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"Globalization is a fact. You can't stop it; it has already happened; it is here to stay. And we are moving into a new global stage.
A radically new world is taking shape from the ashes of yesterday's nation-based economic world. To succeed, you must act on the global stage, leveraging radically new drivers of economic power and growth. Legendary business strategist Kenichi Ohmae¿who in The Borderless World, published in 1990, predicted the rise and success of globalization, coining the very word¿synthesizes today's emerging trends into the first coherent view of tomorrow's global economy¿and its implications for politics, business, and personal success.
Ohmae explores the dynamics of the new ""region state,"" tomorrow's most potent economic institution, and demonstrates how China is rapidly becoming the exemplar of this new economic paradigm. The Next Global Stage offers a practical blueprint for businesses, governments, and individuals who intend to thrive in this new environment. Ohmae concludes with a detailed look at strategy in an era where it's tougher to define competitors, companies, and customers than ever before.
As important as Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations, as fascinating as Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree, this book doesn't just explain what's already happened: It offers a roadmap for action in the world that's beginning to emerge.
- New economics for a borderless world: Why Keynes' and Milton Friedman's economics are history¿and what might replace them
- Leveraging today's most powerful platforms for growth: From Windows to English to your global brand
- Technology: driving business death¿and rebirth: Anticipating technological obsolescence¿and jumping ahead of it
- Government in the post-national era: What government can do when nation-states don't matter
- Leadership and strategy on the global stage: Honing your global vision and global leadership skills
"
Customer Reviews:
Provides both businesses and governments with a game plan for handling new challenges........2007-01-07
Both business and political science college-level readers seeking to understand the new opportunities and challenges of a closely-knit global community will find THE NEXT GLOBAL STAGE: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN OUR BORDERLESS WORLD outlines a radical new worldview evolving from the nation-based economic picture of the past. Kenichi Ohmae is a business strategist who published THE BORDERLESS WORLD in 1990, which predicted the rise of globalization: here he explores the new players of this world stage, and provides both businesses and governments with a game plan for handling new challenges.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Good Analysis of Intl Trade by Regions.......2006-06-04
This is a well-written analysis of international trade. The title would be more accurate if changed from "Next" to "Present" Global Stage. Ohmae brings today's trade into clear focus, and (like a geographic economist) helps us understand that "global" trade is indeed limited by regional characteristics such as location, infrastructure, etc. Although nothing dramatically new is found, I would recommend it to students of business or economics to help understand global trade and economics as they "really" occur.
But the actual "Next" global stage will probably not resemble Ohmae's suggestions for less government and more freedom of international exchange rates. It will more likely include such characteristics as John Maynard Keynes' 1944 call for the establishment of a central world bank and a universal currency, the Bancor. Ohmae's suggestion that we adapt English as a universal language is really nothing new either. And his proposed causal relationship between "less government" and . . . "prosperity" in successful regions of the world grossly missed the fact that more powerful "world" governance structures and international compacts and trade agreements in fact have dramatically helped buttress trade and commerce in these very same regions.
But do read it ... it is worth your time and very informative.
Visionary Views of the Evolving Region-State Consistent with Friedman's Flattened World.......2006-06-03
Although globalization is a rich topic worthy of several volumes, it's a bit of a shame that corporate strategist Kenichi Ohmae's book duplicates much of the same thesis of New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman's huge best seller, "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century", a book I admired last year. Both authors deal with the phenomenon of a flattened world, a macro-level regrouping of economic forces which occur periodically on a global basis. Friedman explains that the burgeoning global fiber-optic network has transcended national borders and corporate entities to the point of starting a new structure for the economy, specifically the outsourcing of the U.S. economy's service and information-technology work to India and other developing nations. Based in Asia, Ohmae is obviously not as keen on outsourcing but more on the factors that have made outsourcing so attractive to the U.S., i.e., why has such hubs of cost-effective productivity sprouted in Asia. This is how his orientation differs from Friedman's.
The author's personal observations come from his work with individual companies in India, China, and Japan. From this perspective, he believes strongly that one of the most important developments for the future is the emergence of "region-states". The antiquated concept of "nation-states", along with the accompanying protectionism related to such political sovereignty, is being rendered obsolete in the global economic marketplace. As borderless centers of economic activity, "region-states" have all the practical building blocks for growth, such as a sizable population and an efficient transportation infrastructure. Ohmae points out that such entities can be seen forming in the Shuto-ken (Greater Tokyo) metropolitan area of Japan and Guangzhou (Canton) in China. They exhibit viable socio-economical units that create what Ohmae calls a "virtuous circle", i.e., an openness to outside ideas and people with various backgrounds and skills. This is the cultural characteristic the author considers vital in order for companies to thrive.
On a broader plain, there are a number of defining features to "region-states", chief among them the expeditious flow of communications and capital, which obviously attracts corporations and consumers. What Ohmae does well is paint a picture of the global economy not only driven by new technologies but also where knowledge has become the new currency. He is particularly insightful into how the future may look if the transference to the "region-state" fully occurs. Corporate leaders will need to be visionaries rather than just bottom-line-oriented consensus-builders, and strategy has to be mapped out to make greater sense of the chaotic new world. The author rather idealistically states that what will have greater value for leaders is sharpening their predictive skills in ascertaining upcoming trends, innovating quickly without all the data normally expected, and creating an environment where the norm is changing circumstances and extracting relevant information out of the clutter. I think Ohmae would have somewhat more credence if he could have given more practical advice on how to do this other than encouraging them to walk into the light. Nonetheless, his book makes for stimulating reading on the dynamic transformation in progress.
read 'the world is flat' instead.......2006-05-24
this book is very similar in scope and theme with the world is flat, you may almost think one copied from the other, but this book's info and presentation are much inferior, the world is flat is a much more enjoyable and informative read
The Next Stage Is Here Now.......2006-04-30
Yes, this is a borderless world in many respects and these boundaries will continue to thin. Author Keniche Ohmae has
been around, writing "The Borderless World" in 1990, among
other books. He's studied and researched economic global interdependence and its ramifications for many years, having written his first piece of work in the early 1970s. Some of
his point from his book "The Next Global Stage" are:
Concept of the Region State:
This trend had been in the making for a long time. Author
Ohmae has devoted a sizeable portion of "The Next Global Stage" to this topic. Economic interests of a region have been, are now, and will continue to supersede governmental nation-state interests. Mr. Ohmae listed several regions (cities and geographical areas) that are currently experience and will continue to see tremendous growth and prosperity. This growth is happening literally right in front of us. Everyday I see
the changes. I live in one of these cities noted by Ohmae and see the physical, attitudinal, and economic changes, first-hand. It's an education to observe and experience this
rapidity of transformation.
Although I do believe in a rising tide lifting all the boats, this rapidly expanding pie isn't all-inclusive, as it can't realistically be in the real world. I personally see major outsourcing, 100% Foreign and Joint Venture investing, Capital Flight, and FDI to build infrastructure and provide training
for local employees and feed a local tax base. I do believe this is a win-win situation for most. Not every case is however, win-win. Currently in Vietnam for example, certain foreign companies negotiated with the government to build factories and pay local workers below minimum wage. Two governments were competing for these companies, and the
cheapest labor costs attracted them to come. The result: strikes because of bare-subsistence wages and long working
hours to the point of exhaustion. This book, like most,
focuses on only certain portions of the pie.
The Post National Era:
The diminishing significance of national governments and the lessening role of the nation-state has become abundantly clear as of 2006. This phenomenon is still evolving from its incipient stages. As global economic interdependence and international economics and trade become the primary issues
and concerns in the relationship between two or more countries (nation-states), one question to consider is: what will be the role of the political governments?
It's not a simple question, but the answers are practical. Governments will facilitate trade relations, protect the
general interests of the nation-state with issues such as currency valuations, protect its population (workers) and *certain* industries. This is the role of a Fiduciary. Governments will increasingly utilize economic policy and
trade more and more as leverage, when necessary. And much moreso than in the past.
We should ask, as the world flattens, "Whose interests are
being served?" Industries and corporations? Or individuals? The answers should be both, and the symbiotic ratio should be scrutinized. Is the individual a participant, or a voyeur?
Are these two mutually exclusive? No.
There are many positives to the next global stage we are entering. One benefit, is mobility. Fortunate in some circumstances are the industries that are much more mobile
and have the ability to relocate and operate, produce, and manage, elsewhere. An example noted by Ohmae was the current U.S. administration's stance on stem cell research. Stem cell research is highly restricted to placate the far-right-wing Christian conservative base. However, the U.S. is not the
only option for these companies, and some have relocated
outside of the U.S. to do R & D. These domestic as well as
other foreign companies are making gains in their research. Pacifying a domestic political base had not only local and domestic consequences, but also allowed for a global
alternative and consequences. Decades ago, it wouldn't
have been so easy. There is choice, with more transparent borders. Ohmae discusses what we are latently aware of, and
the beauty of this book is that he gets deeper into the mechanics, and more importantly to where we are headed in the near and long-term future. Ending agricultural subsidies
seems prudent. Many still resist in this. In the future,
they may or may not. A good point the author reminded us of
was the the fear of Japan by the U.S., not so long ago. "Look out. The Japanese are buying everything." Not so, today.
The world has changed, and nations and industries that adapt will survive and prosper. Those that don't constantly adapt, will die out. Now, after years of dismal circumstances, Japan is on the rebound, according to most. What is the number one reason: Japan changed. They had to. We all have to. The
Post National Era = Less Influence of Keynesian Economic Policy. As the world has evolved this makes sense. "The
Next Global Stage" is a highly recommended, informative,
great read.
Book Description
"Customers are the heart of any business. But we can't succeed if we develop only one talk addressed to the 'average customer.' Instead we must know each customer and build our individual engagements with that knowledge. If Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is going to work, it calls for skills in Customer Data Integration (CDI). This is the best book that I have seen on the subject. Jill Dyché is to be complimented for her thoroughness in interviewing executives and presenting CDI."
-Philip Kotler, S. C. Johnson
Distinguished Professor of International Marketing Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
"In this world of killer competition, hanging on to existing customers is critical to survival. Jill Dyché's new book makes that job a lot easier than it has been."
-Jack Trout, author, Differentiate or Die
"Jill and Evan have not only written the definitive work on Customer Data Integration, they've made the business case for it. This book offers sound advice to business people in search of innovative ways to bring data together about customers-their most important asset-while at the same time giving IT some practical tips for implementing CDI and MDM the right way."
-Wayne Eckerson, The Data Warehousing Institute author of Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business
Whatever business you're in, you're ultimately in the customer business. No matter what your product, customers pay the bills. But the strategic importance of customer relationships hasn't brought companies much closer to a single, authoritative view of their customers. Written from both business and technicalperspectives, Customer Data Integration shows companies how to deliver an accurate, holistic, and long-term understanding of their customers through CDI.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent CDI Resource.......2007-03-15
As with her past books, Jill once again takes a "hot" subject - in this case, customer data integration - and addresses the questions "Why do I need to care?" and "How does this impact my business?" The book is for anyone (functional and technical) who wants a practical understanding of CDI, i.e., its relation to other data management issues and what it looks like and how it plays out in the "real world." As can be expected from Jill, the book includes plenty of case studies and examples so that readers can learn how others are succeeding (or not) in this arena.
The book is easy and enjoyable to read - it's like having Jill and Evan sitting right beside you having a discussion on a topic they are very passionate about. The book is complete with diagrams, assessment questions and manager do's and don't's lists at the end of each chapter. These tools are extremely helpful for folks like me. As a software vendor who needs to understand the implications of data integration, this is a must-have book in my business library.
Great "how-to" for novices!.......2007-03-13
One of the strengths of this book is the author's ability to tie new
technology issues to real world examples. Dyche and Levy deliver a clear
and straight forward description of master data management and customer data
integration without getting caught up with esoteric terminology or the
academics of technology. They focus on providing me with details that can
help me (and others) understand the complexities and benefits of CDI in
business.
Like the case studies!.......2007-03-13
This book is perfect for the person that wants to learn the practical aspects of customer data integration. It's clear from the book's numerous case studies (more than 10) that the authors have spent the time and energy researching what companies REALLY do when it comes to implementing master data management in the customer data integration space. There are many places to read about an academic approach to this topic -- this book provides a refreshing, real world perspective of how CDI works and how real companies use this new technology.
Good book to read and learn.......2007-03-12
I got this book from my account rep, who told me to read the chapter on Data Governance ("Who Owns the Data, Anyway?") While my company is still trying to figure out how to tackle the problem of "harmonizing" our consumer data, I was particularly interested in the chapters that explained why, with MDM and CDI, the formalized management of the data has got to be tackled now!
The book provides great tips for putting data governance in place. It also makes the point that execution capabilities for implementing data governance policies and rules are key-an important lesson for me and my staff.
I also liked the "What Managers Should Know" sections at the end of every chapter-the book did a good job of "cherry picking" the important points for executives like me who need quick value summaries. And, as the other reviewers have mentioned, the dozen or so case studies really paint a picture of how this stuff is really employed by successful companies.
Incredibly informative and helpful.......2007-03-11
I enjoyed reading this book. It provides a great background on why, though we have been trying to solve these problems for a long time through data modeling, CDI and MDM solutions are new and different from other technologies we have in-house.
Chapter 5 discusses an implementation metholology very specific to CDI, and Chapter 9 explains the team structure necessary to develop a CDI solution. It combines exactly the right level of management discussion with practitioner advice.
We are currently evaluating MDM vendors and my boss gave me this book to help me, as the book says, "make the internal pitch" for CDI. I work for a health care products company and we need to understand and match our vendors/customers/distributors. Customer Data Integration will help me and my team make the right business case!
Book Description
Strategic Marketing Management Cases is a versatile collection of approximately 45 cases. This casebook has a decision-making focus and addresses the challenges facing marketing managers today. It is organized to reflect the priorities of a marketing manager: market orientation, growth strategies and target market strategies.
Customer Reviews:
Market orientation, target market & strategies.......2006-02-03
This casebook has a decision-making focus and addresses the challenges facing marketing managers today by reflecting priorities of a marketing manager: market orientation, growth strategies and target market strategies.
Book sent without CD.......2005-07-03
Never got the CD. Despite an email sent to the seller, never got a response.
Book Description
Over the past decade or so, systems integration has become a key factor in the operations, strategy and competitive advantage of major corporations in a wide variety of sectors (e.g. computing, automotive, telecommunications, military systems and aerospace). Systems integration is a strategic task that pervades business management not only at the technical level but also at the management and strategic levels. This book shows how and why this new kind of systems integration has evolved into an emerging model of industrial organization whereby firms, and groups of firms, join together different types of knowledge, skill and activity, as well as hardware, software, and human resources to produce new products for the marketplace. This book is the first to systematically explore systems integration from a business and innovation perspective. Contributors delve deeply into the nature, dimensions and dynamics of the new systems integration, deploying research and analytical techniques from a wide variety of disciplines including, the theory of the firm, the history of technology, industrial organization, regional studies, strategic management, and innovation studies. This wealth of research capability provides deep insights into the new model of systems integration and supports this with an abundance of empirical evidence. The book is organized in three main parts. The first part focuses on the history of systems integration. Contributors trace the early history of systems integration using different industrial examples. The second part presents theoretical and analytical aspects of systems integration. Contributions concentrate on the regulatory and cognitive features of systems integration, the relationships between systems integration and regional competitive advantage, and the way in which systems integration supports the competitive advantage of firms. The third part takes industry and firm-level approaches. Contributions focus on different sectors and highlight the specificity of systems integration in various industrial domains, stressing its importance for systems integration in the case of complex capital goods, such as aircraft and telecommunications equipment, as well as consumer goods, such as personal computers and automobiles.
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The Strategic Management Series, Dynamic Strategic Resources: Development, Diffusion and Integration
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Book Description
Since the early 1980s it has been recognized that a firm's resources, capabilities and competencies help it gain a competitive advantage, that in turn produces higher performance. This resource-based view of the firm has been an important development in the field of strategic management. It explains why some organizations perform better than others and shows that leveraging, both tangible and intangible, resources is necessary to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Bringing together contributions from multiple perspectives this book examines the management of strategic resources. First, the book discusses resource strategy and firm performance - how resources lead to competitive advantage and how firm resources interplay with the firm strategy to produce specific outcomes. Second, it addresses the development, commitment and governance of firm resources - how firms develop critical resources, including the especially difficult development of intangible resources such as tacit knowledge, internal networks and the creation of new intellectual capital. Finally, attention is focused on the problems involved in the transfer of resources and skills in cooperative strategies such as strategic alliances, and the allocation of resources to produce innovation. The resource-based view of the firm is a valuable way of analyzing and understanding firm strategies and performance. The contributions in this book provide an important in-depth view of how strategic resources can be developed and leveraged to create value in organizations.
Book Description
Drawing on the findings of the most ambitious national study to date on nonprofit strategic restructuring, the authors provide nonprofit managers, board members, consultants, and foundation executives with research-based information to use in making tough decisions about whether and how to pursue a range of organizational partnerships--from jointly managed programs and consolidated administrative functions to full-scale mergers. The authors investigate two widespread assumptions--that strategic restructuring leads to greater organizational efficiency and that nonprofit consolidations are similar to corporate consolidations. Six in-depth case studies of actual nonprofit restructurings highlight the costs and benefits associated with this increasingly adopted course of action, a trend that is expected to remain on the upswing for the foreseeable future.
Amazon.com
In Race for the World, consultants with McKinsey & Co. look at the vast changes in the world's economy that are altering the way almost everyone does business. The authors believe that geographic barriers to business will virtually disappear over the next 30 years and that the implications for companies could be devastating--or incredibly rewarding. "Over time, the only class that matters will be world class," write Lowell Bryan, Jane Fraser, Jeremy Oppenheim, and Wilhelm Rall. "All others will be forced to restructure or go out of business."
The authors see world economic integration spurred on by new access to capital markets, advances in computing and communication technologies, and a rapid decline in government influence. While some companies, such as Cisco, Yahoo!, General Electric, and Enron, should reap tremendous benefits, most are moving too slowly, according to the consultants. The book provides many strategies for success in the next millennium and includes chapters on the importance of market capitalizations, for example, and building "superior intangibles--intellectual property, talent, brands and networks." Race for the World is a stimulating read for managers, investors, and others interested in the future of business. --Dan Ring
Book Description
Informed by the findings of McKinsey & Company's extensive investigation of the problems and practices at globalizing firms, Race for the World contends that the rewards of building a great global firm at this moment in time are extraordinary. Examples of early winners in the global game, including powerhouses such as Coca-Cola, Citibank, and Nestle, reveal how the truly distinctive players utilize their intangible assets to think and act differently from the multinational models of old. The authors explain how firms can drive their transition from national to global markets by pursuing and capturing entire portfolios of global opportunities while there's still time. Race for the World provides managers and strategists with a coherent set of prescriptions and recommendations for linking the new roles of capital, brands, talent, and knowledge into an actionable game plan for leading the charge in the new global economic arena.
Customer Reviews:
Business strategy for inexorable globalization.......2003-09-14
Even with the benefit of hindsight, it may not fundamentally matter how much of this book written in 1999 by four McKinsey consultants may seem overtaken by the facts of the post-Internet bubble of the late 1990s. This includes the collapse of Enron, a major McKinsey client which is nonetheless cited in this book as an agile player and adaptator to the inexorbale challenge of globalization which is at the heart of this book. It would be premature for business strategists or policy makers to wholly dismiss this book on account of such obvious errors of judgment.
The basic framework within which this book views the future is shared by similar analyses done by other organizations. Because world trade has tended to grow faster than world economic output, the share of world output produced and consumed in global markets will inevitably grow rapidly - accordingly to this book, from about one-fifth of global output in the late 1990s to four-fifths by 2030. Within this time frame, total global ouptut will also grow, from $28 trillion in 1997 to $91 trillion in 2027. Whence the opportunities for a susbtantial reshaping of the competitive space for global corporations.
What matters is that the fundamental message of this book (which is not by itself novel) is unchanged by the contemporary drivers of competitiveness for national economies and corporations: a dramatic lowering of so-called interaction costs and of barriers in product and factor markets continues to erode the advanatges of geographic incumbents in the business world, fostering the creation of cross-geographic specialists and consolidation of traditional integrators.
Drawing substantially from Mckinsey's own research and data gathered from its Fortune 500 clientele, as well as insights from unconventional non-business sources such as Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, And Steel, the book advises global corporate leaders on how to reshape their firms and create global talent teams. The book is, not surprisingly - given the audience of the book - silent on what policy implications there are for countries which are also trying to adapt to these realities, other than the obvious imperative to open their national economies to world-class suppliers of tangible and intangible capital. There remains an important policy agenda to explore if one takes the fundamental propositions of this book seriously.
Very clear vision.......2001-09-06
I appreciated very much the clear analisys of the world economic trends. It suggests you a way, a light to manage business in a world of dynamic transition and complexity.
It is a very useful tool to understand what is happening in the global market and especially if you work in a global company like me.
yet another mediocre business book on globalism.......2001-04-19
Business books tend to gravitate toward one of two poles: the must-reads - those that involve fundamental rethinking of traditional business models - and the no-reads. Regardless of whether a must-read turns out to be right, this category of book establishes a vocabulary and logic of action that people will discuss and attempt to implement for years to come, as did "The Fifth Discipline" and "Reengineering the Corporation." In contrast, the no-read books, which are far too numerous to count, serve principally as resume builders or as crude promotional plugs for consulting firms. As cynical public relations gestures, the no-reads are entirely derivative, repackaging someone else's ideas while implying that you need to hire the authors to gain deeper insights. Indeed, what they have to offer can be summarised easily on the book flap, beyond which only captive student audiences or gullible clients would ever venture.
"Race for the World," another in the series of books by McKinsey & Co. consultants on how to operate in the global economy, straddles the great grey area in between these two poles. The book starts off with a strong analysis of the "transition" economy, in which geographic barriers are rapidly falling before the globalist wave: world's financial markets converging and digital technologies are lowering communication costs; national governments are "under market pressure" to remove the old legal and regulatory barriers to global competition; consumers are gaining unprecedented power, both to find the best prices through some convenient dot.com company and to vote via their investment dollars. This ongoing race (or "midgame") will determine which corporations can position themselves to become the "shapers" of the next century.
The midgame, the authors assert, offers extraordinary, though rapidly vanishing, opportunities around which to build new corporate strategies. With their new-found access to foreign markets, corporations can create "virtuous cycles of geographic expansion," simultaneously increasing their scale of operation, lowering their costs, and using new incoming profits to continue to invest elsewhere. Finally, by setting up their own networks of information, corporations can take advantage of cross-arbitrage opportunities, that is, buy goods and services from whatever country offers them cheapest.
So far so good. While none of this is particularly new or original, it is in the formulation of strategies that the book will stand or fall. According to the authors, global firms must invest in a variety of intangible capital, including intellectual property, talented managers, networks of able partners, and brand image. If a corporation can integrate these intangible assets into a system that operates as of a piece, the authors maintain, then it will have established "a compelling global value proposition": while single elements in the system may be replicable, imitating it as a whole is far more difficult for competitors. Furthermore, the authors argue, global firms should "control, [though] not own" the value chain, which represents a reversal from the practices once praised in large, vertically integrated firms. Sensible advice.
Unfortunately, at this point the authors cross the line that separates lack of originality from banality. Firms must, the authors solemnly inform us, approach potential deals with the appropriate risk assessment techniques, many of which were developed for investment bankers. These techniques include: 1) "disaggregating" the many risks involved in large business decisions, that is, breaking them down to examine who bears what risks and for what, etc.; 2) focusing on those risks for which the firm enjoys "familiarity advantages"; 3) portfolio theory, i.e. diversification spreads risks; 4) options theory, or the ability to acquire a firm at a specified date in the future for a known price. These techniques, the authors conclude, will allow firms to "overcom[e] confusion (lack of necessary knowledge), complexity (unknown interdependencies), and uncertainty (unknowable future events)." While top executives are perhaps too busy to reflect on these strategies systematically, it is difficult to imagine that they haven't thought about these things already.
However, there are deeper flaws at the core of the book. For starters, the seductive rhetoric of globalism is accepted as a given and fails to realistically anticipate any other contingencies, which is a disservice to business readers. The authors' insistence on proper risk analysis techniques cannot capture these complexities. Instead, the authors treat us to a simple extrapolation of current economic conditions. It remains unclear whether the current boom represents a structural trend (a "new economy") or another speculative financial bubble. Confusing the two can lead to terrible mistakes. Unfortunately, though its purpose is to devise better strategies for managers overwhelmed by global change, "Race for the Future" offers no useful guidance in this regard.
Even worse, evidence that contradicts their vision is ignored. The authors naively assume that globalisation is an unalloyed good, that consumers will prefer cheaper, more uniform goods to traditional indigenous varieties.
Many of these shortcomings can be explained by the poorly hidden agenda of the book. How, one wonders, could four intelligent co-authors ever agree on a detailed analytic framework? The answer is simple: the book is part of the McKinsey & Co. publicity machine. It promotes a company methodology, the conclusions of which come straight from McKinsey "research," a kind of parallel universe of jargon, anecdotes, and fierce internal competition for attention between young "associates" fresh out of university. I suspect that, under the steady hand of good ghost writers, "Race for the World" was cobbled together from disparate articles from the McKinsey Quarterly with over-confidence and little critical regard. As a result, the book's "authors," imbued with the company's mystique, fail to recognise the mediocrity of their ideas and advice.
Nonetheless, "Race for the World" is no no-read. As long as the reader is aware of its limitations, it offers a solid introduction to gung-ho globalism. While the book contains more than could be written on a book flap, its ideas could have been resumed in, say, one article in the McKinsey Quarterly.
A sharp, narrow focus on a few elements of strategy.......2000-06-08
This is another McKinsey book on strategy , which looks at strategies for market dominance in the context of globalisation. It covers an important subject well, but it is not in the same class as the earlier book from the Mckinsey stable Baghai et al. The Alchemy of Growth. It is concerned with financial, market segment, and arbitrage (taking advantage of geographic differences in productivity and factor cost) strategies to achieve dominance on a global basis within a preferred field. There is no doubt that these are important, but it is equally clear that they do not provide a full basis for a successful strategy. There is very little sense of concern with customer satisfaction or customer intimacy and surprisingly little concern with attracting and building skills other than to say it is important. Further, little attention is given to strategic partnering - alliances between equals - which is currently the focus of a great deal of strategic attention.
My overall impression is that this is another example of a very good extended article that has been expanded into a 300 page book. It also suffers from a lack of summarisation of the main points. The overall impression is of a sharp but rather narrow focus on a few key elements in a successful global strategy, representing itself as the whole.
Global Business Economics 101 for Freshmen.......2000-05-24
This book is a good survey of some of the factors involved in globalization. It also provides some useful perspectives for thinking about your firm's choices. The book's key weakness is in taking a strategy perspective from about 50,000 feet in the air. Most executives will not be quite sure what to do with the principles that the authors outline, as a result.
This book is essentially built around one concept: That cross-boundary competition for goods and services will go from 20 percent of world GDP now to 80 percent in 30 years. Naturally, this assumption is pretty critical. Chances are that not all industries will follow this model exactly. Some business areas will stay much more local than others, something this book doesn't talk much about. If globalization slows down or speeds up very much, business plans will quickly get out-of-kilter. Although the authors emphasize not under or overestimating globalization, they do not provide much insight into how one should think about how fast to go.
Of the other irresistible forces in the global economy (like increasingly rapid technology changes, currency fluctuations, changing customer needs, homogenized culture, shifts in government regulation) little more than passing references are made except to assume that the cost of capital for big firms will go down and stay there (based on the trend of the last few years).
I found that putting globalization at the center for your strategy is a doubtful thing to do. Other factors could easily be more important. How to decide how important globalization is for your company was not well addressed.
I also suspect that the authors are somewhat inexperienced in best practice research, which makes me nervous about their conclusions. For example, they were surprised to find that 25 successful global firms relied on different strategies to succeed. Anyone who has done best practice benchmarking knows that best practices are scattered around among firms, not cloned in total into each leading organization. It may also be the case that globalization was only one factor in the selection of these practices. Without normalizing for the influence of the other factors, how do we know what the globalization best practices really are? This book is so qualitative that I doubt if any serious quantitative analysis was done in this area. If it was, I didn't see much sign of it in the text.
I think that readers would have benefited from more detailed case histories. I happen to know a lot about how the companies (used as examples in the book) operate. If I had not had that knowledge, I think I could easily have drawn the wrong conclusions from the sketchy information that the authors provide. For example, the development of how Enron enters new business areas is worth a book all by itself. AES is another interesting example, around a somewhat different model, but was surprisingly left out by the authors.
If you are an undergraduate business student, you will probably find this book provocative and interesting. If nothing else, you will have a better sense for what kind of executives will be in short supply in the future. As I mentioned earlier, if you are a business executive, you may be fascinated in places, but probably won't find much actionable in it. My 3 star grade is an average of 5 stars for the business student and 1 star for usefulness to the executive.
Book Description
This book challenges almost every popular assumption about how to manage mergers and acquisitions. It draws upon a wealth of theory and practice to provide the essential strategic frameworks for integrating mergers, acquisitions, and other collaborative ventures at a global level. It shows that the human factor is at the center of a successful acquisition strategy.
Customer Reviews:
They don't get any better.......2000-10-08
I am a graduating MBA student in Australia. The "Value Quest" was prescribed text and I found this book just plain phenomenal. Its layout and its emphasis on key areas such as target costing, ABM and strategic management have been written with flair and astonishing depth.
Thank you for making confusing areas so very simple to understand. This book will serve me well for many years to come.
Good writers, bad writing.......2000-10-04
I cannot stay along by not give any comment about this book. I am a graduate student who is very fond of leading. But I really think that Value Quest publised by CAM-I is such a bad book on earth that I've ever read. Please review the following reasons. 1. Bad writing technique. Just talky. There is no emphasis area. 2. Full of technical stuffs and hard to understand sentences. 3. Absolutely bad presentation. Small picture. The detail in each picture cannot show the clear consequence.
4.Built-up model which is very simple, but write the explanation that make readers confuse.
As I saw from the writers' name, I think most of them have practical experiences in the business. I do not understand why they wrote this book to be a sleeping pill.
Good writers, bad writing........2000-10-04
I am 26 years old. But Amazon have no choice to choose from when I made a reveiw. I cannot stay along by not give any comment about this book. I am a graduate student who is very fond of leading. But I really think that Value Quest publised by CAM-I is such a bad book on earth that I've ever read. Please review the following reasons. 1. Bad writing technique. Just talky. There is no emphasis area. 2. Full of technical stuffs and hard to understand sentences. 3. Absolutely bad presentation. Small picture. The detail in each picture cannot show the clear consequence. 4.Built-up model which is very simple, but write the explanation that make readers confuse.
As I saw from the writers' name, I think most of them have practical experiences in the business. I do not understand why they wrote this book to be a sleeping pill.
Integrating today's advanced cost mnanagement tools!.......2000-07-11
Finally...... a book that makes sense of today's advanced cost management tools and processes. CJ McNair and the CAM-I Cost Management Integration Team have taken a huge stride forward in Advanced Cost Management theory and practice. This groundbreaking publication provides a conceptual model (The Strategic Management Process Model), and the supporting information (process flows, information tables, decision domains etc.) to make sense of the numerous tools and processes today's businesses are using to gain a competitive edge in the global marketplace. The book provides a "Reader's Digest" version of seven of the most powerful Advanced Cost Management processes as developed over the past decade by the Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing International's (CAM-I) Cost Management System (CMS) program. The CAM-I/CMS program is widely recognized as the world's leading forum for the development and implementation of advanced cost management practices.
The strategic management processes are: Target Cost Management, Asset Management, Capacity Management, Process Management, The Extended Enterprise, Integrated Performance Management and Activity Based Cost Management.
The combined power of these strategic management processes comes through clearly in a two-fold approach to integration. The process view of integrated information flows and the decision domain view of required information, sets a powerful and practical view of how these processes can efficiently lead an company to improved productivity and profitability. This book also contains a top level business diagnostic and a practitioner's diagnostic to aid the reader in leveraging their cost improvement efforts. The diagnostics combine to help the reader identify the company's area of greatest need and also provides a roadmap of where in the book they can find assistance. The practitioner's diagnostic is included in an enclosed floppy disk which makes the diagnostic simple and easy to use.
Real business experience by such prominent companies as Boeing, DaimlerChrysler, Honeywell International, Eastman Kodak, CNH Global and Arthur Andersen, provides the reader with a wealth of practical knowledge underpinned by the implementation experiences of these pioneering firms in the field of advance cost management.
This is truly a "MUST HAVE" publication for those seriously interested in profit and performance enhancement.
Keith Hallin - CAM-I/CMS Industry Chairman
Product Description
This is a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A664683. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: In this thesis, I examine the 2000 Army Aviation Modernization Plan using interviews, review of Program Objective Memorandums (POMs), Government Accounting Office (GAO) reports, records of congressional testimony and other supporting documents. I argue that non-integration is culturally imbedded in the Army. The cyclic patterns of build-up and teardown of the Army before and after conflicts have been replaced by a necessity to provide one integrated and interoperable force capable of continuous full spectrum operations. I have four major findings: First, favorable changes are evident in planning and coordination activities. These epic efforts from the three components are bound to improve integration and interoperability. Secondly, inadequate funding of the 2000 Army Aviation Modernization Plan causes integration and interoperability to either remain constant or decrease. Thirdly, the Army National Guard needs the second utility company of the multi-functional battalion in the RC Division structure to support dual mission requirements. Finally, funding for the Comanche program comes at the expense of Army National Guard and Active Component Army integration and interoperability. Consideration should be given to cutting the RAH-66 program and applying alternative solutions that improve integration and interoperability of the Army while modernizing the Guard concurrently.
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