Average customer rating:
- An almost complete history
- Great background for understanding the Internet age.
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Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western Electric
Stephen B. Adams , and
Orville R. Butler
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0521651182 |
Book Description
Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western Electric is the first full-length history of the Western Electric Company, the manufacturing arm of the Bell System. As a manufacturer in the communications revolutions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Western Electric made new products such as telegraphs, telephones, an early computing machine, radios, radar, and transistors. The book demonstrates, through Western's 1882 acquisition by Bell Telephone, that vertical integration was a lengthy process rather than a single event. It also shows the coming of age of industrial psychology and describes the advent of civil rights in corporate America.
Customer Reviews:
An almost complete history.......2007-06-27
Now that Lucent Technologies is gone, swallowed up by the French Telecom giant, this history of Western Electric could be completed. For now, we'll have to do with this comprehensive edition written when Lucent Technologies still had an apparently bright future. What becomes clear is that Lucent's downfall stems from a series of decisions beginning nearly a century earlier in which the manufacturing unit's interests always took second place to those of the Bell operating companies and AT&T.
On the downside, it's a bit of an "official" history from the point of view of the corporate higher-ups. It would have been interesting to contrast their veiw with those of the regular employees. Still, it's probably the best available history of this important institution.
Great background for understanding the Internet age........1999-10-06
I'm actually an analyst of the telecom industry, so I come to this with a special interest. Nonetheless, I would highly recommend the book for those interested in some real foundations to understand the communications revolution. (and not just sound-byte Internet history). It's a pity that the name Lucent Technologies isn't in the title, because that's the real subject of the book. It's a history of Western Electric, which after a 120 year "pit stop" at AT&T ultimately spun out to become Lucent. The best part is the early chapters where we learn about the competition between the telegraph and Bell's telephone, the coalescing of local telephone companies under Bell's leadership, and ultimately the emergence of AT&T (with Western Electric)as the "Bell System" that most of us grew up with. Don't be put off by the fact that Lucent commissioned the book. It's a throughly documented, balanced, and obviously professional undertaking.
Book Description
How dynamic businesses of every size can unleash innovation by inviting customers to co–design what they do and make.
Reading line: The 8 Roles Customers Play in Trend–Setting Companies
The refrain is familiar for Patricia Seybold in her journeys as a top technology and management strategist: "I want our company to be acknowledged as the most admired and most customer–valued in our industry and to be recognized as the company that has forever changed the way things are done." "How can we become the Google of banking?" "How can we be the eBay of software?" "I want to be the JetBlue of manufacturing."
"How can we become the undisputed trend–setter in our industry–with a competitive bar no one can topple?"
In Outside Innovation, bestselling author Seybold taps her close relationship with dozens of high–innovation companies to reveal the untold strategy behind the trendsetters and the next HUGE leap forward in customer strategy. Seybold shows that companies that are dominating their category and staying ahead of the pack are collaborating at every level of their business with their customers.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Primer for the Core Competency of the 21st Century.......2007-02-02
[...]
Excellent Primer for the Core Competency of the 21st Century
Outside Innovation is an in-the-trenches manual for evolving your company to embrace the innovation imperative.
To thrive in the Knowledge Economy, companies will have to learn how to innovate at warp speed. Ultra low costs and exceptional quality feature sets are merely expected, and they no longer differentiate. Conventional wisdom holds that "innovation" cycles reappear every five years, when companies have exhausted the then-current cost-cutting approaches and need to focus on driving the top line.
However, the Knowledge Economy doesn't call for your father's innovation. The 21st century kind will require that companies turn themselves inside-out. Winners will learn to engage and catalyze their customers' creativity. As author Patty Seybold aptly puts it, "Companies with the smartest customers win."
BOOK OVERVIEW
This book is inspiring, insightful and infectious! Patty Seybold has been a guiding light who burst on the scene in a big way with customers.com in the late 90s. Her insight and commitment cut wide and deep, and you'll be hard pressed to find a book that delivers on customer-driven innovation as well as Outside Innovation.
In the hope that an in-depth look will compel you to buy the book, I've provided the basic outline of each chapter as well as key takeaways.
CHAPTER ONE: How to Harness Customer Innovation
Gives an overview of what outside (customer-led) innovation is, terminology and some basics about how to go about it.
*Briefly defines what customer scenarios are and how to use them to understand customer realities. How to adopt a customer outcome-focused approach to business design and how to design from the outside-in, rather than the Industrial Economy inside-out.
*Give customers important roles to play in sharing your business: lead customers (including lead users), contributors, consultants, guides and promoters, and how these customer roles work together.
*How to expand the breadth and depth of your interaction with customer-innovators.
CHAPTER TWO: LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT
LEGO® MINDSTORMS® is widely acclaimed for its powerful example of customer-focused innovation, and this chapter takes an in-depth look into how the company turned itself around by collaborating with customers. It reflects several best practices for customer-led innovation.
*LEGO® case study
*National Instruments case study
One of the most insightful aspects of the story is how it depicts the interaction between the company and its very diverse customer groups (school kids, math teachers, professors, hackers, hobbyists). the Mindstorms product is a new category for LEGO®, which makes the world-famous interlocking plastic building blocks. Mindstorms is a programmable "brick" that can control objects that are built of LEGO®. A vital part of the offering, however, is a computer-based software program in which the customer programs the commands that will be executed by the brick and object.
*At first, the company inspired its customers by launching the Mindstorms offering.
*The offering attracted software hackers, engineers, teachers and hobbyists, who began collaborating to improve the software. They hacked some of the company's information and processes, and the company embraced it and encouraged it.
*The interaction took off, and the book shows how the energy built to produce a blockbuster offering.
*The company and customers created online communities, global contests (who can make the most extraordinary robot).
*Extending the success with a key partnership with National Instruments, a company with virtual instrumentation offerings.
*The chapter also takes a look at the LEGO® partnership from NI's perspective, and how it extended customer innovation it developed with LEGO® to its customers in general.
CHAPTER THREE: Help Customers Reach Their Goals
This chapter addresses how to capture end customers' "context" and "desired outcomes."
*Staples case study. How the company took a deep dive into customers' experience in stores, online and at home. They used their discovery to create differentiating value.. in a "commodity" business! An interesting aspect was how Staples took over part of the couponing process from a partner, making it work better for everyone in the process.
*Stories about using Communispace, an online community vendor, to understand customers interests and passions; Hallmark, Kraft, RC2, Schwab and Unilever examples.
*Koko® Fitness case study. The concept behind the business was customer-driven from the start. Takes you through how co-founders conceived and built their business.
*Zopa case study. A digital business that's taking the world by storm. Puts you behind the wheel and shows how the founder followed customer pain points to create a business in which individuals lend money to other individuals--without banks.
By culling examples from a wide variety of businesses, the book shows the wide applicability of the concepts while getting your imagination going.
CHAPTER FOUR: Let Customers Strut Their Stuff
Chapter four is replete with examples of companies leveraging customer-created content. The second best chapter is worth the price of the book alone.
*Tripod as an early example. Shows how fundamental the concepts are.. and how they've been around for many years.
*The American Institute of Physics example. AIP has a rich community of scientists that enthusiastically create offerings.
*How to make it easy for customers to create content for other customers (Snap-on, Cisco, Amazon, IgoUgo examples). Focuses on the vital role of online tools and how they can unleash customers' creativity.
*The world of blogs. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that your company must be blogging if you want to have a modicum of relevance in the emerging world. Some initial pointers on getting involved. This is not a handbook on blogging; rather it shows how blogs fit into the whole picture.
*Flickr case study. How Flickr founders created a vibrant community that is its own canvas. How customers are creating a world for themselves. Some parallels with Chapter Six.
*Mash-ups' importance. Mash-ups are reuse and packaging/integration of service-based software into Web 2.0 sites or pages. The relevance here is how you can make services available to customers who can mash them up. It's both metaphorical and literal.
*BBC case study. The main idea is how customers can tag and manipulate BBC content. BBC proposes, "Build your stuff with our stuff."
CHAPTER FIVE: Promote and Leverage Open Source Development
Another way to look at customer-led innovation is that many things will be "open sourced." Open source software development holds many lessons for "sourcing from the crowd" in your industry, so this chapter takes you through the similarities.
*Open source as customer-led innovation: an overview.
*Mozilla Firefox case study. Key aspect of the passion of the community, especially in marketing and promotion.
*Asterisk and Digium case study. Especially interesting in its discussion about how to hive off the ".org entity" from the ".com" business. The founder put together a phone system (as in "PBX") that's now open source. Digium is a company that services the software for those who want it, like Red Hat services Linux customers.
*Cohesive Financial Technologies example. Short but valuable example of open source commercial models and strategies.
*Open source biotech: the BiOS initiative. This is obvious and inspiring. Shows how the Industrial Economy mindset adds high cost that subtracts value in the current context. Open source biotech can and will be done.
*Wikipedia case study. This is well trodden ground but it's useful to integrate some of the concepts.
This chapter is valuable in two dimensions: if you have significant exposure to or experience with open source, it will make you aware of its wide applicability in the business world. If you've only heard about it but are not very familiar with how it works, you get to double dip: a good overview of what makes it tick as well as how the concepts apply to customer-led innovation.
CHAPTER SIX: Enabling Customer Co-Design
This chapter outlines some of the models, tactics and tools you can use to enable customer collaboration. It's not the main idea of the chapter, but I looked at it as a progression of adopting a customer-focused business model:
1. Launch configuration and/or DIY construction kits and workshops. Here, customers are ordering basic options of your existing offerings, using digital tools.
2. Create customer design tools. Here, customers are designing new features or offerings.
3. Offer open-ended design environments in which customers have control over a wide range of parameters.
As I read it through, I found myself itching for a graphic that showed the similarities of the models as well as their progression.
*Customized, build-to-order products. Very interesting examples of how customers who design offerings for themselves and/or other customers become more valuable. They constantly up-sell themselves. There is a premium for letting the customer satisfy him/herself, and it means higher margins because cost to serve goes down while amount of order goes up.
*The GE ColorXpress® case study. Shows GE Plastics' progression into customer-designed offerings. Context is global supply chain.
*SEI Wealth Network® case study. SEI is a service (wealth management) that achieved breakthrough with a very creative approach.
*Customer Scenario® Mapping: a tool and approach to enable customer innovation. This is a brief overview to one of the Patricia Seybold Group's consulting tools.
*National Semiconductor case study highlights how customers build on each other's designs. How NS created tools to enable customers.
A key insight is that when you connect customers with each other, they can collaborate with each other as well as your company. They become much smarter and more experienced. They can create "templates" and solutions for each other, which your company can offer to other customers. You can enable your customers to create solutions for themselves, while getting advice from your experts and other customers. Then you capture the work and enable other customers to find it.
CHAPTER SEVEN: Let Customers Co-Design and Promote Your Products
My favorite chapter as it's the most visionary. Here, customers not only co-design companies' offerings; they also actively promote them. Examples show how entrepreneurs create companies with an outside-in model. The culture of each company is strong and often has a cause that is well articulated. The companies have strong communities imbued with lifestyle preferences.
*Threadless case study.
*Muji example. My favorite part of this case study is how the company asks customers to pre-commit to buying the product. Then managers decide whether to produce it.
*Karmaloop case study.
*Gaming: the ultimate customer-created offerings.
*Key points for how to adopt a customer-centric innovation model. Five steps to becoming outside-in focused as well as five pitfalls.
In conclusion, I highly recommend this book as it is an excellent guidebook for starting to create highly valuable customer relationships--for innovation. As I've written elsewhere, individuals will continue to adopt Web 2.0 tools like blogs, social networking sites, audio (podcasts), video (YouTube, vlogs), etc., and it will be easier for companies to collaborate with them and their groups. If your company isn't collaborating with customers to innovate, you will be out-innovated by a competitor that is.
A practical approach to incorporating the customers' voice.......2006-11-25
I didn't wholly enjoy this book but I enjoyed it on the whole. One third describes concepts of deep engagement and the intertwining of brand experience and customer experience and feedback, one third is a scrapbook of internet-driven or created businesses, and one third is a sales pitch for the author's consulting methodology.
The first third I enjoyed, because exploring branding in the context of task-driven lead customers, and particularly the youth market, is an area which I have not found well articulated before. Seybold starts the job, doesn't go very deep in this aspect, but held my attention. Although if you're familiar with the Staples reinvention or what's happened at Lego in the last few years then you may not get much extra out of this part.
Seybold explores categories of customers and how to engage and work with different groups in her inside-out innovation. I like her definitions of innovation, which is about creating wealth. Personally I didn't think that this was a ground-breaking work, it simply extends the business of working with your customers in the creation of your value propositions. For a consultant, it builds on the technique of working with your customer's customers. And we know that value is emotional and perceptual and personal, and the book frames those ideas back into the author's technique. That is all done well, it's useful, its important, and it is built on the back of lots of related work.
The second one third is a compendium of reasonably well-known interent business success stories, and their customer interaction or "design" methods. It also has a big section on open source. If you're a business person who has not been engaged in studying these models, or is not familiar with the usual stories and open source, then you'll find this section worthwhile. It's the kind of Wikipedia story from free form to chaos to moderated-control that is one of the themes of this part of the book. My implication here is not entirely fair as there are some less commonly known cases that surprised me - such as the KoKo fitness machine which is an inspiring illustration of business development.
The other what I call "one third" of the book is the constant punctuation of trademarked common words which pepper the exposition of the author's methodology and her showcase customers. That bit kind of annoys me, but objectively this methodology is well explained. There is nothing particularly new but it is nicely brought together as a process, and the author gives guidance and insights, and clearly with the right participants and motivation the methodology works well and has delivered good results. If you are on the lookout for a well explained approach, as either a consultant or an actual business operator, then you'll appreciate this component of the book.
In summary - the book does a good job of motivating the understanding of customers co-designing your services and products, and brand image. However if you are already familiar with the Staples story, the Lego story, and the National Semiconductor story, and with general internet business snapshots from the media, then you might find it less valuable. The author's methodology is well-explained for the intended objective of the book. In terms of value for money, it's not expensive and for around $20 it is certainly well worth a read on an airplane for almost anyone interested in the direction of business. I rated it 4 stars because of the value for money, otherwise 3.
Bridging between user/open innovation and mass customization.......2006-10-19
In "Outside Innovation", Patricia Seybold provides one of the first general-management books on co-creation of value between firms and customers. Her book is full of great and very up-to-date case studies that make the idea of value co-creation really lively and accessible. She describes (in great detail and with plenty of background information) many classic examples like Lego's co-development of the new Mindstorm toy, Threadless, Flickr, BBC Backstage or National Semiconductor, but has also some great new (at least for me) examples of customer-centric innovation like the development of a new fitness machine (Koko Fitness - great story and concept) or SEI Wealth Networks.
And her pitch line why her book is important tackles one of the main problems of integrating customer and users in a firm's innovation process:
The good news is that customer-led innovation is one of the most predictably successful innovation processes. The bad news is that many managers and executives don't yet believe in it. Today, that's their loss. Ultimately, it may be their downfall."
I hope that her books can support more mangers to consider customer/user integration not only as a nice add-on pilot initiative, but to make it a crucial part of the company's core strategy. The book, however, offers no recipes or frameworks how a manager could do so. Its core contribution is to document and describe what is happening in a world that is not any longer dominated by companies creating things FOR users. And as Seybold does this in great detail and style, this record of promising practices may convince managers to turn away from old prejudices.
Seybold uses the term "lead customer" to describe a group of a firm's current customers who are truly innovative: "These may not be your most vocal customers, your most profitable customers, or your largest customers. But they are the customers who care deeply about the way in which your products or services could help them achieve something they care about."
My conclusion: A book very worthwhile to buy and read. Its great collection of case studies will inspire you to look for more and deeper information on this topic - or to start to brainstorm immediately how you can benefit from the creative potential of your customers.
Book Description
In one of the most original books of its kind ever written, Patrick Hanlon explains how the most powerful brands create a community of believers around the brand, revealing the seven components that will help every company and marketer capture the public imagination -- and seize a bigger slice of the pie.
What is the magic glue that adheres consumers to Google, Mini Cooper, and Oprah, but not to others? Why do many brands with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising fail to get the same visceral traction in the marketplace that brands like Apple, Starbucks, or Nike have? After years of working with famous brands like Absolut, Ford Motor Company, LEGO, Disney, Montblanc, Sara Lee, and others, Patrick Hanlon, senior advertising executive and founder of Thinktopia, decided to find the answers. His search revealed seven definable assets that together construct the belief system that lies behind every successful brand, whether it's a product, service, city, personality, social cause, or movement.
In Primal branding, Hanlon explores those seven components, known as the primal code, and shows how to use and combine them to create a community of believers in which the consumer develops a powerful emotional attachment to the brand. These techniques work for everyone involved in creating and selling an image -- from marketing managers to social advocates to business leaders seeking to increase customer preference for new or existing products. Primal branding presents a world of new possibility for everyone trying to spark public appeal -- and the opportunity to move from being just another product on the shelf to becoming a desired and necessary part of the culture.
Download Description
What is the magic glue that adheres consumers to Google, Mini Cooper, and Oprah, but not to others? Why do many brands with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising fail to get the same visceral traction in the marketplace that brands like Apple, Starbucks, or Nike have? After years of working with famous brands like Absolut, Ford Motor Company, LEGO, Disney, Montblanc, Sara Lee, and others, Patrick Hanlon, senior advertising executive and founder of Thinktopia, decided to find the answers. His search revealed seven definable assets that together construct the belief system that lies behind every successful brand, whether it's a product, service, city, personality, social cause, or movement.
Customer Reviews:
The Why and the How of Branding.......2007-08-13
Primal Branding goes much deeper than most books on branding. It is not just about logos and tag lines but about the seven crucial components which must be present to creating a brand that connects.
The seven attributes are the creation story, the creed, icons, rituals, sacred words, pagans (the opposite or those opposed to the brand) and leaders. Primal branding is not about "building a church, but creating a religion."
"Primal Branding has broken down the elements that help people feel better about a brand." All marketers are searching for ways to stand out from the crowd, to get attention, to connect. Hanlon has given us the blueprint to do just that. But as he says, "If all we needed were a recipe, everyone would be a great chef." He gives us the blueprint, but there is still the need to create the story, to make sure it resonates with everyone, the employees, the vendors and the customers. Branding is still part science, part art and a good deal of luck.
The book is well written, easy to read and filled with many examples of very successful brands - from coca-cola to lego to U2. Hanlon goes behind the scenes to uncover what made the brands successful. He gives great insight into the things we must do to make our own brands successful.
While we have the essential steps to brand our products or services, we still need to bring the emotional connection into the process. That of course is where the art and luck comes in.
If you are responsible for marketing your services, you really need to read this book.
Success For The Business Owner.......2007-05-07
The "buzz" word out of everyones mouth in marketing today is BRANDING yet when I asked people what they meant by that, I could never get an answer that made any sense until I was told about this "WONDERFUL" book.
This very easy read explains EVERYTHING you need to make your business boom! "Many Thanks" to Patrick Hanlon, I am now in the process of "branding" my business with a new understanding and outlook of myself and my work-!!
Definitely worth the time to read.......2007-03-25
Branding isn't that easy, so I feel that anyone trying to boil it down to seven ways to nirvana is a bit simplistic. But Hanlon's seven elements of primal branding make a ton a sense. The emphasis on the creation story is a helpful reminder that brands derive strength from people knowing where they come from and why they exist. While I think it could have made these points in fewer pages, I would definitely recommend this book
Not the first book to read on branding.......2007-02-23
I felt the book was too far off the track on the "how to" portion of branding.
Delivers more than promised.......2006-08-29
This is one of those rare business books that delivers far beyond a restatement of old theory or advocating a personal belief. This book takes a subject that can seem cerebral or intangible and puts it into a language and coherent model that anyone can understand and implement. It is one of those books that both has you nodding "yes, yes, yes" as it makes absolute sense and saying "yes!" I can follow this and change my business. In fact, it is so clear, I think it can be used outside business just as effectively as well. I recommend it to everyone I talk to (except my competitors!).
Book Description
What does it take to succeed in starting and running a small business? All the experts advise writing a business plan to map the trajectory of a new or existing venture. Even though writing a plan may seem like an intimidating undertaking, with the right help, anyone can do it. For expert guidance to take advantage of powerful business-building opportunities, the latest edition of the bestselling Anatomy of a Business Plan offers step-by-step, proven advice.
Updated with the latest changes affecting small businesses through 2005, the sixth edition also includes a new resource section to help businesses research financial and marketing information. Three complete sample business plans, along with the blank forms to create a plan, make this a hands-on, user-friendly guide.
Designed for beginning and growth-oriented entrepreneurs, or for those ready to move their dream businesses into action, it includes complete templates to:
• Develop an executive summary that grabs attention.
• Envision the organizational plan to lay the groundwork for success.
• Create the marketing plan that powers growth.
• Build for the future with airtight financial documentation.
While Anatomy of a Business Plan is ideal for entrepreneurs at all levels, it is also used in classrooms, workshops, and training. Many corporations use it to help their divisions, departments, and subsidiaries develop plans for new business expansion and growth. Once written, a plan is only effective when put to use! Guidelines for packaging and updating the plan complete the picture—so any business leader can create a living, accessible plan to support long-term success.
Customer Reviews:
A Must Have Guide for Writing Your Business Plan.......2005-12-02
Writing a business plan is not an easy task, it can actually be scary. Anatomy of a Business Plan takes away any fear and guides you through the process of developing a sound business plan. I am a business plan writer and have been using Anatomy of a Business Plan as a guide since 2000. To actually write business plans, I use the companion software program, Automate Your Business Plan. Automate Your Business Plan brings Anatomy of a Business Plan to life by actually guiding you through the business plan development process. I have used Automate Your Business Plan to develop several business plans and strongly recommend it and Anatomy of a Business Plan to anyone looking to write a business plan.
Ndaba Mdhlongwa
Business Plan Solutions
Book Description
What's the secret to a company's continued growth and prosperity? Internationally known marketing expert
Al Ries has the answer: focus. His commonsense approach to business management is founded on the premise that long-lasting success depends on focusing on core products and eschewing the temptation to diversify into unrelated enterprises.
Using real-world examples, Ries shows that in industry after industry, it is the companies that resist diversification, and focus instead on owning a category in consumers' minds, that dominate their markets. He offers solid guidance on how to get focused and how to stay focused, laying out a workable blueprint for any company's evolution that will increase market share and shareholder value while ensuring future success.
Customer Reviews:
When I started up my business..........2007-03-30
When I started up my business, AUDIN Web Design, I used this book as my bible. It has worked so well for me. Some people may find a lot of fluff in the book (which is true if you read all the other books by the same authors), but if you are fresh to the material you will find it invaluable. When searching for a name of my company, the book revealed to me that AUDIN should be the name of my Web Design Company. With that I focused and channeled my course of action. If only everyone abide by the laws set forth in this book, we wouldn't have everyone and anyone hawking everything under the sun (hint, hint: Amazon). Anyway, if you are in a small business an you are starting to lose your focus, get this book and read; read like you've never read before. Read until the cows come home. This stuff is gold, real gold.
A Must-Read For Corporate Execs.......2007-03-26
It's human nature among company managers to fall in love with their own brand, which makes them lose sight of the REAL issue, which is what the customer's perspective is. Rolex clocks? Porshe watches? These are two things I found at a recent trip to a high-end watch store which indicate Rolex and Porsche could be losing their focus.
This book gets 4 stars because it could be more concise.
Stay Focussed, Specialize, Own Your Niche, SURVIVE !.......2006-06-21
Focus delivers. This book by Al Ries, one of the world's best know marketing strategists, hones in on the benefits of the anti-intuitive practice of focusing. He calls the latest management craze of alliances, mergers and acquisitions a fad that has lessened efficiency and the bottom line. He says to re-focus instead of reengineer. Out of focus companies are less effective and their identity is blurred to customers. By focusing here is meant specializing in one area and becoming the best in that area.
Coca Cola stock is worth double that of Pepsi but Pepsi sells twice as much as Coke. The difference is that Coke specializes and Pepsi is all over the board with restaurants and drinks other than soft drinks. Convergence goes against the laws of nature and businesses. New species aren't formed by combining other species. New businesses rarely come from combining businesses but by splitting up business. Automobiles never combined with boats or airplanes, although there has been effort in this area. The automobile has divided into over 45 brands with 1000+ models.
GM in the early days was selling many less cars than Ford. Sloan saw that his many brands were competing with each other. He took each brand and made price-point steps out of them. They no longer competed agaist each other and soon enough GM owned half the market. Well GM didn't stay with this focus and now all of their lines compete with one another and the brand identities are very blurred. The market share for GM is now very low again. How does a company like this refocus?
There are many ways to refocus. You may start by 'owning' a word or a category. For instance Pizza Hut owns Pizza but Dominoes is known for 'delivery' and Ceasar's is known for 'take-out pizza.' Fed Ex is known for 'over-night delivery.' Sell off or rename parts of the organization that are not part of this focus. General Mills used to own companies in many different industries but experienced huge growth by selling them off and focusing on cereals.
A focus should be simple and with the times. That doesn't mean that you have to change with the times. Having two feet planted in the past is a focus that has worked for the Levis 501 brand for instance. But, if your product changes and evolves, your name may have to change with it to cut prior associative thinking. Always look for where the next focus will be in your niche. Bayer made the finest asprin but lost out when Johnson & Johnson released Tylenol, which was soon overshadowed by American Home Products introducing ibuprofen, and the latest is naproxen sodium pioneered by Proctor & Gamble - the Aleve brand.
Keep the focus simple, memorable (a claim that is unique) and powerful. The future belongs to companies with a clear focus today.
Five Focussed Stars
Focused, but undisiplined.......2004-04-24
I believe this book makes a valid point for the pularity of companies today. There are just enough tidbits to make the read worthwhile. However, I found the book frustrating. The author suffers from disclipine. He makes poor use of analogies and the book, while chock full of examples, could many times be examples of the contra opionion: diversification. The author would benifit from application of scientific rigor that would add depth and credibility to his copious but superficial use of examples. Perhaps exploring a corporate strategy of diversification would of given him the credibility I needed to swallow all his claims. Without it he comes off as someone who makes up his mind what position he wants and then grasps anything possible to support his ideal. For those interested in the subject I relay the maxim, "Concentrate when in control otherwise diversify."
A very good book.......2004-04-03
I have not finished this book yet, but I believe I am already benefited from the book. I won't be as puzzled and frustrated as I was, facing distractions and many seemingly attractive oppotunities in life and work. It lets me to realize the harmful effects of unfocused efforts. This is enough for me to rate this book 5 stars.
However, I also believe focus in real life is not a static thing. You have to focus in a way that does not lose the sight of what is happening around you. In other words, you have to re-evaluate your focusing path from time to time.
By the way, I got this book from a library book sale. It was an unfocused effort -- I was just out there trying to find something interesting.
Average customer rating:
- Amazing correlation between 2000 boom and Focus companies of this book
- Don't let your competitors get a hold of this book
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Future Focus: How 21 Companies are Capturing 21st Century Success
Theodore B. Kinni , and
Al Ries
Manufacturer: Capstone
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Book Description
Theodore B. Kinni Editor of The Business Reader Review, a free electronic newsletter of capsule reviews of new business books. Al Ries Voted one of the top 100 most influential public relations people in the 20th century by PR Week. Savvy business people and investors around the world are asking, what do we have to do today to prosper tomorrow, next month, next year? That's the question that started Al Ries and Theodore Kinni working on Future Focus, the book that answers the question: what will it take to succeed in business in the next century and new millennium? They found the answers among twenty-one focused, innovative, and protean companies. Future Focus explores each of these 21 companies in turn. Each company is introduced by a quote from one of its leaders, an Executive Snapshot that offers a fast insight into the strategic vision of the company. What can you learn from Future Focus? There are many practical business lessons in the book. They revolve around four major themes: 21st century success is focused. Almost all of the Future Focus 21 have flirted with diversification. Almost all have lost money on the outside ventures and are extremely focused as of today. Those that continue to operate outside their core businesses are usually in related businesses and are building a vertically integrated operation. The lesson: Get and stay focused. 21st century success is innovative. The Future Focus 21 are innovators. They are busy searching out original products and services or they are busy introducing existing products and services in markets that have never seen them before. Either way, they are innovators in the marketplace. The lesson: Be Innovative. 21st century success is global. With a single exception, each company in the Future Focus 21 is a global business and is trying to get more global. A well-focused company replaces the urge to diversify its businesses with the drive to diversify its markets. The lesson: Go global. 21st century success has speed bumps. There isn't a single, sustained upward ride in any of the Future Focus histories. Sooner or later, a competitor beats you to the next best thing or the bottom drops out of your customer's market or the whole economy heads south for a breather. The lesson: Be prepared for hard times.
Customer Reviews:
Amazing correlation between 2000 boom and Focus companies of this book.......2005-09-02
The first company authors take up is 3Com. Please check out the stock market curve for 3Com. (take a ten year duration to even out speculations and short surges) What do you see? A spike in 96-97 period and then a bigger spike in 2000. And what after that, the stock keeps going down.
Now repeat this for Applied Materials, Inc, their second company. What do you see. Again a spike in 2000 and after that a decline.
Not yet satisfied try Bertelsmann AG – Güterslosh, their third company although it's difficult to find it's stock price charts. But Cisco Systems, their fourth example, is an easy target. Again what do you find. Spike, making you nostalgic ain't it.
No matter what the funda, in the entire financial history no one has, nor will ever be able to, defy the ultimate acid test i.e. the long term stock price curve.
I find the correlation between year 2000 and the authors' Focus companies hard to ignore. For every logical conjuncture behind success there is a counter argument. A bunch of salt is recommended.
Don't let your competitors get a hold of this book.......2000-03-27
Ries does it again. His no-nonsens approach to marketing rises above the rest in "Future Focus." Ries gets back to the basics of marketing showing how through simple ideas, you can dominate your market. He shows what companies have done to become world class leaders and points out what they usually do that makes them loose their position. This book is a must read for every business owner and executive on the decision making level. Just keep it out of your competitors hands.
Amazon.com
The game of Russian roulette is alive and well and living on Wall Street, where it's known as the derivatives market. In his aptly named book F.I.A.S.C.O., Frank Partnoy, a former derivatives trader at Morgan Stanley, exposes the seamier side of high-stakes finance. Derivatives are securities whose worth is determined by the value of other securities; according to Partnoy, however, the derivatives market is an elaborate illusion performed with smoke and mirrors. In fascinating, frightening detail Partnoy describes several of Morgan Stanley's slick deals that, in his eyes, are just this side of outright fraud. More than just dishonest, the bait-and-switch tactics Wall Street traders employ to rig the markets are downright dangerous, since the massive debt these deals conceal will inevitably come back to haunt the dealmakers.
F.I.A.S.C.O. could be subtitled Portrait of the Trader as a Young Man, for Frank Partnoy is indeed young, and his short tenure on Wall Street left him sadly disillusioned but much wiser. His book will leave you wiser, too--and probably very worried.
Book Description
The Orange County bankruptcy. The fall of Barings Bank. Shocking losses at Procter & Gamble, Dell Computer, and Gibson Greetings. The Mexican peso crisis. What did all these disasters have in common? A class of financial instruments known as derivatives -- the most dangerous (and profitable) products ever devised on Wall Street. In FIASCO, a former derivatives salesman takes readers onto the trading floor of a leading investment bank -- and in a tell-all, no-holds-barred expos, reveals for the first time the ugly truth about these complex financial products and the people who peddle them. Writing with the same eye for telling details as Michael Lewis in Liar's Poker, Frank Partnoy shows how the once genteel world of investment banking has now become a place where the rallying cry is "There's blood in the water. Let's go kill someone."
Partnoy was in his late twenties when he landed the job of his dreams -- a position in Morgan Stanley's Derivatives Products Group, the single most profitable division of the venerable investment bank. With vivid character sketches and a wealth of funny-yet-disturbing anecdotes, Partnoy takes us inside the culture of Morgan Stanley's derivatives group. Encouraged by upper management and egged on by gun-toting senior salesmen, derivatives had become a business-as-war, take-no-prisoners operation where people pored over Soldier of Fortune and gloated when they sold a product that "ripped off" a client's face.
As he leads us through the ups and downs of his fifteen months at Morgan Stanley, Partnoy explains in plain English what derivatives are -- and shows how he and the other "rocket scientists" at the bank custom-designed these arcane financial products to dodge government regulators, encourage foreign currency speculation by pension and mutual funds, disguise risky gambles with AAA Standard & Poor's ratings, and avoid capital gains taxes for weathy individuals. He also details, for the first time, the deal that earned Morgan Stanley the fattest fee in Wall Street history -- a $74.5 million profit for devising a derivative that wiped hundreds of millions in losses off a Japanese company's balance sheet. But dreaming up ever more complicated derivatives products -- Dollarized Yield Curve Notes, Constant Maturity Treasury Floaters, Trigger Notes, and Total Return Swaps, to name a few -- was never enough. For the bank to earn its fee, they had to be sold -- usually, as Partnoy notes, either to "cheaters" (fund managers who wanted riskier investments than their regulators or charters normally allowed) or to "widows and orphans" (unsophisticated fund managers who couldn't understand the risks in fine print).
Throughout the book, Partnoy gives us a trading-floor view of the disasters fueled by derivatives trading and provides the formula of greed, daring, and ingenuity that are the basic ingredients of all derivatives. Written with humor, insight, and a mounting sense of moral outrage, FIASCO is both a brilliant insider's account of investment banking today and a blistering indictment of the largely unregulated market in derivatives -- a book that everyone who has a pension plan or invests in mutual funds needs to read.
Customer Reviews:
This best part of this book is it's a loan to me.......2006-03-15
The copy I read was a loan from my colleague and that was the best part about it. I'm sure I wouldn't have bought this book myself.
Other than that, the only better part is in the description of how some Japanese companies used financial derivatives to inflate their revenue or to mask their losses. In light of the off-balance-sheet deals we have witnessed in several corporate scandals through late 1990s to early 2000s, the author surely shows what could have been under the rug.
The author might have been honest with what he had come across with his fixed income derivatives sales jobs in two Wall Street firms. Yet I sincerely doubt how wide and deep such exposure he could have on things going around that complex world from his narrow corner. It's like telling the stories of Detroit after having been a used car salesperson for two or three years.
Over the book, there are the author's opinions on how great the fixed income derivatives department is and how low the others, e.g., municipal bonds, are. Apparently those opinions are very subjective as I believe he didn't have sufficient knowledge on the other operations to base his opinions. At least, he didn't seem to have worked or learned about the works in those other areas.
Even in the author's own fixed income derivatives department, the reader cannot find much on works, say, product structuring or risk management, outside the sales team. Simply put, we understand that the firm puts together certain derivatives products and hold inventory of them until they're sold. What would the firm be if market conditions changed before its salespersons could dump the products to the seemingly ignorant customers?
Another drawback with this book is the author tends to argue that since there is huge money to be made with these financial transactions, the government would never be able to impose an effective regulation for the public good.
It may be natural for the author to argue on the regulation issues, based on the fact that he left Wall Street to pursue a legal career. The fallacy of that argument in the book is it fails to recognize two prerequisites of the issue: whether and what regulation can protect the public good.
Fair to say is regulations surely can increase employment for lawyers but not necessarily serve the public good.
Here's why derivatives become more and more complex.......2003-01-02
The book has the merit of going through the most complex derivatives and structured products explaining to a fair extent business motivations behind the deal, an information that is not only confidential, but that constitutes the bread and butter of investment banks.
I loved the book until I got to the last chapter. I would have rated this book ... if it wasn't for this last chapter that the author has added in more recent editions.
I would like to make two comments:
The book tends to explain the concept of present value in simple words, but still wants to go through the most complex derivatives. As a result, certain parts are boring to someone without the financial background, but I would doubt that anyone without the financial background would make it to the second chapter or even be attracted to the book.
My second criticism is regarding the last chapter, "Epilogue". This chapter ruins the book. The author develops an anti-derivatives theory that turns to be amusing. As everyone knows, a tool is neither good nor bad by itself. It is what one achieves with the tool that is good or bad. This principle is also valid for derivatives. It is useless, not to say irritating to go through a list of lawsuits and settlements. This is not proving any further that derivatives are bad or that investment banks are evil.
Good, entertaining reading about derivatives.......2002-03-01
Now that there is a proven market for recent financial history/humor books, after the stunning success of Liars Poker, Predator's Ball and Den of Theives, this book FIASCO is another one of these books that tries to emulate the financial stories from the 1980's.
To my knowledge it is the first book to take on the derivatves trading industry, which is extremely volatile and can be the most risky sector of the financial markets, if you choose to speculate in it. More importantly, there will eventually be a derivatives disaster outside of the Long-term Capital one that occurred a couple of years ago.
This book, as I read it, is highly sensationalist. I have worked in the financial service industry with institutions and chose to leave the industry about a year ago. Here are my thoughts on this book as it relates to the derivatives markets.
1. Mr. Partnoy gives a high level description of some of the transactions that he was involved in
2. He seems to be indicting the market in derivatives, which I disagree on since he is dealing with institutions, which already should have a fiduciary responsibility to their clients. If they are dumb and allow an investment bank to "rips their face off" as Partnoy claims then they shouldn't be 1) in those financial products or (2) doing business with them. It is their choice!
3. From the reading it seemed as though Partnoy doesn't understand his role in the machine known as Wall Street. He is a salesmen, pure and simple. He gets paid to ring the register, nothing more. Other people construct the deals and he is the marketer to clients. If he makes clients money they should come back more and more. Often times, there are MANY other factors that cause business to vary from firm to firm. LOTS of different agendas/goals in mind.
4. Some of his anecdotes, particularly those in which he discusses the atmosphere in an investment bank around bonus time (pg.40 - 42, 202 - 205), are pretty amusing and dead on accurate.
5. The author's descriptions of some of his deals are clearly told from a junior banker's perspective, but they do a good job of putting forth what was being done, how it was being done, what everyone's perceived incentives for the transaction were, the work required to get the deal done, what kind of money, and importantly what kind of fees were involved.
In conclusion, like all books written by former investment bankers the book contains liberally sprinkled anecdotes regarding job interviews from hell, the ridiculous daily escapades that can occur on a trading floor, strip clubs, the lack of personal lives, gambling trips and other stories which could easily have been pulled from the pages of Mr. Lewis's book or "Monkey Business" by Rolfe and Troob. Folks, not all folks on Wall Street are like that but a HUGE percentage are. Nothing wrong with that lifestyle but it is a choice everyone is free to make. Hope this helps everyone.
A lesson in 'let the buyer beware'.......2002-01-23
Partnoy takes the reader through many real-life examples of how greedy, ignorant people can be taken by clever salesmen. He demonstrates the stupid bravado of clients who, for fear of looking unsophisticated, continue to buy what they do not understand. Incredibly, these people are apparently in charge of many other people's fortunes, retirement incomes and lives and they generally behave as gamblers in a Las Vegas casino.
Buy Liar's Poker instead.......2001-10-09
Ok let me get this straight. Here is a guy that believes in the efficient market theory but was a salesman/trader. There are tons of conflicts in the book. Partnoy is obviously a professor now. He is practically begging for more regulation in investment banking and feels that financial reporters and professors are not only smarter but deserve more money compared to the investment bankers. He starts out at First Boston and is doing well financially. Then moves to Morgan Stanley and does complicated derivative deals and makes a ton of money. Now a professor and investment banking is pure evil (now that he made a ton of money). Another conflict is Partnoy said he quit Morgan Stanley but on page 277 he writes "...I am not referring what Morgan Stanley did to me." This is where he is talking about another Morgan Stanley employee being fired. I rate this book 2 stars because it was somewhat entertaining but think about this before you buy it. Do you really want to read a book by an author who believes in the efficient market theory but also worked as a salesman/trader? I only bought this book for $3.29 used on amazon.com. I definitely wouldn't recommend paying full price for it.
Book Description
Dramatic trends are already in motion that will force organizations to do some major rethinking about their relationships with their employees. The New Workforce outlines five of these crucial developments, and describes how they will affect critical HR policies and programs in the very near future. The book considers the implications of ever-increasing life (and work-life) expectancy, new household types including same-sex partners and "Mr. Moms," the Baby Boom "Echo," widening diversity, and employee demands for greater emphasis on spirituality and social responsibility in the workplace. The New Workforce addresses such concerns as: How can we deal with the conflicting needs of four generations of employees? What changes must we make in our benefits coverage? Our pay policies? Our management training efforts? Do we need new recruiting and retention strategies? Why should the company care about employees' personal values and beliefs?
Customer Reviews:
Not bad - the political feminism is a bit much.......2006-03-21
It was going so well until she had to add her input on how the government should legislate a 2 woman minimum on corporate boards. I'm a true capitalist so to hear someone propose government intervention in todays business climate is quite a turnoff.
The Paradigmatics of the Multi-Generational Workforce.......2005-06-13
As the subtitle correctly indicates, Hankin focuses her reader's attention on "five sweeping trends that will shape your future." She devotes a separate chapter to each (Chapters 1-5). I especially appreciate the "virtual timeline" she includes in Chapter 3 (pages 48-49) which lists several generations and indicates the key influences on each:
The Silent Generation (born 1922-1945): The Great Depression and the New Deal; World War II; the Holocaust; Hiroshima; radio and films.
The Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964): Vietnam War; assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy; placing a man on the Moon; Watergate; impact of the Cold War (e.g. bomb shelters); television; women's liberation; sexual revolution; environmental concerns (e.g. Green Party, Exxon Valdez).
Generation X (born 1965-1076): Demolition of the Berlin Wall; Challenger disaster; Clinton sex scandals; skyrocketing growth of the stock market and an abundant economy in the 1980s and 1990s; 24-hour, live news coverage; the dot-com economy; high-tech start-ups.
Baby Boom Echo (born 1977-2000): Oklahoma City bombing; Columbine High School massacre; Y2K; Internet, WWW, and e-business; September 11, 2001, terrorists attacks; corporate scandals (e.g. Enron); video games; instant messaging.
Then, in Part II, Hankin examines the impact of the five major emerging workforce trends on human resources. Specifically, the impact on HR policies and procedures, recruiting, compensation and benefits, and learning and training. Her proposed "Formula for the Future" stresses flexibility, respect, and "tons of communication." In an Appendix, Hankin provides a survey which will help decision-makers in all organizations (regardless of size or nature) to prepare themselves for "the new workforce." Hankin offers a brilliant analysis of how and why each generation has been influenced by its predecessors as well as by events within its own portion of the "virtual timeframe."
Of even greater interest and value to me is her analysis of the differences -- in terms of values, priorities, and preferences -- between and among members of various generations, differences which create both different challenges and different opportunities for them as well as for those who supervise them. Perhaps Hankin agrees with me that one cannot motivate another person but one can activate and nourish, perhaps even inspire self-motivation in others, as history's greatest leaders have. Obviously, mutual respect and trust must be earned. Also, everyone involved in a given enterprise should be flexible as well as united, especially when responding to a crisis. The healthiest human communities are those which have certain non-negotiable values. Everyone involved understands what conconstitutes inappropriate behavior, for example, and there is zero-tolerance of it. Hankin is dead-on when asserting that it is imperative to have an understanding of the generational differences between and among those who comprise "the new workforce."
Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Leigh Branham's The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave: How to Recognize the Subtle Signs and Act Before It's Too Late, Lois J. Zachary's Creating a Mentoring Culture: The Organization's Guide, Gary Harpst's Six Disciplines for Excellence, Bill Jensen's What is Your Life's Work?: Answer the BIG Question About What Really Matters...and Reawaken the Passion for What You Do, and Lynda Gratton's The Democratic Enterprise: Liberating Your Business with Freedom, Flexibility and Commitment.
Thought-provoking, Educational: Well worth your time........2005-02-03
Human resources executives are naturally concerned about what's coming. Part of their job is to prepare for future workforce and workplace needs and advise senior leaders regarding appropriate strategies. Those senior executives are also beginning to wake up and smell the trends. The smart ones are hungry for the insights that will empower them to lead their organizations boldly into the future.
Harriet Hankin, president of a benefits design consulting and administration firm in the Philadelphia area, brings corporate experience, an ownership role, and the perspective that comes from serving as an objective consultant to corporations. She's obviously done her research in order to present key trends and their impacts.
The book is organized into two sections: The Five Major Emerging Workforce Trends and The Impact of the Trends on Human Resources. Hankin selected five trends; as a futurist by profession, I see a number of others on the horizon. Selecting the more influential trends can always be challenged. This book addresses Longevity, More Varied Household Types, Generations, Diversity, and Trust, Respect, and Ethics.
The book is written in an almost conversational style, with stories and anecdotes that flavor the text and make the book even more readable. Hankin includes some information which, while it may not be right on target from a serious business perspective, broadens the reader's appreciation of the issues raised. The depth of the author's research comes out in the notes at the end of each chapter. Readers interested in gaining even more knowledge about a topic Hankin discusses will easily be able to follow her research path. Call-out boxes and charts fit well into the book design, enhancing the value for the reader.
In the second section, Hankin shares a treasure chest of ideas that employers may apply. There are enough ideas in these pages to keep a human resources staff busy for quite a while! Among the valuable features I appreciated is a list (on page 181) comparing the kinds of reward priorities that will be preferred by various generations.
A helpful appendix offers an outline for engaging employees in a future think tank experience to help prepare tomorrow's workforce. A comprehensive index makes it easy to find what you're looking for if, as I expect, you'll want to go back to this book for repeated readings and considerations.
As a qualifier, I am author of "Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Too Few People," a book on the coming shortage of skilled workers. The issues we concentrate on as workforce futurists, are well-addressed in "The New Workforce." If you're in management or human resources-or moving in that direction in your career, read this book.
An Easy-Read Must-Read.......2005-01-21
This book was great. Especially for a business book, it moved quickly and was packed with important and insightful stuff. I liked the readable style and personal experiences that the author shared.
The book also went beyond sharing the facts and provided lots of ideas for dealing with what the future workforce will demand.
A Must Read.......2004-12-07
This is a fantastic look into the future of the workforce and is a must read for anyone who owns a business or works in human resources or personnel departments. In fact, this is also worth reading by anyone who works in a mid-size to large company, since all companies will soon be forced to deal with the trends that the author identifies in this book and the information will undoubtedly be helpful to any employee. The book is a pleasure to read with both personal and professional anecdotes interspersed with the author's prescient thoughts on a subject in which she is an expert. Thoroughly enjoyable.
Book Description
In the Super Bowl of the airline industry, there are two opposing sides: Airbus of Europe versus Boeing of America. Both sides have only one goalto become the worlds leading aircraft maker. This is the remarkable account of Airbus launch of the largest passenger plane ever to fly, how they risked everything in a heavyweight contest, where the money is staggering and the political stakes are high. The Airbus A380 will be a monster above the clouds with gyms, nightclubs and a 550 passenger capacity compared to Boeing Dreamliners 200-350. Will the A380 super-jumbo succeed when it is launched in 2006? With Boeing determined that it will fail, it is up to the dealmakers and geo-politics to decide its fate. From technological winners to global prestige, this amazing story of rivalry and risk is a fascinating insight to both sides in this mighty war, their rise to power and the final steps to take-off.
Customer Reviews:
Starts off slow but gets better. Be very careful with his analysis.......2007-04-16
Kemp is a British writer that makes an effort to understand the battle between Boeing and Airbus. He did plenty of interviews with top people in both organizations and was one of the first to publish a book on the subject. There have been many more since than and each one gets better. Two flaws with the Kemp book are his bias towards Airbus and his narrow look at business strategy. He comes close to showing that Airbus and Boeing were hedging against the others strengths by developing several models of planes. In the end though he jumps back to his analysis of the dreamliner vs. the A380 and does not look at the wider market of the companies. As the book progresses forward the analysis does get better and the real competition becomes apparent. The salesmanship of the Airbus team against the engineering of the Boeing. The size of Airbus vs. the speed of Boeing are all played out through this struggle. The book jumps around quite a bit but it does provide a good start for the time it was published. I do recommend this book but just be warned the beginning is slow and the analysis could be a little more focused.
More Misses Than Hits.......2006-07-06
Despite the title, this book is more of an Airbus history than it is about the marketplace competition between the two title contenders. There are several technical errors and inconsistencies, but this seems to be par for the course for aviation industry books and they don't distract greatly from the main discussion.
The author should be commended for getting to the core of Airbus' raison d'etre: that Airbus is not so much about making airplanes as it is about creating aerospace industry jobs for Europeans. The author also touches on a very revealing insight into Airbus' motivation when he quotes a BAe Airbus official as saying: "even if we don't make a penny (on the A3XX), it would still be worth it because it would stop Boeing from having a monopoly with the 747." Unfortunately, he fails to delve further into this "I can bleed more than you" business strategy! What successful business today is run with this kind of punitive strategy? This appears as a great lost opportunity for this volume, in my opinion. Another area that I found lacking was the Airbus decision making strategy that resulted in Toulouse being selected as the final assembly site for the A380 over the port city of Hamburg. I was left with the impression that the author didn't want to air too much dirty Airbus laundry in the end. Finally, the book suffers from the timing of recent events. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight we can see that delaying publication by just a few months would have allowed coverage of the recent production delays, management resignations and threatened A380 order cancellations. Of course the author cannot be held accountable for this.
In general, I would not recommend this book to serious students of the commercial aviation industry - it offers very little new insight.
Book Description
How did a pioneering company in the semiconductor industry not only survive but thrive in the face of the explosive change and upheavals that forced it to transform itself twice in the course of its thirty-year history? The answer lies in the quality of its strategy-making process, contends leading strategic management scholar Robert A. Burgelman in this extraordinary book based on an exhaustive twelve-year study he conducted inside Intel Corporation.
Granted the opportunity to track Intel's strategy-making through his close teaching collaboration with its chairman, Andy Grove, at Stanford Business School since 1988, Burgelman has written a definitive and far-reaching account of how highly educated top managers groped their way through strategic conundrums. His account of the evolution of key events in Intel's history is illustrated with extensive quotes from its cofounder Gordon Moore, Andy Grove, current CEO Craig Barrett, and dozens of other Intel executives. His study allows these leaders to speak for themselves in scores of highly rendered executive portraits.
Using thoroughly tested conceptual tools, Burgelman first documents the key role played by mid-level managers in transforming Intel from a memory company into a microprocessor company during the late 1970s and early 1980s, which led to the heartbreaking decision to abandon the business on which the company had been founded in 1968. He then makes readers eyewitnesses to the complex set of complementary strategic thrusts orchestrated by Andy Grove to make Intel capi- talize on the extraordinary opportunities associated with the phenomenal growth of the PC industry during the late 1980s and the 1990s. He reconstructs Grove's resolution of the struggle between two competing micro- processor architectures within Intel that caused civil war to erupt, and he shows how Intel's superbly run strategy-making process in the core business, paradoxically, made it difficult for internal entrepreneurs to extend the company's strategic reach. This allows him to link the strategic leadership challenges, faced today by Craig Barrett, to Intel's illustrious past and to provide suggestions for how these challenges can be met.
At once a history of strategy-making at Intel as well as a strategy-making field manual that any high-technology manager will need to consult frequently, Strategy Is Destiny truly describes strategy-in-action as the way of life of senior executives in the corporation of the future.
Customer Reviews:
A summary of Prof Burgelman's Work.......2002-09-04
This is mainly an academic book, yet it can be insightful for CEOs or high and middle level executives too. The book describes and analyzes the extensive work of Prof. Burgelman in Strategy Process. Strategy-making cannot be considered as a pret-a-porter suit, yet Prof. Burgelman's model provides means to understand how to taylor one's suit.
Good stuff, if a bit dense. . ........2002-02-02
Prof. Burgelman is no Michael Porter.
Where Prof. Porter communicates complex ideas in simple terms, Prof. Burgelman finds extremely complicated ways to obscure simple ideas.
Luckily, this book is chock full of quotes and examples that Burgelman largely leaves untouched.
If you factor out Burgelman's poor organization, unbridled love for Intel, and penchant for incomprehensible prose, this is a great book. Burgelman was indeed provided unparalleled access to one of the most successful companies of the 20th century. The stories he tells are true. The quotes and examples are not self-serving.
The only thing missing here is a control group. Intel has entered the 21st century riding at least one strategic inflection point (a favorite term of Dr. Grove's). It would have been interesting if Burgelman would have stopped being a cheerleader for a moment and compared Intel to its closest analog: IBM of 10-15 years ago. Dr. Grove and Intel's "ESM" would be well-served to follow Dr. Grove's own advice and learn lessons from the past.
Still, a fascinating book, particularly for the competitive strategist. Not for the faint of heart.
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