Since finance is intertwined within marketing concepts, Appendix B gives an introduction into the financial aspects of marketing. In addition, this book pinpoints to a few websites where you can obtain more information such as www.supplychainbrain.com, www.census.gov, etc.
One of the setbacks is on the topic of building a price foundation. This book elaborates only on the demand curve, with no mention on the supply curve at all. Since pricing is based on the laws of supply and demand, I feel the supply curve needs to be taken into account as well. Another setback is the book does not delve deep into each subject matter. As an example, for pricing, this book highlights various methods of pricing such as price penetration, price skimming, target return on sales, cost-plus or standard markup. It provides definitions and only brief elaborations. For further understanding, other specialized resources have to be used such as courses or books on pricing, etc.
Nevertheless, this book is highly recommended for someone who is interested to gain an initial understanding on marketing.
Easy read.......2007-06-08
This is a great marketing and management book, easy to read, up to date examples and study cases. The website also provides videos of the cases if you don't like to read.
Marketing book.......2006-11-06
The book was received in great condition. There was no CD in it as I expected, but the overall purchase was very pleasant. Thank you.
Excellent Overview of marketing for undergrads.......2006-08-08
This book is an excellent resource for undergraduate marketing classes. The teacher materials (videos and cases) are solid and interesting. I have used this textbook for several years with great success.
I would like to see a bit more work in the book on B2B E-Commerce, which is so important as a business driver today.
Excellent topics with real-life samples.......2006-05-16
I love to read this book. The book contains interesting topics for basic marketing. However, it's a bit pricey on the shelf.
Average customer rating:
- Better read the REAL Shakespeare
- Intriguing thriller
- Disappointed
- Two thumbs up!
- Delightful reading
|
The Book of Air and Shadows
Michael Gruber
Manufacturer: William Morrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| Thrillers
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Suspense
| Thrillers
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Mystery & Thriller Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Napoleon's Pyramids
-
Ghostwalk
-
In the Woods
-
The Savage Garden
-
Christine Falls: A Novel
ASIN: 0060874465
Release Date: 2007-03-27 |
Book Description
A distinguished Shakespearean scholar found tortured to death . . .
A lost manuscript and its secrets buried for centuries . . .
An encrypted map that leads to incalculable wealth . . .
The Washington Post called Michael Gruber's previous work "a miracle of intelligent fiction and among the essential novels of recent years." Now comes his most intellectually provocative and compulsively readable novel yet.
Tap-tapping the keys and out come the words on this little screen, and who will read them I hardly know. I could be dead by the time anyone actually gets to read them, as dead as, say, Tolstoy. Or Shakespeare. Does it matter, when you read, if the person who wrote still lives?
These are the words of Jake Mishkin, whose seemingly innocent job as an intellectual property lawyer has put him at the center of a deadly conspiracy and a chase to find a priceless treasure involving William Shakespeare. As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began when a fire in an antiquarian bookstore revealed the hiding place of letters containing a shocking secret, concealed for four hundred years. In a frantic race from New York to England and Switzerland, Jake finds himself matching wits with a shadowy figure who seems to anticipate his every move. What at first seems like a thrilling puzzle waiting to be deciphered soon turns into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, where no one—not family, not friends, not lovers—is to be trusted.
Moving between twenty-first-century America and seventeenth-century England, The Book of Air and Shadows is a modern thriller that brilliantly re-creates William Shakespeare's life at the turn of the seventeenth century and combines an ingenious and intricately layered plot with a devastating portrait of a contemporary man on the brink of self-discovery . . . or self-destruction.
Customer Reviews:
Better read the REAL Shakespeare.......2007-10-13
I picked up this book because I like books and I like Shakespeare. It turns out I should have read a work of Shakespeare then.
I didn't like this book for the following reasons:
1. Language. Just for your information, English is not my native language. Still I can tell that this book is written more like a freshman's essay about his pet than a work of literature. Even the parts in renaissance English sound as ridiculous and deep as a fancy shop owner calling his place 'Ye Auld Booke Shoppe'.
2. Credibility. The story of the narrator being an olympic weight-lifter alone is a laugh.
3. Tempo. The author drones on and on about side stories of the narrator's live that are way too long and of no interest at all. Add to this the fact that he is supposedly writing this in great danger and under a lot of pressure and it's just too much to bear.
4. Enough is enough. I stopped reading the book in the low 100's when nothing had happened yet and the narrator tells us how he had sex with every (ex-)wife of his best friend. "Louise and I had a single long afternoon about two weeks before she got married. She said she loved him ... but simply could not bear the thought of never doing it with another man and she said she always had a sneaker for me ... and wanted to see what it was like before the gate clanged shut." This sounds like one of these erotic stories one can read in an adult magazine. Honestly, his best friend and I both hope the bad guys will get to him in the end.
I don't know if this will happen as I haven't finished the book. I usually finish every book I start reading but this one just was too much.
Intriguing thriller.......2007-10-09
This is an extremely well-written book that keeps the reader guesing until the very end. There are a myriad of disparate characters, and all of them are well developed. The plot line involves an old manuscript that may or may not lead to an unknown play by Shakespeare, and it is very difficult to discern who are the "good Guys" and who are the "bad guys". Even by the end of the book I was still a bit confused as to what really happened, and whether or not the manuscript was genuine. If you like literary thrillers, and puzzles to figure out, you will certainly enjoy this book.
Disappointed.......2007-10-08
Although I like thrillers, including those with literary themes, I didn't finish this one. I just didn't care enough about most of the characters to warrent further reading. An Olympic weight-lifting lawyer...an ex-con priest...these just didn't work at all for me.
Two thumbs up!.......2007-09-30
Having read Gruber's first two books Tropic of Night and Valley of Bones I wasn't sure I was ready for a third. The first two having left me a bit nonplussed. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy books and movies that take a detour around reality but those two books made a right angle turn somewhere and I'm not sure I'm over them yet!
TBoAAS is a whole other beast. Slow moving, tedious at times, it none-the-less hooked me and drew me in until I could not walk away. I felt that that the first 2/3's of the book moved at a glacial pace. Which is great if you want to fully involve youself in the characters and the plot. At some point, which I can't precisely pin down, the pace picked up and hauled me, open-mouthed, to the final pages.
Honestly, who would have thought combining a self-absorbed, womanizing lawyer (a heavy lifter, literally, to boot) with a dreamy young man who believes life is literally determined by the movies and setting them on what may or may not be a wild goose chase for an unknown Shakespearean manuscript could prove to be so entertaining?
As a mark of how well done the book is, I shed a few tears at the end, not because it was sad but because the story was over. To date only two other writers have affected me that way.
You don't have to be a literary, artsy type to get into this story, btw. You DO need to persevere long enough to let the story get hold of you. Then you're stuck. Happily so, I might add.
Delightful reading.......2007-09-28
What a wonderful, amusing book. It reminded me of Saul Bellow's Herzog combined with a much smarter version of The Davinci Code. It gets a wee bit confusing at the end as layers of intrigue are peeled away, but still a delightful, fresh voice.
Book Description
The Ninth Edition of Operations Management features the latest concepts and applications while not losing focus on the core concepts that has made this text a market leader. This approachable text supports students in applying concepts and methods by providing solved problems, examples, questions, practice problems, and cases. Students learn by doing, and the Ninth Edition continues to offer more support for 'doing Operations' than any other. A Student DVDRom complete with Excel templates; data files; videos from companies like Honda, United Airlines, McDonalds, Disney, and more; self quizzes; weblinks; and innovative 'screencam tutorials' that show students how to use Excel are included in the package. The DVDRom also features six new segments and expanded editions of additional videos.
Customer Reviews:
Required Text for MBA class.......2007-02-08
The text seems ok and is fairly easy to read.
Book Description
Small Business Management, with its loyal following and great package, is far and away the market leading text in small business and has been for many years. It is a proven text, comprehensive in its approach, with the best fully integrated content, graphics, and resources devoted to business plan development. SBM has always been a step ahead of the competition (first to cover family businesses and first to integrate computer technology for small business) and continues to provide innovative coverage in each new edition. Increasingly adopted in hybrid courses that combine small business management and entrepreneurship and in standalone entrepreneurship courses, SBM shows aspiring business owners not only how to start a business but how to grow one.
Customer Reviews:
Not helpful supplement to actual textbook.......2007-09-13
This book claims that you will "never hightlight again," but actually all this is is a glossary-like listing of vocabulary words from each chapter of the actual textbook. The general point of the information from the actual text does not come through at all. If you are using the actual textbook for a class, you will not understand the material if do not read the actual text. If you already bought the textbook, this is not a necessary (or even helpful) supplement.
Good Product.......2007-03-21
Great shape, quick shipping. Too expensive, but that is what this product normally runs unfortuantly. Overall good experience
Book for online course.......2006-11-03
I am using this book for a online college curse and the book it's great! It provide many tools like the textbook's website to help you to understand the material and exams online. In general, I like the little cases that are update and motivate you to keep reading.
If this book by itself can help you to develop you own Small Business, it worth.
Book Review.......2006-03-04
Good overview on what you need to consider before you start your own business.
It's... OK........2002-08-26
The presentation of this book is excellent; It holds the reader's interest quite well. However, despite a recent "update", it shows it's age when the author regularly goes off on dot-com tangents, bringing the internet up in contexts that I believe the last few years have proven are not viable. Good grief, ppl. This isn't freaking 1997! We need a business text, not the wet dreams of a bunch of computer geeks turned businessmen! Anyways, if you are looking for a text with a lot of depth, look elsewhere. This book is to business textbooks what Quickbooks(c)(R)(TM) is to accounting software. In short, don't waste your money, unless you need it for a class. If so, be happy. If your prof teaches out of this, your tests will be very easy.
Book Description
From the most trusted voice on transition, a revised edition of the classic practical guide to dealing with the human side of organizational change.
The business world is a place of constant change, with stories of corporate mergers, layoffs, bankruptcy, and restructuring hitting the news every day. Yet as veteran consultant William Bridges maintains, the situational changes are not as difficult for companies to make as the psychological transitions. In the best-selling Managing Transitions, Bridges provides a clear understanding of what change does to employees and what employees in transition can do to an organization.
Directed at managers and employees in today's corporations, Bridges shows how to minimize the distress and disruptions caused by change. Managing Transitions addresses the fact that it is people who have to carry out the change. When the book was originally published a decade ago, Bridges was the first to provide any real sense of the emotional impact of change and what can be done to keep it from disrupting the entire organization. With new information and commentary on layoffs, corporate suspicion, and the increasing tumult in the business world, Managing Transitions remains the definitive guide to dealing with change.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent book.......2007-10-17
Change and transition are an important issue in our professional lives, going trough the book allowed me to realize the diferent stages and process involved and there for be in a better position the next challenge.
the use of examples en refrences is very well managed, language is easy
High rating for a textbook, but it deserves it........2007-08-11
I have had several textbooks in Management between an Undergraduate, Graduate and Business itself. This was no different in that I expected the same old stuff, but was very pleasantly surprised at the authors candor about our perceptions of business practices. It didn't mince words on several tactics used by management and explained why so much doesn't work. It got my attention and I continued my reading with far more interest. There really isn't anything more complimentary I can say than I intend to sell all other books to new students, excect this one which I will hang on to and reference.
great results from this book.......2007-07-06
This is a wonderful book. If you deal with people who need to change how they do their work you must read this book.
great, short, valuable.......2007-07-04
This is a great book for all people who deal with people that are dealing with change. I have found this book useful when being a change agent for a company, or just for management in my own company. Part of the value of this book is it describes the emotional aspect of change. People are not always (usually) logical. Emotions play a large part. Knowing how to deal with the emotional aspect of change is essential. This book gives you great insights in this area.
Managing Transitions by William Bridges.......2007-05-13
This book is great! I was/am dealing with some pretty significant transitions -- the sudden death of my 21 year-old daughter, and a major division re-org at an S&P 500 company. Several months earlier, my VP had mentioned the book and suggested that all of his direct reports to read it. I did and it really hit home.
The author does an excellent job of describing the emotional and organizational impact of change and the mechanics of the process we use to get through it. We use the same basic process to deal with all change -- personal and professional -- and it has been very helpful to understand how it works. There is also a section in the book about the life cycle of an organization and that was illuminating. The book provided some tools to help me make critical decisions.
I bought six copies of the book and have given them out to friends and co-workers.
Books:
- The House in Paris
- The Last Diary of Tsaritsa Alexandra (Annals of Communism Series)
- The Last Jew
- The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Visions of Glory
- The Only Three Questions That Count: Investing by Knowing What Others Don't
- The Remains of the Day
- The Second World War (Six Volume Boxed Set)
- The Stamp of Impulse: Abstract Expressionist Prints
- The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Growing More Profitably (4th Edition) (Pie)
- The Virgin's Lover
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Vanished Man
- Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie
- Coldheart Canyon
- Entertaining and Educating Your Preschool Child
- I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye
- Introduction to Data Compression, Second Edition
- History: Fiction or Science
- Beautiful Bad Girl: The Vicki Morgan Story
- Critical Essays on Piero Sraffa's Legacy in Economics
- The Corporate Finance Sourcebook 2001: The Guide to Major Capital Investment Sources and Related Fin
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Fifth Edition
Gregg Reference Manual, Comprehensive Worksheets
The Chicago Manual of Style
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (Laminated Cover) (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (Laminated))
Comprehensive Worksheets on Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting to accompany the Gregg Reference Manual, Tenth Edition
