Winning by Not Competing: A Fresh Approach to Strategy
Since the dawn of the industrial age, companies have engaged in head-to-head competition in search of sustained, profitable growth. They have fought for competitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled for differentiation. Yet these hallmarks of competitive strategy are not the way to create profitable growth in the future.
In a book that challenges everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic success, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne argue that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty industries, the authors argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors, but from creating "blue oceans": untapped new market spaces ripe for growth. Such strategic moves-which the authors call "value innovation"- create powerful leaps in value that often render rivals obsolete for more than a decade.
Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any company can use to create and capture blue oceans. A landmark work that upends traditional thinking about strategy, this book charts a bold new path to winning the future.
W. Chan Kim is the Boston Consulting Group Bruce D. Henderson Chair Professor of Strategy and International Management at INSEAD. Renée Mauborgne is the INSEAD Distinguished Fellow and Professor of Strategy and Management.
About this product: In "Collaboration", author Morten Hansen takes aim at what many leaders inherently know: in today's competitive environment, companywide collaboration is an imperative for successful strategy execution, yet the sought-after synergies are rarely, if ever, realized. In fact, most cross-unit collaborative efforts end up wasting time, money, and resources. How can managers avoid the costly traps of collaboration and instead start getting the results they need? In this book, Hansen shows managers how to get collaboration right through 'disciplined collaboration'. Based on the author's long-running research, in-depth case studies, and company interviews, "Collaboration" delivers practical advice and tools to help your organization collaborate for real results.
The Where Women Create brand—including the first book and a national magazine—has proven hugely popular, and this inspiring volume builds on that success. Showcasing the studios and work styles of both famous and well-worth discovering artists, Where Women Create: Book of Inspiration is a backstage pass to the insights, muses, and artistic practices of some of today's most notable creative women. It features gorgeous photos, tips, activities, and exercises, all presented in a warm and friendly voice designed to make readers feel welcome.
The imaginative women introduced on these colorful pages work in a wide variety of media, including fashion design, photography, quilting, book art, doll making, jewelry, art journals, and assemblage, and they explain how they got started; how they combat artistic ruts; and generously offer their advice and secrets to those who wish to blaze their own creative path.
About this product: Create an Oasis describes how to quickly and easily choose, build, and use a simple greywater system. Some can be completed in an afternoon for under $30.
It also provides complete instructions for more complex installations, how to deal with freezing, flooding, drought, failing septics, low perk soil, non-industrialized world conditions, coordinating a team of professionals to get optimum results on high-end projects, and "radical plumbing" that uses 90% less resources.
About this product: "A lucid and highly concentrated analysis of the creative process. . . . [May] describes the requisites for the creative encounter and the moment of the 'breakthrough'."—Saturday Review
What if imagination and art are not, as many of us might think, the frosting on life, but the fountainhead of human experience? What if our logic and science derive from art forms, rather than the other way around? In this trenchant volume, Rollo May helps all of us find those creative impulses that, once liberated, offer new possibilities for achievement.
About this product: Why do some products make the leap to greatness while others do not?
Creating inspiring products begins with discovering a product that is valuable, usable, and feasible. If you can not do this, then it s not worth building anything.
- How do you decide which product opportunities to pursue?
- How do you get evidence that the product you are going to ask your engineering team to build will be successful?
- How do you identify the minimal possible product that will be successful?
- How do you manage the often conflicting demands of company execs, customers, sales, marketing, engineering, design, and more?
- How can you adapt Agile methods for commercial product environments?
Product management expert Marty Cagan answers these questions and hundreds more as he shares lessons learned, techniques, and best practices from working for and with some of the most successful companies in the high-tech industry. You will find that there s a very big difference between how the very best companies create products and all the rest.
About this product: If you're a general manager or CFO, do you feel you're spending too much on IT or wishing you could get better returns from your IT investments? If so, it's time to examine what's behind this IT-as-cost mind-set.
In The Real Business of IT, Richard Hunter and George Westerman reveal that the cost mind-set stems from IT leaders' inability to communicate about the business value they create-so CIOs get stuck discussing budgets rather than their contributions to the organization.
The authors explain how IT leaders can combat this mind-set by first using information technology to generate three forms of value important to leaders throughout the organization:
-Value for money when your IT department operates efficiently and effectively
-An investment in business performance evidenced when IT helps divisions, units, and departments boost profitability
-Personal value of CIOs as leaders whose contributions to their enterprise go well beyond their area of specialization
The authors show how to communicate about these forms of value with non-IT leaders-so they understand how your firm is benefiting and see IT as the strategic powerhouse it truly is.
About this product: Provide your employees with a handbook that spells out your company's benefits, policies and procedures with this practical legal guide.
Every company, no matter how big or small, needs to provide workers with an employee handbook. Create Your Own Employee Handbook gives you all the information and policies managers, HR professionals and business owners need to create their own reader-friendly guide, no matter what state you live in. Each chapter covers a different topic, including:
at-will employment
hiring
pay and payroll
workdays and hours
performance evaluations
benefits
discrimination and harassment
complaints and investigations
leave
health and safety
substance abuse
privacy in the workplace
discipline
You'll get the lowdown on the legal and practical considerations that apply to each topic in your state, plus sample policies that you can use as-is, or tailor to meet your needs. The CD-ROM lets you cut-and-paste the language you need to complete your own handbook instantly.
The 4th edition is completely updated to include the latest developments in federal and state law, and covers emerging workplace issues such as lactation breaks, instant messaging, and new regulations for dealing with victims of domestic violence. (20080202)
About this product: In the revised and updated edition of Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, authors James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones provide a thoughtful expansion upon their value-based business system based on the Toyota model. Along the way they update their action plan in light of new research and the increasing globalization of manufacturing, and they revisit some of their key case studies (most of which still derive, however, from the automotive, aerospace, and other manufacturing industries).
The core of the lean model remains the same in the new edition. All businesses must define the "value" that they produce as the product that best suits customer needs. The leaders must then identify and clarify the "value stream," the nexus of actions to bring the product through problems solving, information management, and physical transformation tasks. Next, "lean enterprise" lines up suppliers with this value stream. "Flow" traces the product across departments. "Pull" then activates the flow as the business re-orients towards the pull of the customer's needs. Finally, with the company reengineered towards its core value in a flow process, the business re-orients towards "perfection," rooting out all the remaining muda (Japanese for "waste") in the system.
Despite the authors' claims to "actionable principles for creating lasting value in any business during any business conditions," the lean model is not demonstrated with broad applications in the service or retail industries. But those manager's whose needs resonate with those described in the Lean Thinking case studies will find a host of practical guidelines for streamlining their processes and achieving manufacturing efficiencies. --Patrick O'Kelley
About this product: Embark on a forty-day journey with a personal life coach to develop Christlike character. A continuation of Katie Brazelton’s bestselling Pathway to Purpose for Women, this book was created for women of all ages who want a character-rejuvenating experience that will inspire them to live out God’s unique purpose for their life.