Download or read book Escaping the Build Trap written by Melissa Perri and published by O'Reilly Media. This book was released on 2018-11-01 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To stay competitive in today’s market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You’ll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small. In five parts, this book explores: Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent How to set up a product organization that scales How product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs

Download or read book Strategy Traps and how to Avoid Them written by Robert A. Stringer and published by Free Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The 24 Sales Traps and how to Avoid Them written by Dick Canada and published by Amacom Books. This book was released on 2002 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Fact Sheet Uncovers 24 assumptions that lead salespeople astray from achieving better sales.

Download or read book Eliminate Your Competition written by Sean O'Shaughnessey and published by . This book was released on 2018-05-14 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most salespeople lose the deal before they ever get started! It isn't uncommon for the customer to have already made a decision before most salespeople even learn of the opportunity. Most salespeople have to beat the preferred competitor by a significant margin just to be considered equivalent. Don't you wish that you could be the preferred vendor in all of your opportunities? Selling is a difficult career in which to make a living; it is not uncommon to have the commission check denied before the salesperson even gets a chance to win. Analysis of thousands of sales situations has made it phenomenally obvious that most salespeople begin their sales campaign so late in the decision-making process that they are virtually guaranteed to lose the order. To make matters worse, when they do start the campaign early enough, most salespeople do not know how to control the prospect adequately so that they can guarantee their victory. Typical turnover for a sales department is 10-20%. Many companies see turnover that approaches 40-60%! This turnover costs them 50% of their revenue-generating capability. In any organization that exceeds 25% turnover, the loss of trust with the customer can be astounding as the new salesperson tries to rebuild the entire relationship. In any given quarter dozens or hundreds of companies do not make their forecasted numbers and are dramatically punished by Wall Street. This book will provide the management of a company with a framework to teach their salespeople how to attain their quotas with higher profits. It will also allow salespeople to rise to the top of their organization and be the super-achievers who win awards, trips, bonuses, and respect. In this book, I will show you how to eliminate your competition and maximize your commission.

Download or read book Red Ocean Traps Harvard Business Review Classics written by W. Chan Kim and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As established markets become less profitable, companies increasingly need to find ways to create and capture new markets. Despite much investment and commitment, most firms struggle to do this. What, exactly, is getting in their way? World-renowned professors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, the authors of the best-selling book Blue Ocean Strategy have spent over a decade exploring that question. They have seen that the trouble lies in managers' mental models--ingrained assumptions and theories about the way the world works. Though these models may work perfectly well in mature markets, they undermine executives' attempts to discover uncontested new spaces with ample potential (blue oceans) and keep companies firmly anchored in existing spaces where competition is bloody (red oceans). In this bound version of their bestselling Harvard Business Review classic article, they describe how to break free of these red ocean traps. To do that, managers need to: (1) Focus on attracting new customers, not pleasing current customers; (2) Worry less about segmentation and more about what different segments have in common; (3) Understand that market creation is not synonymous with either technological innovation or creative destruction; and (3) Stop focusing on premium versus low-cost strategies. The Harvard Business Review Classics series offers you the opportunity to make seminal Harvard Business Review articles a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world--and will have a direct impact on you today and for years to come.

Download or read book The Content Trap written by Bharat Anand and published by Random House Group. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “My favorite book of the year.”—Doug McMillon, CEO, Wal-Mart Stores Harvard Business School Professor of Strategy Bharat Anand presents an incisive new approach to digital transformation that favors fostering connectivity over focusing exclusively on content. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG Companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To confront these obstacles, Bharat Anand examines a range of businesses around the world, from The New York Times to The Economist, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, and from talent management to the future of education. Drawing on these stories and on the latest research in economics, strategy, and marketing, this refreshingly engaging book reveals important lessons, smashes celebrated myths, and reorients strategy. Success for flourishing companies comes not from making the best content but from recognizing how content enables customers’ connectivity; it comes not from protecting the value of content at all costs but from unearthing related opportunities close by; and it comes not from mimicking competitors’ best practices but from seeing choices as part of a connected whole. Digital change means that everyone today can reach and interact with others directly: We are all in the content business. But that comes with risks that Bharat Anand teaches us how to recognize and navigate. Filled with conversations with key players and in-depth dispatches from the front lines of digital change, The Content Trap is an essential new playbook for navigating the turbulent waters in which we find ourselves. Praise for The Content Trap “A masterful and thought-provoking book that has reshaped my understanding of content in the digital landscape.”—Ariel Emanuel, co-CEO, WME | IMG “The Content Trap is a book filled with stories of businesses, from music companies to magazine publishers, that missed connections and could never escape the narrow views that had brought them past success. But it is also filled with stories of those who made strategic choices to strengthen the links between content and returns in their new master plans. . . . The book is a call to clear thinking and reassessing why things are the way they are.”—The Wall Street Journal

Download or read book The Sweetener Trap and How to Avoid It written by Beatrice Trum Hunter and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-05 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With this expanded revision of the 1982 classic The Sugar Trap, Beatrice Trum Hunter, noted writer on food issues, brings readers invaluable help for avoiding ''the sweetener trap.'' She exposes facts about today's many sweeteners from aspartame to stevia, sucralose, and xylitol. With careful research and well-weighed advice, Hunter explains why it is important to limit all added sugars. With awareness, readers can do it, despite misleading labeling, sly marketing tactics, and vague federal recommendations for sweetener intake that reflect research bias and strong pressures from sweetener interests.

Download or read book Your Strategy Needs a Strategy written by Martin Reeves and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You think you have a winning strategy. But do you? Executives are bombarded with bestselling ideas and best practices for achieving competitive advantage, but many of these ideas and practices contradict each other. Should you aim to be big or fast? Should you create a blue ocean, be adaptive, play to win—or forget about a sustainable competitive advantage altogether? In a business environment that is changing faster and becoming more uncertain and complex almost by the day, it’s never been more important—or more difficult—to choose the right approach to strategy. In this book, The Boston Consulting Group’s Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Janmejaya Sinha offer a proven method to determine the strategy approach that is best for your company. They start by helping you assess your business environment—how unpredictable it is, how much power you have to change it, and how harsh it is—a critical component of getting strategy right. They show how existing strategy approaches sort into five categories—Be Big, Be Fast, Be First, Be the Orchestrator, or simply Be Viable—depending on the extent of predictability, malleability, and harshness. In-depth explanations of each of these approaches will provide critical insight to help you match your approach to strategy to your environment, determine when and how to execute each one, and avoid a potentially fatal mismatch. Addressing your most pressing strategic challenges, you’ll be able to answer questions such as: • What replaces planning when the annual cycle is obsolete? • When can we—and when should we—shape the game to our advantage? • How do we simultaneously implement different strategic approaches for different business units? • How do we manage the inherent contradictions in formulating and executing different strategies across multiple businesses and geographies? Until now, no book brings it all together and offers a practical tool for understanding which strategic approach to apply. Get started today.

Download or read book Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps written by Jennifer Garvey Berger and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author and consultant Jennifer Garvey Berger has worked with all types of leaders—from top executives at Google to nonprofit directors who are trying to make a dent in social change. She hears a version of the same plea from every client in nearly every sector around the world: "I know that complexity and uncertainty are testing my instincts, but I don't know which to trust. Is there some way to know what to do when I can't know what's next?" Her newest work is an answer to this plea. Using her background in adult development, complexity theories, and leadership consultancy, Garvey Berger discerns five pernicious and pervasive "mind traps" to frame the book. These are: the desire for simple stories, our sense that we are right, our desire to get along with others in our group, our fixation with control, and our constant quest to protect and defend our egos. In addition to understanding why these natural impulses steer us wrong in a fast-moving world, leaders will get powerful questions and approaches that help them escape these patterns.

Download or read book Emergent Strategy written by adrienne maree brown and published by AK Press. This book was released on 2017-03-20 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Octavia Butler, here is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures we want. Change is constant. The world, our bodies, and our minds are in a constant state of flux. They are a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, Emergent Strategy teaches us to map and assess the swirling structures and to read them as they happen, all the better to shape that which ultimately shapes us, personally and politically. A resolutely materialist spirituality based equally on science and science fiction: a wild feminist and afro-futurist ride! adrienne maree brown, co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, is a social justice facilitator, healer, and doula living in Detroit.

Download or read book Trap Tales written by David M. R. Covey and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outsmart the traps that are holding you back from success! Trap Tales is your guide to avoiding the seven obstacles that ensnare people every day. We all fall into traps, and we often don’t even realize it until we’re deeply entrenched. Like quicksand, traps are easy to step into, but difficult to escape—it seems that the harder we try to climb out, the deeper we sink. But what if there were another way? What if we knew the right strategies to escape the traps we have fallen into? What if we could spot traps from a distance, and avoid them entirely? In this book, authors David M. R. Covey and Stephan M. Mardyks train you in the art of Trapology. You’ll meet Alex and Victoria, who have fallen into traps you’re sure to recognize. As you read their stories, you’ll learn about the seven most common traps in life and work, and how even the smartest and seemingly most accomplished people find themselves stuck and unable to see their way out. Traps are masters of disguise, but there are telltale signs that give them away every time. If you discover that you’re trapped right now, consider this book your lifeline—the lessons contained in Trap Tales will teach you how to escape these traps and how to sidestep them in the future. This book, unlike most books, offers counter-intuitive strategies and unconventional wisdom to: • Learn the seven biggest traps in life and work that catch people unaware • Identify the traps that are holding you back right now • Discover your escape route and climb out of the quicksand • Become a “Trapologist” and avoid traps altogether The core message of Trap Tales is hope—the belief that anybody can change the trajectory of their life, at any stage of their life. Stop letting traps steal your time, money, energy, and happiness—Trap Tales provides survival training of a different sort, allowing you to write your own tale of success.

Download or read book The Hero Trap written by Thomas Kolster and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most companies today are firmly on the social and environmental issues ‘bandwagon’, like bees around a honey pot, from plastic in oceans through to diversity. As a result, people are increasingly distrustful of these efforts which they view as cheap marketing stunts meant to wow people into buying more. "Try to fly like a superman, and you will come down like a tin of soup." Market economists have long told us that we’re driven only by money and status, but the inherent human truth that cuts across age, culture and gender uncovers a stronger force: we wish to be in charge of our own lives and our own happiness. Through extensive growth and affinity research, world-renowned purpose-pioneer, Thomas Kolster, uncovers a simple answer that is key to driving marketing growth in the 21st century: if you put people in control of the marketing mix, from products to promotion, they can grow and in turn grow your organisation. This book explains the meteoric rise of a company like AirBnB, how a 20-something Swede, Maria de la Croix, built a global coffee empire like Wheelys in just a few years, and how a group of friends hanging out in a bar in Melbourne created one of the largest global non-profits fighting for men’s health, Movember – and how you can empower people to do the same. Today’s power no longer rests in the hands of the privileged few, but in the talented many. It is time for you to unleash that power, in numbers. Drawing on top-line marketing case studies and in-depth interviews, Kolster demonstrates how people are truly motivated to act when they’re in charge of their own life and happiness. ‘Who can you help me become?’ is the one essential question you need to be asking and acting on to chart a new course for your organisation, changing behaviours at scale and unlocking sustainable growth that benefits all.

Download or read book Management and the Activity Trap written by George S. Odiorne and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book IT Governance written by Peter Weill and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2004-05-06 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Firms with superior IT governance have more than 25% higher profits than firms with poor governance given the same strategic objectives. These top performers have custom designed IT governance for their strategies. Just as corporate governance aims to ensure quality decisions about all corporate assets, IT governance links IT decisions with company objectives and monitors performance and accountability. Based on a study of 250 enterprises worldwide, IT Governance shows how to design and implement a system of decision rights that will transform IT from an expense to a profitable investment.

Download or read book The Customer Trap written by Andrew R. Thomas and published by Apress. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American business is dysfunctional. Companies of all sizes follow the mistaken belief that their products and services are best sold through mega-customers with pervasive market reach, such as Amazon and Walmart. Far too many business leaders fail to realize—until it is too late—that the relentless pursuit of volume at all cost is not the key to long-term profits and success. The Customer Trap: How to Avoid the Biggest Mistake in Business is Thomas and Wilkinson’s sequel to The Distribution Trap: Keeping Your Innovations from Becoming Commodities, which won the Berry-American Marketing Association Prize for the best marketing book of 2010. The Distribution Trap contended that cracking the big-box channel is not necessarily the Holy Grail that many marketers assume it is. The Customer Trap takes this thesis to the next level by arguing that all companies, regardless of the industry there are in, should maintain control over their sales and distribution channels. Volume forgone by avoiding the mass market is more than offset by higher margins and stronger brand equity. The Customer Trap shows that giving power to a customer who violates "the ten percent rule" sets a company up for ruin. Yet, when presented with the opportunity to push more sales through large customers, most decision-makers jump at the chance. As a result, marketing has come to resemble a relentless quest for efficiency and scale. Demands from mega-customers in the form of discounts, deals, and incentives erode the integrity of the brand and what it originally stood for. Lower margins become the norm and cost-saving compromises on quality take over. In time, the brand suffers and, in some cases, fails outright. Stark examples from Oreck Vacuum Cleaners, Rubbermaid, Goodyear, Levi’s, and others illustrate the perils of falling into the "customer trap." This book demonstrates in vivid detail how to thrive by controlling your sales and distribution. The authors show how many firms, such as STIHL Inc., etailz, Apple, Red Ant Pants, and Columbia Paints & Coatings, have prospered by avoiding the "customer trap"—and how your company can have similar success.

Download or read book Decision Traps written by J. Edward Russo and published by Touchstone. This book was released on 1990 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two experts in business management show how to avoid the ten common pitfalls that ensanre decision makers. The very latest research in the fields of business and psychology has been distilled into practical training methods that will save readers from ever making a bad decision again.

Download or read book Assessment in Perspective written by Clare Landrigan and published by Stenhouse Publishers. This book was released on 2013 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assessment is an integral part of instruction. For the past decade, the focus on assessment--particularly via high-stakes mandated tests--has shifted away from the classroom and left teachers feeling like they are drowning in data. Assessment is, and needs to be again, much more than a number. Assessment in Perspective is about moving beyond the numbers and using assessment to find the stories they tell. This book helps teachers sort through the myriad of available assessments and use each to understand different facets of their readers. It discusses how to use a range of assessment types--from reading conference notes and student work to running records and state tests--together to uncover the strengths and weaknesses of a reader. The authors share a framework for thinking about the purpose, method, and types of different assessments. They also address the questions they ask when choosing or analyzing assessments: - What type of tool do we need: diagnostic, formative, or summative; formal or informal; quantitative or qualitative? - How do we use multiple assessments together to provide an in-depth picture of a reader? - When and how are we giving the assessment? - Do we want to be able to compare our readers to a standard score, or do we need to diagnose a reader's needs? - Which area of reading does this tool assess? - How can we use the information from assessments to inform our instruction? - What information does a particular assessment tell us, and what doesn't it tell us? - What additional information do we need about a reader to understand his or her learning needs? The book emphasizes the importance of triangulating data by using varied sources, both formal and informal, and across multiple intervals. It explains the power of looking at different types of assessments side-by-side with displays to find patterns or inconsistencies. What's more, students are included as valuable sources of data. Letting students in on the process of assessment is key to helping them set goals, monitor their own progress, and celebrate growth. When assessment is viewed in this way, instruction can meet high standards and still be developmentally appropriate.