Book Description
Enterprise architecture defines a firm’s needs for standardized tasks, job roles, systems, infrastructure, and data in core business processes. Thus, it helps a company to articulate how it will compete in a digital economy and it guides managers’ daily decisions to realize their vision of success. This book clearly explains enterprise architecture’s vital role in enabling—or constraining—the execution of business strategy. The book provides clear frameworks, thoughtful case examples, and a proven-effective structured process for designing and implementing effective enterprise architectures.
Customer Reviews:
This book is about IT Strategy.......2007-08-31
I have read very few books which comes this close to defining IT's Strategic practice. Enterprise Architecture is the place where IT meets the needs of business. Enterprise Architecture is where operational risk is measured, future operational planning is done and the new business strategy is transformed into IT strategy. This book does a very good job of linking Enterprise Architecture with core business processes. It also explains the differences between, often confusing terms, such as -- application, data and IT systems/infrastructure architecture.
In last few years EA has become a large practice for Federal Government. It is fast becoming a need for every big company who is involved in making its IT agile, productive and innovative.
IT managers and business strategists both should read this to understand their role in crafting EA. This book is an easy read and uses very simple words, business examples and analytical frameworks. It is an unique book because most of Enterprise Architecture arena is muddled with acronyms and jargons, which makes the issue not only confusing but also very intimidating.
Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution
Best EA book over.......2007-07-23
This book is undoubtedly the best EA book I have ever read. It gives an overview of how to form a
1) overall strategy
2) Make EA a habit in the corporate
3) How to implement EA etc.
Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution.......2007-05-28
An excellent book for people with vision.
Very Good High level IT landscape vision.......2007-05-07
The book provides a very interesting point of view regarding IT Departament evolution states. Some chapters, while its contents are known, also are so cristal clear that helps when painting the landscape picture. If you are interesting about IT charting, it is very useful.
In the other hand, in my opinion, the book is not very clear when explaining the "operating model" concept and, the chapters related with it (operating model) are "dry" and do not encourage you to keep on with the reading, but if you progress forward, the book gets very interesting and easy to read from this point on.
EA Strategy.......2007-04-11
For those of us who need insight on how to visualize Enterprise Architecture Strategy in a step-by-step manner, this book fits within that realm. It provides insight into the characteristics of four different operating models and provides examples of how business processes relate to these operating models. Additionally, there is knowledge to be learned on how to approach the various stages of Enterprise Architectural maturity and what are the best management practices and how to utilize them. Lastly, the leadership section is the best in the book and the principles given are truly worth the time to read and absorb.
Book Description
Balancing conceptual and applied coverage of all aspects of the management and operation of services, this book has maintained the position as market leader through four previous editions. It is the most comprehensive and widely used introduction to service operations on the market, written by one of the top authorities on the subject and is designed to develop students' skills in both strategic and operational issues pertaining to services. New material on service out-sourcing highlights the importance of supply chain issues with services. In addition, discussion on the balanced scorecard and Six Sigma gives students the latest, most wide-ranging techniques for ensuring quality and evaluating long-term strategy planning. Coverage spans both qualitative and quantitative aspects of service management and offers flexibility in courses offering widely varying approaches to the study of service operations. The ancillary package includes student CD-ROM and Website that includes self-test quizzes, video clips, ServiceModel Software, and the Mortgage Service Game.
Customer Reviews:
Insightful frameworks for an effective PSO .......2007-05-27
This book is absolutely the best! It provides frameworks to structure and implement an effective professional services organization (PSO) for an IT product vendor. A product company PSO matures over time through various phases characterized by the types of services it offers. This book is full of practical yet winning strategies and tactics to maneuver the high risk waters of professional services. There are clear directions on how to manage key levers that increase profitability but it also sets realistic expectations. Although the book provides the `recipe' for a sample $100 million professional services organization, it lists all the necessary `ingredients' to cook up a PSO of any size.
I liked the fact that it is written in a style that is free of any jargon. Authors are professionals who clearly understand the industry from inside. My least favorite part are the diagrams and illustrations which are at best adequate but could be better. Highly recommend this book!
Building professional services in a product-based company.......2005-01-10
This is the absolutely best book devoted to building pro services organization in a product-based company. While there are a lot of sources on managing stand-alone pro services firm (i.e. accounting, law), this book addresses the common pitfalls in moving into services for product-oriented companies.
The book is easy to read, well organized, and packed with sound practical advice you can start applying right away, whether you're in delivery, sales, or marketing -- you'll be going back to it often.
You will sleep with this book.......2004-08-17
This book absolutely is the best book I've ever ready regarding professional services. They describe a pragmatic approach from their experience at SGI services. This book will take you through planning an PS organization, development of various groups, reporting strucutures, templates for tools to help you.
It's focus in on a PS organization of a product company but you can take much away from this book if you are purely a services organization.
What I like the most is that it helps you do begin to address the various challenges where other books gloss over these topics and leave it to you.
Excellent pragmatic approach.......2004-01-23
This book as become my day-to-day bible to managing a professional service division within our product-oriented company. If you have your objectives and strategy clear, this book will help you getting organized with the tactics.
Required Reading.......2003-07-19
This book is "just what the doctor ordered" for anyone trying to develop a Professional Services(PS) organization that is aligned with other functional groups and the overall mission of a product company. It also should be required reading for any leader moving for the first time from a stand-alone PS company to head up a PS organization within a product company.
I found it to provide easy to read, practical guidance on what the components of the PS organization should be, what the mission and profitability drivers should be, key organizational interfaces and how it should be measured.
Also, this book was reviewed, chapter by chapter, by all PS leaders as well as other functional leaders within the company, to develop a "lessons learned" document as part of a services strategic planning process. Invaluable assistance!
Amazon.com
Chapter 1 of Information Rules begins with a description of the change brought on by technology at the close of the century--but the century described is not this one, it's the late 1800s. One hundred years ago, it was an emerging telephone and electrical network that was transforming business. Today it's the Internet. The point? While the circumstances of a particular era may be unique, the underlying principles that describe the exchange of goods in a free-market economy are the same. And the authors, Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian, should know. Shapiro is Professor of Business Strategy at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and has also served as chief economist at the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. Varian is the Dean of the School of Information Management and Systems at UC Berkeley. Together they offer a deep knowledge of how economic systems work coupled with first-hand experience of today's network economy. They write:
Sure, today's business world is different in a myriad of ways from that of a century ago. But many of today's managers are so focused on the trees of technological change that they fail to see the forest: the underlying economic forces that determine success and failure.
Shapiro and Varian go to great lengths to purge this book of the technobabble and forecasting of an electronic woo-woo land that's typical in books of this genre. Instead, with their feet on the ground, they consider how to market and distribute goods in the network economy, citing examples from industries as diverse as airlines, software, entertainment, and communications. The authors cover issues such as pricing, intellectual property, versioning, lock-in, compatibility, and standards. Clearly written and presented, Information Rules belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who has an interest in today's network economy--entrepreneurs, managers, investors, students. If there was ever a textbook written on how to do business in the information age, this book is it. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards
Book Description
In a marketplace that depends so thoroughly on cutting-edge information technology, can classic economic principles still offer any real strategic value? Yes! say Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian. In Information Rules, they reveal that many long-standing economic concepts can provide the insight and understanding necessary to succeed in the information age. Shapiro and Varian argue that if managers seriously want to develop effective strategies for competing in the new economy, they must understand the fundamental economics of information technology. Whether information takes the form of software code or recorded music, is published in a book or magazine, or even posted on a web site, managers must know how to evaluate the consequences of pricing, protecting, and planning new versions of their information products, services, and systems. The first book to distill the economics of information and networks into practical business strategies, Information Rules is a guide to the winning moves that can help business leaders-from writers, lawyers, and finance professionals to executives in the entertainment, publishing, and hardware and software industries--navigate successfully through the information economy.
Download Description
In Information Rules, authors Shapiro and Varian reveal that many classic economic concepts can provide the insight and understanding necessary to succeed in the information age. They argue that if managers seriously want to develop effective strategies for competing in the new economy, they must understand the fundamental economics of information technology. Whether information takes the form of software code or recorded music, is published in a book or magazine, or even posted on a website, managers must know how to evaluate the consequences of pricing, protecting, and planning new versions of information products, services, and systems. The first book to distill the economics of information and networks into practical business strategies, Information Rules is a guide to the winning moves that can help business leaders navigate successfully through the tough decisions of the information economy.
Customer Reviews:
A must.......2006-08-25
If you're in the software business and you haven't read this book, chances are you don't know what's going on. This may sound a bit abrupt, but that is the way it is. Bsaic concepts like lock-in and the need to differentiate are discussed in a clear and useful way. If more people would read this, a lot fewer mistakes would be made.
An Corporate Information Seller's Handbook.......2006-03-11
Both authors are professors at the University of California at Berkeley. This book deals with how unchanging principles are being applied to the changing conditions and technologies of information marketing (software).
A unique condition to today's information economy is that it's products are costly to produce, cheap to reproduce and without fixed supply. Value must be created by 'versioning' and personalizing a product in a number of different ways. The other alternative is to become a cost-leader commodity seller.
How to lock-in your customers for the long-term is discussed, as well as how not to be locked-in by your suppliers.
The pros and cons of evolution strategies are explained. Should your product be backward compatible or cleanly break with old technology?
Best in this book is how different positive feedback approaches can put your company in the super-accelerated growth mode.
Five Bright Stars !
Very Practical .......2006-01-24
The arrival of the Internet and the information explosion it created has made it possible for inventors and entrepreneurs to build a business from scratch to worldwide marketing capability in a very few years. The authors of this book take the position that all too often we are deluded into thinking certain and tried and true economic principles have been abolished by this new Internet economy. They argue their position without jargon and with examples taken from the real world.
While old pricing ratios and old pricing strategies may not apply in the information age, new pricing ratios and new strategies have taken their place. Information goods can be costly to produce but cheap to reproduce. For example, a copy of a 100 million dollar movie on videotape costs a few cents to make. So pricing cannot follow, say, a 20% markup rule when the unit cost is essentially zero; "you must price your information goods according to customer value, not according to your production cost."
Several chapters cover pricing strategies and how to maintain control when some "view the Internet as one giant out-of-control copying machine." These strategies involve methods for differing your product from your competitors, avoiding sky-high initial pricing that encourages competition, and customizing. Interestingly, they note the "one-to-one marketing" strategy was "first described by economist A.C. Pigou in 1920."
Sometimes literally giving a product away works. The book describes how the former school teacher (Sheryl Leach) that created Barney gave free videos to day care centers and others located near the stores selling the Barney tapes. A note inside told parents where the stores were. It worked magnificently and Barney is now one of today¹s icons.
The development of digital watermarks has provided one tool for controlling piracy of your web presented material.
An important information age problem is recognizing and dealing with "lock-in." The writers compare cars with computers. You can switch from a Ford to a Chevy with no trouble, but changing computers may obsolete your present software. How do you convince customers to switch to your product or service when a switching cost is involved? The authors discuss several strategies.
Problems with "lock-in" and "switching costs" also often occur when you purchase durable equipment and service contracts. The authors advise you to carefully consider the costs of being locked-in to you supplier¹s parts and services. They especially caution regarding "evergreen contracts" which automatically renew.
Many interesting historical examples are used to drive home points. Edison, for example, with regard to establishing standards, invented the word "Hello" for answering the phone. He was hard of hearing and the English "Hallow" didn¹t grab attention as well. Incidentally, Alexander Graham Bell pushed for "Ahoy." The battles for standardizing railroad gauges and the classic standards battle that established AC power over DC power are detailed. (No mention of Tesla, a shame.)
The enormous role "blocking patents" can play when a formal standard-setting process is taking place within an industry is discussed. Most people think of industry standards as being dictated by the mighty corporations, but if the small guy is not invited to the table his firm "is not required to license its patents on fair and reasonable terms." The government may also monitor a standard-setting procedure with regard to monopoly considerations. When the steel electrical tubing people attempted to stack the deck, the plastic electrical tubing people cried foul and won.
Yet another interesting historical example is given in the discussion regarding how the concept of reasonable royalties and "just price" arose. It goes back to medieval times: "the just price of a horse was the price that would prevail at the open market at the annual fair, not the price that happens to emerge from a traveler in desperate need of a horse."
Like most growing fields the Internet has generated many unique and delightful terms. Vaporware is one such term. That is the promising of a new product and not delivering or delivering very late. This business tactic has been used by even the biggest (IBM, Microsoft), but as the authors note, it has often boomeranged.
While promising too much too soon is dangerous, the book makes the point that in this age of rapid technology progress "rigidity is death." the French became world leaders in the 1980s with their Minitel system, but today only 3 percent can access the Internet. A case where success also resulted in a high switching cost.
Each chapter of the book concludes with "Lessons" which are capsule summaries of the chapter¹s main points. Like the rest of the book, legalese and the jargon of academic economic courses are completely avoided.
This book is so readable and practical one can only hope other professors will use it as an example of how to write without arcane technobabble.
Cheap Text Book.......2005-09-20
I saved a lot of money buying this textbook on-line. It was in good quality.
A Must Read for Internet Entrepreneurs.......2005-06-16
Although this book was written in 1998, it is just as relevant if not more so today. The book discusses how Internet entrepreneurs should price their goods/services; how they can create lock-in effects to instill customer loyalty; and perhaps most importantly, how they can create network effects so as to exponentially increase their client base and barriers to entry. A brilliant book written by two leading authorities on economics.
Book Description
Misaligned companies, like cars out of alignment, can develop serious problems if not corrected quickly. They are hard to steer and don't respond well to changes in direction. This groundbreaking book shows you how to get -and keep -all the vital elements of your organization aligned and headed in the same direction at the same time.
Managers must now keep their people centered in the midst of change, deemphasize hierarchy, and distribute leadership by distributing authority, information, knowledge, and customer data throughout their organization. Alignment is a response to the new business reality where customer requirements are in flux, where competitive forces are turbulent, and where the bond of loyalty between an organization and its people has been weakened. The old linear approach to management has given way to one of simultaneity -to alignment.
As pioneers of the alignment concept, the authors have developed this unique approach based on their work with leading companies throughout the world. The Power of Alignment is packed with war stories and the firsthand perspectives of industry leaders. You'll learn how world-class organizations, including Federal Express, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Columbia/HCA Healthcare, Citizens Utilities, AirTouch, and UNUM achieved extraordinary business results. Now, through the authors' expertise, you'll see how alignment can work for your organization.
In essence, alignment links the five key elements of an organization -people, process, customers, business strategies, and, of course, leadership -to obtain breakthrough results, chief among them, sustained growth and profit, loyal customers, and a high-performing work force. The Power of Alignment:
* Offers a clear framework for aligning and linking the crucial elements that build and sustain a company's success
* Provides self-assessment tools as well as benchmarking measures for evaluating an organization's critical competencies
* Enables managers to create a work force where each employee can relate his or her activities to the goals and strategic objectives of the company
* Helps a company determine when and where it is out of alignment, and gives descriptions of such common company pathologies as "The Phantom Limb Syndrome," "Strategy Interruptus," and "Dead Man Walking"
* Prescribes specific steps for getting an organization back on track toward a single, shared vision of its goals
Essential reading for all managers and executives, The Power of Alignment offers a new way to reestablish focus and sustained energy, and is a dynamic approach for staying balanced and achieving extraordinary levels of performance.
"This book is savvy, detailed, timely, and clearly written. I highly recommend it for any leader facing the challenges posed by global business today." - Dana Mead Chairman and CEO, Tenneco Former Chairman National Association of Manufacturers
"It's not only the stars that have to be in alignment to reach your destination, it's all the internal processes, rewards, and drivers. Read The Power of Alignment, and while you may not unlock the secrets of the universe, you will overcome the barriers to corporate success." - William L. Boyan President and COO John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company.
"This important book goes beyond TQM and reengineering by creating a new approach called Alignment. The authors show that great companies manage to link strategy and people and integrate customer needs with continuous improvement processes." - Peter Augustsson President and Group Chief Executive AB SKF.
"The Power of Alignment gets to the heart of a critical element of organizational leadership, namely focus. Every leader who reads it will undoubtedly do some serious soul-searching about the consistency of corporate vision, goals, management systems, and incentive mechanisms." - Louis E. Lataif Dean Boston University School of Management.
Customer Reviews:
As significant today as it was when first published.......2007-08-26
After reviewing several books on Strategic Execution, I was continuously left with the feeling that the authors had ommitted a key ingredient. This book has convinced me that that key ingredient was "Alignment".
This book was published 10 years ago (OK, I am embarrassed that I have only just got around to reading it) but it is as significant today as it was when it was first published. Probably more so considering the rapid state of change that most companies are faced with today.
It is a simple read, and the concepts are easy to follow. What I enjoyed most about the book is that the suggestions are practical and you can take them and implement them immediately within an organization.
I noticed that one of the readers who has reviewed the book said that the book was required reading for his MBA course. 10 years on, I still think it should be required reading for any business executive.
This Is a Great Resource!.......2007-07-10
I'm always looking for visual ways of understanding critical elements of strategy. The Power of Alignment offers a very helpful way of thinking about four important ingredients in keeping the main thing, the main thing. Vertical alignment, the relationship between your strategy and the people on your team, "energizes...provides direction, and offers opportunity for involvement." Horizontal alignment refers to the connection between your processes and customers. Taken together the two measures provide some great insight into the development of genuine alignment.
One of the most interesting elements of the book is a 16 question diagnostic tool that is designed to provide a graphic view of your organization's alignment. Very helpful!
Make Sure That Everything You Do Points To Success !.......2006-05-03
Great book! The basic premise is that once a business has a raison d'etre, or a 'main thing', that profits are maximized by the alignment of four key business areas: Strategy, Processes, People, and Customers. Built on this premise are actionalbe ways to build a self-aligning organization. I got the sense of discovering truth while I read this book. Leadership isn't really about power, it is about responsibility. This book shows a manager at any level how to align his area to the overall strategy of the company and to the end products of the company. It shows how processes should be designed and what factors should be used to reward, recognize and evaluate employees. Great food for thought and realistic to implement.
Five Stars
Powerful Organizational Focus.......2003-05-28
Quite simply, this book was one of the best business management and leadership books I have ever read. It was well-written and expertly balanced management and leadership concepts with real-world examples of effectively aligned organizations, such as Federal Express and Southwest Airlines. This book should be read and discussed by leaders and managers at all levels, especially by mid- to senior-level executives.
In brief, alignment deals with the relationships among the people, processes, strategy, and customers of an organization relative to that organization's purpose, or what the authors called "the main thing." Alignment is both a noun, a state of being, and a verb, a set of actions. Vertical alignment connects organizational strategy with the people responsible for transforming that strategy into meaningful work. Horizontal alignment deals with understanding your customers' wants and then creating processes to deliver what your customers want, when and how they want it. Effective leadership nurtures the organizational culture that is built around and upon "the main thing," and it is this culture and leadership combination that drives and sustains self-aligning organizations in turbulent times.
The authors' analogy of landing a plane helped me to visualize the dynamics involved with organizational alignment. To land a plane, a pilot must adjust and react to multiple simultaneous factors and conditions (i.e. air speed, altitude, angle of approach, wind speed and direction, etc.) and then understand how a change in one will affect the others. Likewise, to align an organization, a leader must adjust and react to feedback about his people, processes, strategy, and customers, and then understand how a change in one will affect the others.
The authors clearly and thoroughly explained the alignment factors and conditions throughout the book. They followed their explanations with incisive questions for readers to ask about themselves and their organizations to assess their degree of alignment. Those questions were definitely a highlight of the book for they really helped to stimulate my thinking and should help inspire organizational progress to alignment. Another highlight was the appendices that contained examples of actual tools and products used and created by some of the aligned organizations studied by the authors.
The inside back cover jacket sums up why I give the book my highest recommendation: "Essential reading for all managers and executives, "The Power of Alignment" offers a new way to reestablish focus and sustained energy, and is a dynamic approach for staying balanced and achieving extraordinary levels of performance."
Alignment is Key Essential Usually Overlooked.......2001-07-13
I found this book easy reading, concise, and presented it's basic premise well with specific examples and good suggestions for creation and implementation.
Working as a Director in Managed Care for several pharmaceutical companies, it creates a focus for any organization and a roadmap for the future(physician, health plan, pharmaceutical company) to avoid many of the mistakes and pitfalls that have already been experienced in an attempt to align with the ever changing healthcare landscape.
For those who do account management, it provides a construct and roadmap to use to optimize alignment with internal customers and maximize resources to create value and return with the external customers (....and their customers.) As the authors point, alignment is a continuing process, not a single event in time. Many companies become quickly aligned with the past, and misaligned with the present & future, and can not sustain the competitive edge because they forget this basic premise that the authors reinforce.
The concepts are basic and fundamental, but usually overlooked and forgotten in the day to day business of rapidly growing companies and changing environments.
Book Description
Information Technology
Cutting-edge techniques for equipping your IT organization to meet the challenges of today's business world
Today's leaner, meaner, total quality business organizations look to information technology to provide them with a sustainable competitive advantage. That's why the IT managers who are in greatest demand are those who are well versed in modern strategic planning techniques and capable of developing a dynamic IT organization ever alert to their companies' current and future business needs. Written by an author at the cutting edge of today's IT business strategy revolution, this book offers you a clear, easy-to-implement action plan for reengineering your business's IT organization with an eye to building, sustaining, and expanding a competitive advantage. You will find:
- Charts and templates that an IT staff can customize and use today
- Techniques for overcoming most architecture problems, including a diagramming technique for drawing exceptionally clear blueprints
- An in-depth discussion of business IT alignment
- How to design an internal IT business economy
- Tips on how to get the biggest bang for the buck while optimizing customer service
- Proven techniques that radically improve application development through object-oriented technologies, data servers, and prototyping
Customer Reviews:
Bridging business strategy and IT planning: a clear guide.......2003-08-28
It was about the time this book was written in 1994 that I was facing a difficult time trying to articulate the relationship between business strategy and use of information technology, and the complex set of issues of alignment between the two. I was involved in the complex restructuring of a central bank in an African country and my need to explain these issues to central bankers made my job even more complex.
This book opened my eyes. Even as business thinking and technology have evolved tremendously since this book was published, I still find this text one of the clearest and most concise guides on this subject. The author's approach is highly structured and supported by excellent graphics and charts and he eschews the use of jargon in favor of more straightforwad language.
The strength of the book is its achievement of the difficult balance between business and technolgy issues. Even the concept of strategy is concisely explained with an excellent review of different "schools of strategy." The chapters on technology will definitely seem outdated to many, and the lack of discussion of the Internet and multimedia will be especially striking to a reader today. But this is less important if your interest is to see how to present the issue of alignment between business strategy and technology. The penultimate chapter on management philosophy and style quotes from Machiavelli and Sun Tzu and reminds us that all this technology is really about achieving straegic advanatge and business gain. It is too easy to miss the forest (strategic vision and goals) when the trees (technology tools) become the focus.
I have many other books on similar subjects, but find myself returning to this one whenever I seek inspiration on how to present the issue of effective alignment. It is full of practical straight talk in an area which has unfortunately fallen prey to hype and obfuscation. An illustrative quote from this book: "Clarity is hampered by colloquial definitions of the words. Therefore, we must take some time to uncover what strategic alignment between I/T and the business really means."
comprehensive ...the only missing part is ROI and IT values.......2000-05-06
This is an excellent book for IT leadership who often finds itslef on a different road and cannot justify the value of IT. Unless IT is perfectly aligned with the company strategy this value is never there. This book shows you how to do it...how to align yourself. What is missing are some lessons in showing or developing ROI in IT projects.
Book Description
Transactional Information Systems is the long-awaited, comprehensive work from leading scientists in the transaction processing field. Weikum and Vossen begin with a broad look at the role of transactional technology in today's economic and scientific endeavors, then delve into critical issues faced by all practitioners, presenting today's most effective techniques for controlling concurrent access by multiple clients, recovering from system failures, and coordinating distributed transactions.
The authors emphasize formal models that are easily applied across fields, that promise to remain valid as current technologies evolve, and that lend themselves to generalization and extension in the development of new classes of network-centric, functionally rich applications. This book's purpose and achievement is the presentation of the foundations of transactional systems as well as the practical aspects of the field what will help you meet today's challenges.
* Provides the most advanced coverage of the topic available anywhere--along with the database background required for you to make full use of this material.
* Explores transaction processing both generically as a broadly applicable set of information technology practices and specifically as a group of techniques for meeting the goals of your enterprise.
* Contains information essential to developers of Web-based e-Commerce functionality--and a wide range of more "traditional" applications.
* Details the algorithms underlying core transaction processing functionality.
Customer Reviews:
A wonderfully written book on an important topic.......2004-12-22
Database concurrency control and recovery is one of pinnacles of computer science. An amazing collection of models, theoretical results, and implementation techniques enable thousands of users to simultaneously pound on a large database implemented on unreliable disks and networks, with full confidence that their data will be correctly stored. This book tells how this miracle is accomplished.
I teach database systems and also do research on databases, including systems-level refinements to concurrency control and recovery algorithms. This book has been invaluable to me in understanding the three major aspects of concurrency control in databases: the beautiful theory, the carefully constructed algorithms, and the specifics of the practice.
When this book first came out two years ago, I read most of it over a period of an intense week. That was such an enjoyable experience, because the book is very well structured and written in a smooth yet careful style. The authors ensured that all required concepts were in place before introducing a new concept. And the prose just flows, rendering difficult concepts understandable through well-chosen examples.
Since then I have referred to this book often with specific questions that arose in my research. Each time, my question has been answered fully in the book.
Each chapter ends with a section entitled "Lessons Learned" which summarizes the key ideas of the chapter and just as importantly, states the practical application of each concept. Some concepts have not yet been realized in practice; the authors are up front about this and explain why.
Mike Tarrani's review does a good job of explaining the similarities and differences between this book and the other seminal book on transaction processing, by Jim Gray and Andreas Reuter. Both books have their place, and both should be on the shelf (and read by!) all those who want to understand transaction processing at a deep level. And I agree with Jim Gray who noted in his foreword to the Weikum/Vossen book that it is likely to become (indeed, has) the standard reference in this field.
Very Very Good.......2003-10-06
Exceptionally clear writing. Encyclopedic in its coverage of transactions. Anyone dealing with transactions (not just DB developers) would find this a very valuable resource. If you need a book on transactions, this should be your first choice.
A must for serious DB professionals.......2002-10-06
Tradicionally, the 'transaction' concept is always discussed at the RDBMS classes in the University. But this book goes FAR BEYOND this wide known implementation; with a solid math foundation (some math required, specially set theory and algorithms ) it shows you there are a lot of 'real-life' transactions that requiere some formal methods for defining their implementation.
This book has no discussion or topic regarding any comercial vendor technologies (specially databases), and I think this is very good. The Page and Object models for transaction processing are clearly explained. There's a very nice discussion concerning RAID technologies.
This is not an 'academic' book in all the sense of the word. It can help IT professionals to make better transactional system desing (databases, workflow,e-business,etc).
I would like some RDBMS vendors will include this kind of theory in their documentation....
Up-to-date ... sends an old friend into semi-retirement.......2002-07-05
Before this book was published my primary reference and personal favorite TP book was "Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques" by Jim Gray and Andreas Reuter. At over 1100 pages that book thoroughly covered the basics and drilled down into the nuances of transaction processing in a way unmatched by other books on the topic since it was first published in 1993.
This book changes that by going far beyond transaction processing. It starts with the same fundamentals as the older book, and even covers many of the same topics, such as concurrency control, but it addresses each topic from a much wider perspective. For example, the discussion of concurrency goes far beyond the issues of transaction processing as a middleware component. It extends into application, database and search issues. Another indication that this book is more up-to-date is the material on queue managers. While they are at the opposite end of the spectrum from transaction processing monitors, they are integral to any discussion of transactional information systems. More importantly, both transaction processing monitors and queue managers are used in modern enterprise architectures. Having both topics discussed in great detail is a major point in this book's favor.
Personally I intend to keep my copy of the older "Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques" because it does cover some of the subject matter more deeply. However, this book has replaced it as my principal reference and if I had to choose between them this is the one I'd go with.
Book Description
The Exclusive Story behind Intuit's Hard-Won Success
It's a modern-day David and Goliath story for the business world: a company dreamed up at a kitchen table, built on explosive PC growth, and forced to battle a giant in the race to revolutionize an industry. This is the story of Intuit, creator of renowned software products like Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax-the company that beat mighty Microsoft and changed the way 25 million people manage their finances.
Written by Intuit veteran Suzanne Taylor and seasoned business manager Kathy Schroeder-who were granted exclusive interviews with founder Scott Cook and other key figures- Inside Intuit tells this company's original and fascinating tale for the first time. The book vividly recounts each dramatic stage of Intuit's development: from initial conception to "bet the company" investments; from strokes of marketing genius to disastrous product launches; and from battles for survival to successive victories against arch-rival Microsoft-the company no one else could beat.
Evident throughout this account is the power of Intuit's relentless customer focus, which guided the company from tiny start-up to a 6,000-employee, $1.4 billion business. Instructive and inspiring, Inside Intuit chronicles an enduring company's extraordinary success against overwhelming odds.
"This important book doesn't take any shortcuts in analyzing the building blocks of success. Taylor and Schroeder have written a fascinating blow-by-blow account of the thousand and one decisions that have made Intuit what it is. Highly readable, thorough, and extremely well researched Inside Intuit is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand success in Silicon Valley."
-Emanuel Rosen, author, The Anatomy of Buzz
"Inside Intuit is more than the history of a start-up that grew to dominate a major software category. It is a blueprint of success for entrepreneurs and investors who want to build great businesses in difficult environments."
-Roger McNamee, cofounder, Silver Lake Partners and Integral Capital Partners
"Inside Intuit is a very entertaining book. Any entrepreneur at heart will enjoy and learn from the story of how Scott Cook and Tom Proulx faced so much adversity and came back from the brink of disaster to build a very successful, highly admired Silicon Valley company. Readers can learn many lessons from both Intuit's successes and mistakes. In the end, good ideas, hard work, determination, and strong values really do pay off!"
-Dan Rudolph, Senior Associate Dean/Chief Operating Officer, Stanford Graduate School of Business
"I was thrilled to read the inside story of how Intuit was born and raised. I've always admired Intuit's strict attention to customer needs and feedback. Now I have a much better idea of how that culture was created."
-Stewart Alsop, General Partner, New Enterprise Associates
"Inside Intuit offers readers the secrets behind that company's extraordinary success. The authors' insights into how Intuit trounced Microsoft alone are worth the price of the book!"
-Andrea Butter, coauthor, Piloting Palm: The Inside Story of Palm, Handspring and the Birth of the Billion Dollar Handheld Industry
Customer Reviews:
good read.......2007-05-07
This book has a compelling start and middle but tails off towards the end. I will read it again soon though....I liked it.
A nice inside view.......2007-02-12
Being an Intuit supporter for 15 years as well as an alpha tester of Quickbooks for windows I admit with no hesitation I am biased when it comes to Intuit related things. This book exceeded my already high expectations as a great inside view of the start, sputtering and surge of Intuit. The Microsoft connections were very interesting to read as well. Being a business owner it showed how culture dedicated to providing excellence to the customer can pay off as well even though it looks like it might cost alot to perform. It was an easy read and I strongly recommend it....
Not Quite the Whole Story.......2005-05-31
The book is written by insiders. They make the new CEO out to be quite a hero. Better ask some Intuit customers about that.
Great Case History of a Continuing Business Model Innovator!.......2004-05-02
How many companies have survived direct battles with Microsoft? Not very many. How many lived to win over direct battles with Microsoft? Even fewer. Intuit is in that elite company. That experience alone would make the book worth considering.
The authors have done an outstanding job of building on that potentially fascinating subject matter by successfully capturing the key elements of how Intuit has continued to succeed as a business model innovator through four CEOs. I was especially pleased to see that the book captures the values that led to this innovation, the organizational and process methods used to stimulate and pursue the innovation, and the motivations of the key innovators.
In addition, the book moves down into the organization to capture the thoughts and emotions of many of the Intuit employees as it moved from its P&G style focus on customer needs to a broad-based expansion through acquisitions to a GE-style disciplined approach to achieve performance in key areas.
In fact, this book was so fine that I had to ask myself what was missing before I could spot any flaws. The only area where the book is a little light is in describing the details of how Intuit's software development changed over time, and what the lessons were. Now, don't mistake my point. There's plenty on that subject (especially when Intuit was a start-up), but there could have been more . . . if this book were to become a case history source on software engineering.
But no book can be everything to everyone, and currently there are few books that explain continuing business model innovation through generations of senior management. So Inside Intuit becomes a must read for those who want to master this critical leadership and management task.
By the way, Inside Intuit is a very apt title. The authors seem to have had unrestrained access to company insiders. The book comes away much richer as a result than any other Silicon Valley saga that I can remember reading. Most of those books focus on one to three people in the company, and leave it at that.
As I finished the book, I wondered what improvements in its continuing business model innovation Intuit will make next. I can hardly wait to find out!
Wonderful!.......2004-04-04
When Inside Intuit arrived in the mail, along with four other books I'd ordered, it was the first one I picked up to browse. Seven hours later, I finished the book! Reliving the experiences, placing myself in the events (I worked for Intuit for over fourteen years - by way of ChipSoft), was an overwhelming experience for me.
I remember the first time I met Scott Cook. Leo Redmond, at the time managing the Intuit Supplies Group, and I had just finished lunch in Palo Alto. As we drove back to his office, we talked about Quicken and how it was the second product I bought for my first computer in early 1989 (the first was Sim City). Leo said that he'd like me to tell Scott about it. Scott was excited - "You have five years of Quicken data?" He told me to install the latest Quicken beta as soon as I got home - he wanted to know how it handled large data files (mine was over two megabytes at the time). That was nearly ten years ago.
What an experience! Having been hired by Evy Chipman in late 1988 and working closely with every top-echelon executive on the ChipSoft side (Gaylord, Harris, Gleicher, Lane), I never thought I'd be so intimidated - stammering - as I chatted briefly with Scott in his office.
Reading Inside Intuit brings you into Scott's (and many others) office - you are in the presence of greatness when you read this book.
Book Description
In many organizations, Information Technology (IT) has become crucial in the support, the sustainability and the growth of the business. This pervasive use of technology has created a critical dependency on IT that calls for a specific focus on IT Governance. IT Governance consists of the leadership and organizational structures, processes and relational mechanisms that ensure that the organization's IT sustains and extends the organization's strategy and objectives. Strategies for Information Technology Governance records and interprets some important existing theories, models and practices in the IT Governance domain and aims to contribute to the understanding of IT Governance.
Customer Reviews:
Covers the ground of IT goverance.......2005-02-09
Excerpt: This book, Strategies for Information Technology Governance, is aimed at improving the understanding of Information Technology (IT) Governance and its struc¬tures, processes and relational mechanisms. As will be defined in this book, IT Gover¬nance is the organisational capacity exercised by the Board, executive management and IT management to control the formulation and implementation of IT strategy and in this way ensure the fusion of business and IT. Theoretical models and practices regarding IT Governance will be discussed in the different chapters of this book and attention will be paid to its mechanisms, including IT steering committee structures, Balanced Scorecards, control objectives and management guidelines developed by ISACA, and relational mechanisms such as business/IT job rotation.
This book brings together 14 papers on IT Governance written by academics and practitioners from different countries including Belgium, Canada, Finland, Greece, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The authors of the different chapters have been included in the review process and have reviewed and critiqued the manuscripts of their colleague-authors. I wish to thank the contributors to this book for submitting their chapter(s) and for assisting me in the review process as well.
The overall structure of this book follows a logical sequence: introducing the IT Governance frameworks in Section I; reviewing performance management mechanisms in Section II; presenting other IT Governance mechanisms in Section III; and illustrat¬ing how IT Governance can work in practice in Section IV.
Section I: IT Governance Frameworks
This section introduces the IT Governance concepts and consists of three chap¬ters.
Chapter I: Structures, Processes and Relational Mechanisms for IT Governance by Wim Van Grembergen, Steven De Haes and Erik Guldentops respectively from the University of Antwerp, the University of Antwerp Management School (Belgium), and the IT Governance Institute (US), defines the IT Governance concepts and overviews the different IT Governance mechanisms. It records and interprets some important existing theories, models and practices on IT Governance. The chapter is based on relevant academic and professional publications and integrates also the main contribu¬tions of the other chapters in this book.
Chapter II: Integration Strategies and Tactics for Information Technology Gov¬ernance by Ryan Peterson from the Instituto de Empresa (Spain) has three objectives. First of all, to describe past developments and current challenges complex organisations are facing governing the IT portfolio of IT applications, IT development, IT operations and IT platforms. Secondly, to discuss how organisations can diagnose and design IT governance architecture for future performance improvement and sustained business growth. Finally, to provide a thorough understanding and holistic picture of effective IT governance practices, and to present a new organising logic for IT governance.
Chapter III: An Emerging Strategy for E-Business IT Governance by Nandish Patel from Brunel University (UK) develops a framework for global e-business IT gov¬ernance. This framework is based on fundamental re-directions in global e-business IT governance thinking and it applies to companies that seek to integrate Internet, intranet and World Wide Web technologies into their business activities in some form of an e-business model. The framework explains and elaborates e-business strategies for cop¬ing with emergent organisations and planned aspects of IT. The basic premise of the proposed framework is that organisation, especially virtual organisation, is both planned and emergent, diverging from the dominant premise of central control in IT governance.
Section II: Performance Management as IT Governance Mechanism
Section II: Performance Management as IT Governance Mechanism reviews IT governance mechanisms including Balanced Scorecards, business-IT alignment matu¬rity assessment models, ROI measurement and technical IT measurements. This part consists of six chapters.
Chapter IV: Assessing Business-IT Alignment Maturity by Jerry Luftman from
Stevens Institute of Technology (USA) discusses an approach for assessing the maturity of the business-IT alignment. The proposed strategic alignment maturity assessment approach provides a vehicle to evaluate where an organisation is and where it
needs to go to attain and sustain business-IT alignment. The careful assessment of a
firm's alignment maturity is an important step in identifying the specific actions necessary to ensure IT is being used to appropriately enable or drive the business strategy.
Chapter V: Linking the IT Balanced Scorecard to the Business Objectives at a Major Canadian Financial Group by Wim Van Grembergen, Ronald Saull and Steven De Haes respectively from the University of Antwerp (Belgium), Great-West Life, Londen
Life, Investors Group (Canada), and the University of Antwerp Management School (Belgium) illustrates how the Balanced Scorecard concepts can be used to support the business-IT fusion. The development and implementation of an IT Balanced Scorecard within this financial group is described and discussed. An IT Balanced Scorecard maturity model is developed and used to determine the maturity level of the scorecard under review. An important conclusion is that an IT Balanced Scorecard must go be¬yond the operational level and must be integrated across the enterprise in order to generate business value. This can be realised through establishing a linkage between the business Balanced Scorecard and different levels of IT scorecards.
Chapter VI: Measuring and Managing E-Business Initiatives through the Bal¬anced Scorecard by Wim Van Grembergen and Isabelle Amelinckx both from the Uni¬versity of Antwerp (Belgium), applies the Balanced Scorecard concepts to e-business projects. A generic e-business scorecard is developed and presented as a measuring and management instrument. The proposed e-business scorecard consists of four per¬spectives: the Customer Perspective representing the evaluation of the consumer and business clients, the Operational Perspective focusing on the business and IT processes, the Future Perspective showing the human and technology resources needed to deliver the e-business application, and the Contribution Perspective capturing the e-business benefits. It is argued that a monitoring instrument such as the proposed e-business scorecard is a must when building, implementing and maintaining an e-busi¬ness system because these initiatives are often too technically management and are often initiated without a clear business case.
Chapter VII: A View on Knowledge Management: Utilizing a Balanced Scorecard Methodology for Analyzing Knowledge Metrics by Alea Fairchild from Vesalius Col¬lege/Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) (Belgium) addresses the problem of developing measurement models for Knowledge Management metrics and discusses what current Knowledge Management metrics are in use, and examines their sustainability and sound¬ness in assessing knowledge utilisation and retention of generating revenue. The chapter also discusses the use of the Balanced Scorecard approach to determine a business-oriented relationship between strategic Knowledge Management usage and IT strat¬egy and implementation.
Chapter VIII: Measuring ROI in E-Commerce Applications: Analysis to Action by Manuel Mogollon and Mahesh Raisinghani respectively from Nortel Networks (US) and the University of Dallas (USA) focuses on measuring the Return on Investment (ROI) as a key element of the IT Governance process. The research in this chapter aims to provide an overview of how to calculate the ROI for e-commerce applications so that this information, and the attached ROI Calculator Tool Template, can be used by organisations to reduce time in preparing the ROI for a project
Chapter IX: Technical Issues Related to IT Governance Tactics: Product Metrics, Measurements and Process Control by Michalis Xenos from the Hellenic Open Univer¬sity (Greece) deals with some technical aspects of the strategies for IT Governance and aims at introducing the reader to software metrics that are used to provide knowledge about different elements of IT projects. Internal metrics are presented that can be applied prior to the release of IT products to provide indications relating to quality characteristics, and external metrics are introduced that can be applied after IT product delivery to give information about user perception of product quality. The chapter also analyzes the correlation between internal and external metrics and discusses how these metrics can be combined in a measurement program.
Section III: Other IT Governance Mechanisms
Section III: Other IT Governance Mechanisms describes other mechanisms in¬cluding roles and responsibilities within the IT organisation, the control objectives and management guidelines of COBIT, and the IT outsourcing solution. This part consists of three chapters.
Chapter X: Managing IT Functions by Petter Gottschalk from the Norwegian School of Management (Norway) discusses imperatives for IT functions, organisation of IT functions, roles of IT functions, roles of chief information officers (CIOs) and key issues in IT management. A survey conducted in Norway revealed that CIOs find the role of entrepreneur most important and the role of liaison least important. This survey also revealed that "Improving links between information systems strategy and busi¬ness strategy" was ranked as most important key issue in IT management in Norway.
Chapter XI: Governing Information Technology through COBIT by Erik Guldentops from the IT Governance Institute (USA) reviews the COBIT framework that incorporates material on IT Governance. COBIT presents an international and generally accepted IT control framework enabling organisations to implement an IT Governance structure throughout the enterprise. Its management guidelines component consists of maturity models, critical success factors, key goal indicators and key performance indi¬cators for 34 identified IT processes. This structure delivers a significantly improved framework responding for management's need for control and measurability of IT by providing means to assess and measure the organisation's IT environment against COBIT's IT processes.
Chapter XII: Governance in IT Outsourcing Partnerships by Erik Beulen from Tilburg University (The Netherlands) is based on 11 international IT outsourcing part¬nerships, five expert interviews and on literature. Three dimensions are described in a descriptive IT outsourcing partnership governance framework: the outsourcing organisation, the maintenance of the relationship, and the IT supplier. In this frame-work, 11 governance factors are defined including the existence of a clear IT strategy at the outsourcing organisation, a mutual trust between the outsourcing organisation and the IT supplier, and an adequate contract and account management. Furthermore, the chapter focuses on the IT outsourcing contract.
Section IV: IT Governance in Action
Section IV: IT Governance in Action describes the application of IT Governance structures in respectively an enterprise and in the health care industry. Section IV includes two chapters.
Chapter XIII: The Evolution of IT Governance at NB Power by Joanne Callahan, Cassio Bastos and Dwayne Keyes, from New Brunswick Power Corporation (Canada) describes the IT Governance framework that NB Power has implemented. Through IT Governance the organisation was able to address the results of a diagnostic study on their internal IT service provider who was attempting to respond to a seemingly end-less list of requests for IT support. Now, after four years, factors critical to the success of implementing an IT Governance framework are evident. The IT Governance frame-work is still evolving, but the organisation is now well positioned to take advantage of its IT investment.
Chapter XIV: Governance Structures for IT in the Health Care Industry by Reima Suomi and Jarmo Tähkäpää from the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration (Finland) discusses the role of IT in the health care industry and focuses on the question of which governance structures are best for managing IT within this industry. Two Finnish cases are described - a small health care federation of munici¬palities and a medium-sized health care unit - to illustrate internal and external gover¬nance structures. It is shown that internal governance structures such as developing a comprehensive business strategy are essential parts of IT Governance and that outsourcing activities suggest that there is a need for developing and managing exter¬nal governance structures.
Rich compendium with wide scope.......2004-06-21
The collection of essays that comprise this book cover the full spectrum of IT governance thought and practice. There is no single prescriptive approach to IT governance set forth in this book, but instead, approaches that address a single facet of governance, which can be used as a resource for ideas and practices.
There are fourteen essays grouped under the following topics areas:
- IT Governance Frameworks
- Performance Management as IT Governance Mechanism
- Other IT Governance Mechanisms
- IT Governance in Action
Among the most thought-provoking (in my opinion) essays are: Assessing Business-IT Alignment Maturity, Measuring and Managing E-Business Initiatives through the Balanced Scorecard, Technical Issues Related to IT Governance Tactics: Product Metrics, Measurements and Process, and Governance in IT Outsourcing Partnerships.
Major standards are also addressed (see the essay titled, "Governing Information Technology through COBIT"). My only disappointment is there was no contributions by Peter Weill or Jeanne Ross, both of whom have coauthored an excellent book on IT governance titled "IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results" ISBN 1591392535. Overall, this is an outstanding book for senior management who are crafting an IT governance strategy.
Book Description
Burgelman, Maidique, and Wheelwright have written the market leading text for a course in technology and innovation. This text covers the latest research by using a combination of text, readings, and cases. Based on reviewer response to a survey, the authors have updated many of the cases and instructors found outdated or lacking. As in the current edition, the book has a strong case foundation at Harvard and Stanford. Classic cases such as Claire McCloud have been kept, while newer cases such as Intel Corporation in 1999 have been added. There is also a strong set of readings from sources such as Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, and Sloan Management Review.
Customer Reviews:
Good.......2007-08-01
This is a textbook for my class. The information is chock full of case studies. The studies are written in a way that they are understandable and easy to follow, more of a story rather than a lecture. This is not a book that you read from cover to cover, but would instead refer to for a specific instance. It is dense and heavy but all told it is very acceptable as a text.
Comprehensive, but weird and boring.......2006-11-10
I bought this as a textbook for one of my classes. Overall, this is a decent book on strategic management of technology and innovation. I think some of the articles in the book are really good, but the book is very disorganized and hard to read. I would recommend it, but it seems that the editors should address major organization issues in the next addition.
very technical.......2006-02-24
The book was ok but it made for very difficult reading; it was very technical. I had to purchase it for class. Luckily I had a good professor who could break down the concepts more clearly. I would, however, suggest that Devry get an easier book to digest next time.
Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation.......2005-10-24
This book includes many good papers and many hi-tech business cases associated with technology and innovation management. Some of them are a little old but still useful to understand strategic management. If you have learned general management and marketing and want to get a view of the management of technology and innovation, this is worthwhile reading.
a useful collection of case studies and key papers.......2000-03-17
This book offers a large number of case studies from the areas of research and technology development in various industries. It covers most the important concepts of technology management such as "core competencies". It follows the traditional model employed in business schools: learning from others' experiences by means of case studies. Particularly relevant are the sections on "heavyweight teams".
Book
Strategy & Competition
| Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA): A Planning and Implementation Guide for Business and Technology
IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results
IT Architecture Toolkit (Harris Kern's Enterprise Computing Institute Series)
Architecture and Patterns for IT Service Management, Resource Planning, and Governance: Making Shoes for the Cobbler's Children
IT Portfolio Management: Unlocking the Business Value of Technology
