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The current downturn may prove more brutal than most previous recessions. It's already hammering companies in markets around the globe. It will test businesses to their fullest-many won't survive. But downturns present strategic opportunities, too. In fact, many more companies achieve dramatic gains during recessions than in normal times. How to ensure your company emerges successful? In Winning in Turbulence , a new volume in the Memo to the CEO series, Bain & Company downturn strategist Darrell Rigby provides the playbook. He presents a powerful framework and diagnostic tool (available in the book and online) for assessing three dimensions of your situation:Your industry's sensitivity: How hard is it hit by this downturn?Your company's strategic position: Are you an industry leader or follower?Your firm's financial position, including cash reserves. The author then explains how to craft an action plan tailored to the situation you've diagnosed, providing tools for:Cutting costs intelligently-sustaining your margins and brandBoosting revenue by refocusing your sales force on the right customersChanneling resources into your core businessesPreparing for bold moves, such as game-changing acquisitions Timely and practical, this book positions you to survive a downturn and emerge stronger once the recovery begins.

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A leader's greatest challenge can be knowing when it's time to step aside. A great deal has been written for corporate boards on the issue of succession planning. But most executives have few resources to help guide them through the process. How do you start preparing yourself–and your successor–for your inevitable leadership transition?In this concise book, leading executive coach and bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith offers candid advice on succession from the outgoing executive's perspective. From choosing and grooming a successor while sidestepping political minefields, to finally handing over responsibility, Goldsmith walks you through each step in the succession process.Done right, your successor can enter to applause while you gracefully bow out and start the next chapter of your life.

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Our free-market capitalist system is the world's greatest driver of prosperity, but it has a dark side. Under intense pressure to make the numbers, executives and employees face temptation to cut corners, fudge accounts, or worse. And in today's unforgiving environment, such lapses can be catastrophic. Fines and settlements have amounted to billions of dollars. Careers and companies have imploded.In High Performance with High Integrity, Ben Heineman argues that there is only one way for companies to avoid such failures: CEOs must create a culture of integrity through exemplary leadership, transparency, incentives, and processes, not just rules and penalties. Heineman, GE's chief legal officer and a member of both Jack Welch's and Jeff Immelt's senior management teams for nearly twenty years, reveals crucial «performance with integrity» principles and practices that you can begin applying immediately, and shows how you can drive performance by integrating integrity systems and processes deep into company operations. Such principles and practices also create affirmative benefits: inside the corporation, in the marketplace and in society.Concise and insightful, this book provides a much-needed corporate blueprint for doing well while doing good in the high-pressure global economy.From our new Memo to the CEO series–solutions-focused advice from today's leading practitioners.

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It's easy to miss many innovations in strategy until they appear on the front page of a major business publication. But by then everyone–including all your competitors–is using them.As a CEO or senior executive, your job is to detect these strategies?and implement them–before your competitors.That's where this book comes in.Author George Stalk has often been called a guru of business strategy. In the 1980s, before anyone else saw its importance, he and his colleagues at The Boston Consulting Group developed the concept of time-based competition: how meeting the needs of your customers faster than your competitors can give you an unassailable advantage.In this Memo to the CEO, Stalk discusses five strategies that have not yet become widely practiced but are nonetheless worthy of your attention now. He offers advice on how to identify and manage them while they still present opportunities to jump ahead of the competition. They are:Addressing supply chain deficienciesOne example of a supply chain crisis is the growing lack of West Coast port capacity. Stalk reviews the strategic implications of this problem, reveals its impact, and recommends specific courses of action.Sidestepping economies of scaleMany business leaders are reexamining their assumptions about the benefits of scale. Scaling down, not up, and building «disposable factories» and even «disposable strategies» are becoming new keys to lowering costs and boosting performance.Profiting from dynamic pricingToday, using real-time data, it is increasingly possible to match the price of your product or service with the immediate, second-by-second needs of the customer.Embracing complexitySimplicity is the mantra of the day. But with examples from a few leading-edge companies, Stalk shows that embracing complexity can achieve competitive advantage.Utilizing infinite bandwidthIn a world of infinite bandwidth, companies that know how to take advantage of it become more productive, efficient, and profitable, and create entirely new businesses along the way.Written in a refreshingly clear, concise format, Five Future Strategies You Need Right Now is filled with actionable ideas for seizing these emerging strategic opportunities.

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As a top executive, you've almost certainly forged strategic alliances with other companies. Some of these deals have worked–but many others have likely failed. In fact, companies worldwide launch more than two thousand strategic alliances every year, and more than half never deliver as promised.In Strategic Alliances, Steve Steinhilber proves that, despite the odds, alliances are critical to the business strategy for companies competing globally: customers want integrated solutions to their problems, and that's pushing companies to work together to create differentiated offerings. Equally crucial, well-managed alliances generate important forms of business value, including new products and accelerated growth.Drawing on his experience as the head of Cisco's Strategic Alliances group, Steinhilber has created tools and guidelines that will help you forge alliances that work. He describes the three essential building blocks of successful alliances and explains how to establish:The right framework–by articulating how an alliance will help you achieve your company's strategic business goals and identifying potential partnersThe right organization–by staffing your alliance organization with the right people and constantly honing their skillsThe right relationships–by cultivating trust among the many key internal contacts in your organization and your alliance partnersEngaging and authoritative, Strategic Alliances shows you how to manage strategic partnerships more effectively and maximize their value in a complex and changing business environment.From our new Memo to the CEO series–solutions-focused advice from today's leading practitioners.

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Private equity firms are snapping up brand-name companies and assembling portfolios that make them immense global conglomerates. They're often able to maximize investor value far more successfully than traditional public companies. How do PE firms become such powerhouses? Learn how, in Lessons from Private Equity Any Company Can Use. Bain chairman Orit Gadiesh and partner Hugh MacArthur use the concise, actionable format of a memo to lay out the five disciplines that PE firms use to attain their edge:· Invest with a thesis using a specific, appropriate 3-5-year goal· Create a blueprint for change–a road map for initiatives that will generate the most value for your company within that time frame· Measure only what matters–such as cash, key market intelligence, and critical operating data· Hire, motivate, and retain hungry managers–people who think like owners· Make equity sweat–by making cash scarce, and forcing managers to redeploy underperforming capital in productive directionsThis is the PE formulate for unleashing a company's true potential.

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