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Book The Customer Culture Imperative  A Leader s Guide to Driving Superior Performance

Download or read book The Customer Culture Imperative A Leader s Guide to Driving Superior Performance written by Linden Brown and published by McGraw-Hill Education. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BECOME THE ENVY OF YOUR INDUSTRY WITH A CUSTOMER-CENTRIC CULTURE Winner of Marketing Book of the Year 2015 by Marketing and Sales Books For the first time, this groundbreaking guide unlocks the secrets used by Amazon, Virgin, Apple, Starbucks, and salesforce.com. It creates a guide for success based on three years of scientific study drawing insights from more than 100 businesses to identify seven key factors. When implemented together these factors have been proven to drive superior business performance. Customer culture is as fundamental to business performance as breathing is to living. It is the life force of your business. This applies no matter what your industry sector. And with the evidence-based methods in this book, you can replicate their success in your business! The Customer Culture Imperative reveals the key disciplines of customer culture that consistently predict enhanced, sustainable business results. Each one is linked to a particular strategy and drives predictable and measurable improvements in one or more business performance factors--from innovation and customer satisfaction to growth in sales and profits to higher rates of new-product success. It gives you the tools to: Inspire everyone in the company to embrace a customer-centric culture Unify efforts across units by creating a "common language" for change Collect and measure data from your efforts and benchmark your progress Make change long term so you leave a legacy of an enduring business Creating a customer-centric company takes more than making an investment in the customer service department and systems. It's about building a culture in which the customer is at the heart of all decisions made within every function and unit. What's best for the customer is what's best for business. Make that a part of the DNA of your organization, and you will lead your company to unprecedented success. Guaranteed. PRAISE FOR THE CUSTOMER CULTURE IMPERATIVE "Linden and Chris Brown have written the best book on what it takes to build a genuine customer culture in an organization. Their framework and their stories will inspire you to take the next step." -- Philip Kotler, S. C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University "A customer-focused culture is a powerful competitive advantage. This book will show you how to diagnose the level of a customer culture and then make the leadership moves to raise this level." -- George Day, Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor of Marketing and Co-Director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania "Creating unique customer engagements is an essential ingredient of the 'Starbucks Experience.' Crafting an authentic culture is essential to insuring that all employees consistently execute and innovate the highest quality customer experience. Linden and Chris provide a unique framework and road map to build this culture within large and small organizations." -- Arthur Rubinfeld, chief creative officer and president, Global Innovation and Evolution Fresh Retail, Starbucks "Smart phones, smart networks, and personalized apps are changing the way people live and work--giving control to an emerging class of globally connected customers that have the power to shift markets. Linden and Chris Brown’s work will help you understand what is happening and what it means to your business.” -- David Thodey, Chief Executive Officer, Telstra "Over the 40+ years of my life in business I have always known that a customer culture is the key to success. How to achieve it has been a continuous search and challenge. This book is the clearest roadmap I have read to truly achieve a customer culture and all the benefits it brings.” -- John Stanhope, Chairman, Australia Post "Some books (alas, very rare) summarise well-researched management theory, combined with current best practice, to deliver powerful and pragmatic guidelines for growing shareholder value. This is one such book. Read it. Enjoy it. It is a powerful contribution to best practice.” -- Malcolm MacDonald, Emeritus Professor, Cranfield University School of Management "Smart phones, smart networks, and personalized apps are changing the way people live and work,giving control to an emerging class of globally connected customers that have the power to shift markets. Linden and Chris Brown’s work will help you understand what is happening and what it means to your business.”--David Thodey, Chief Executive Officer, Telstra "Over the 40+ years of my life in business I have always known that a customer culture is the key to success. How to achieve it has been a continuous search and challenge. This book is the clearest roadmap I have read to truly achieve a customer culture and all the benefits it brings.”--John Stanhope, Chairman, Australia Post "Some books, alas very rare, summarise well-researched management theory, combined with current best practice, to deliver powerful and pragmatic guidelines for growing shareholder value. This is one such book. Read it. Enjoy it. It is a powerful contribution to best practice.”--Malcolm MacDonald, Emeritus Professor, Cranfield University School of Management "This easy to read book provides essential and unique guidance for driving the critical relationship between customer centricity and sustained organisational performance."-—Dr Ramzi Fayed, Executive Dean, Australian Graduate School of Leadership

Book The Cultural Imperative

Download or read book The Cultural Imperative written by Richard D. Lewis and published by Nicholas Brealey International. This book was released on 2007 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Will the tidal wave of globalization lead us to a bland and uniform cultural landscape dominated by a unified cultural perspective? Will cultural imperialism triumph in the twenty-first century? Or will culture, which drives human behavior through religion, language, geography and history, maintain its influence on the human consciousness? In The Cultural Imperative, Global Trends in the Twenty-first Century, Richard D Lewis explores these questions and proposes his thesis in this sweeping new book that examines the forces that keep us from taking off our cultural spectacles and explains how cultural traits are to deeply embedded to be homogenized, as predicted by so many others.

Book The Social Business Imperative

Download or read book The Social Business Imperative written by Clara Shih and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 2016-03-25 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social media is now the dominant online activity and drives more website traffic than online search. The implications for businesses are as profound as the rise of Google 15 years ago. Amidst the demands of running a business, it can be alluring to fully delegate "digital" to the digital team. But in today's wired environment, digital is actually everyone's job. Company leaders and professionals must seek to personally grasp the tectonic changes arising from the always-connected customer, and then rethink traditional business models, business practices, and even their own job responsibilities and careers accordingly. In The Social Business Imperative, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and renowned thought leader Clara Shih identifies powerful new opportunities created by social media across the entire customer lifecycle. As described in the book's foreword, written by Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz, this guide is a must-read for all professionals. From boards of directors, CEOs, and Chief Marketing Officers to to front-line sales managers, recruiters, IT, and compliance directors, no role is untouched by the social, mobile, digital transformation. This book explains how to adapt and thrive in this brilliant new world order by understanding the transformation taking place not only in one's own department but across the customer journey. Only with this broader understanding can functional leaders collaborate on delivering a cohesive experience spanning previous organizational silos. Going far beyond her global bestseller The Facebook Era, Shih offers unprecedented insights into why and how traditional organizations must re-imagine their existing business processes to capture “the digital last mile” across social, mobile messaging apps, Internet of Everything, and the collaborative economy. Drawing on her immense experience helping Fortune 500 companies operationalize digital transformation to drive measurable uplift in sales and loyalty, Shih also presents powerful new case studies spanning multiple industries and companies from Wells Fargo to Warby Parker. “A book worth reading, a voice worth listening to, from a leader of real consequence. A clarion call on the promise and potential of social channels to transform business.” —Walter Robb, Co-CEO, Whole Foods Market “This is a must-read for any business leader who wants to thrive in this time of disruptive change.” —Chip Bergh, President & CEO, Levi Strauss & Co. "Whether you're a global brand, small local business, or individual who wants to turn your passion into a livelihood, this book simply and clearly articulates how to channel the power of social media to delight audiences and grow your business." —Marne Levine, COO of Instagram “Almost overnight, social media has transformed business and the way we as companies interact with our customers. In a way, social media has become part of everyone’s job. Clara's book gets right to the heart of the matter and gets us thinking critically about what could be next on this roller coaster ride.” —Robin Hayes, President and CEO, JetBlue “The power of Clara’s book is it highlights not only social media practices but fundamental business practices and how company leaders need to entirely rethink customer engagement models. The implications for every business, regardless of industry or geography, of today’s social, connected consumer cannot be overstated. This book provides a powerful vision and compelling call to action for company leaders everywhere.” —Ted Mathas, Chairman and CEO, New York Life

Book The Visual Imperative

    Book Details:
  • Author : Lindy Ryan
  • Publisher : Morgan Kaufmann
  • Release : 2016-03-14
  • ISBN : 0128039302
  • Pages : 322 pages

Download or read book The Visual Imperative written by Lindy Ryan and published by Morgan Kaufmann. This book was released on 2016-03-14 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Data is powerful. It separates leaders from laggards and it drives business disruption, transformation, and reinvention. Today's most progressive companies are using the power of data to propel their industries into new areas of innovation, specialization, and optimization. The horsepower of new tools and technologies have provided more opportunities than ever to harness, integrate, and interact with massive amounts of disparate data for business insights and value – something that will only continue in the era of the Internet of Things. And, as a new breed of tech-savvy and digitally native knowledge workers rise to the ranks of data scientist and visual analyst, the needs and demands of the people working with data are changing, too. The world of data is changing fast. And, it's becoming more visual. Visual insights are becoming increasingly dominant in information management, and with the reinvigorated role of data visualization, this imperative is a driving force to creating a visual culture of data discovery. The traditional standards of data visualizations are making way for richer, more robust and more advanced visualizations and new ways of seeing and interacting with data. However, while data visualization is a critical tool to exploring and understanding bigger and more diverse and dynamic data, by understanding and embracing our human hardwiring for visual communication and storytelling and properly incorporating key design principles and evolving best practices, we take the next step forward to transform data visualizations from tools into unique visual information assets. - Discusses several years of in-depth industry research and presents vendor tools, approaches, and methodologies in discovery, visualization, and visual analytics - Provides practicable and use case-based experience from advisory work with Fortune 100 and 500 companies across multiple verticals - Presents the next-generation of visual discovery, data storytelling, and the Five Steps to Data Storytelling with Visualization - Explains the Convergence of Visual Analytics and Visual discovery, including how to use tools such as R in statistical and analytic modeling - Covers emerging technologies such as streaming visualization in the IOT (Internet of Things) and streaming animation

Book True Alignment

Download or read book True Alignment written by Edgar Papke and published by AMACOM. This book was released on 2013-12-11 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It cannot be overemphasized how important it is for leaders to ensure the company’s mission is manifested in the roles, expectations, and goals of every member of the organization. Companies live or die based on their ability to communicate and deliver on the promise their brand makes to its customers. But if that message is varied, or added to, or even unknown by a single member of the team, the resulting inefficiency, conflict, and disengagement will cripple a company’s ability to provide value to its customers. True Alignment reveals the blueprint for businesses of all types and sizes for creating a company culture where everyone is aligned to the vision and strategy behind the brand intention and responsible for living out the brand promise. You will learn how to: Decipher customer expectations Define the brand as a solution to the customer's needs Turn the unique selling proposition into the mission And much more You can replace the tires on a car, but if you don’t fix the alignment, you still won’t drive straight. The same goes for your company. Nothing else matters until the entire organization is aligned.

Book The Market Driven Organization

Download or read book The Market Driven Organization written by George S. Day and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-11 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Market Driven Strategy' is a buzzword that many business people use without fully grasping its meaning. Now George Day, the inventor of the phrase, follows up his groundbreaking book MARKET DRIVEN STRATEGY with practical advice for managers who want to better communicate with their customers, perform miles ahead of their competitors, and continually be responsive to both. Based on nearly a decade of research, teaching, and consulting on the topic, THE MARKET DRIVEN ORGANIZATION shows how to apply Day's essential marketing theories to an entire company. Complete with diagnostic questionnaires and other assessment tools to identify strengths and weaknesses and lead companies through change, THE MARKET DRIVEN ORGANIZATION is an indispensable guide that will provide managers with crucial insights drawn from the most thorough research of the decade.

Book Customer Relationship Management

Download or read book Customer Relationship Management written by Stanley A. Brown and published by Wiley. This book was released on 2000-04-27 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maximize customer satisfaction and maximize your bottom line Over the last decade, too many organizations have assumed that their products or services were so superior that customers would automatically keep coming back for more. But in order to compete effectively in today's marketplace, organizations must change their strategy to become more customer focused, not product focused. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the best way to integrate this customer-facing approach throughout an organization. Aimed at understanding and anticipating the needs of an organization's current and potential customers, this innovative book shows how CRM links people, process, and technology to optimize an enterprise's revenue and profits by first providing maximum customer satisfaction. * Covers developing a market-oriented strategy, innovation in products and services, sales and channels transformation, customer relationship marketing, and customer care Stanley A. Brown (Toronto, Canada) is Partner in Charge of the Centre of Excellence in Customer Care at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Toronto.

Book The Feedback Imperative

Download or read book The Feedback Imperative written by Anna Carroll and published by Greenleaf Book Group. This book was released on 2014-07-08 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: See faster results through everyday feedback. The Feedback Imperative: How to Give Everyday Feedback to Speed Up Your Team’s Success reveals the hidden reasons why giving feedback to employees can be so difficult and yet so urgently needed in today’s workplace, and provides the definitive steps for overcoming feedback avoidance and taking great leaps forward with employee engagement, retention, and performance. Anna Carroll applies her extensive research and expertise in business consulting and psychology to illustrate how brain science, generational trends, our information economy, limiting beliefs, and organizational culture collide in the new workplace, creating a huge gap between the supply and demand of helpful professional feedback. In her “Seven Steps to Everyday Feedback” and sixteen tools for self-assessment and planning, Carroll provides detailed instructions for leaders to execute a feedback turnaround that will quench their team members’ thirst for helpful feedback and build a culture in which employee-to-leader and peer-to-peer feedback are welcome as well.

Book The Social Innovation Imperative  Create Winning Products  Services  and Programs that Solve Society s Most Pressing Challenges

Download or read book The Social Innovation Imperative Create Winning Products Services and Programs that Solve Society s Most Pressing Challenges written by Sandra M. Bates and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2011-12-23 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This book is a must read for anyone who cares about the well-being of humanity in our modern world.” —Jake B. Schrum, President Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX “The Social Innovation Imperative advances a best practice framework to solving the world’s most pressing social issues. This is a foundational guide to changing the world that will be referenced for years to come.” —Michael Reynolds, Vice President, Product Development and Management, Cigna Health Care “Advancing the works of Clayton Christensen, Tony Ulwick, and others, Bates gives us a systematic approach for addressing critical human needs and the ecosystems in which they persist. This book is a blueprint to help us solve the ‘right’ things—the ‘right’ way.” —Joe Grieshop, President, Chief Innovation Executive, netTrekker, Founding Partner, Knovation Lab “Bates lays out a comprehensive, needs-driven approach for creating a social innovation road map. The detailed templates she provides offer particular insight for large, complex challenges.” —Sarah Miller Caldicott, author of Innovate Like Edison and Inventing The Future, great-grandniece of Thomas Edison “Bates shows how to create comprehensive innovation strategies using a six-step framework, and she gives the reader detailed ‘how to’ instruction for each step.” —Ellen Domb, Ph.D., President, PQR Group, Founder of The TRIZ Journal About the Book: In recent years, business leaders have been investing unprecedented amounts of time and money pursuing innovation to drive profits and growth. Although far from perfected, the innovation best practices they follow are by now well established. But when your expected ROI isn’t measured in dollars but in social good, the game is played very differently—which is where The Social Innovation Imperative comes in. Sandra M. Bates has spent the last decade helping major corporations create new markets for technology, consumer goods, and services. Now, she turns her attention to the social sector. The Social Innovation Imperative begins by explaining why innovation in social sectors, such as health care, conservation, and education, is unique and then provides the framework and tools that create a best practice for driving innovative change that will impact our world. Bates organizes the process into action-oriented steps you can follow to meet your goals effectively and in the most efficient manner possible. Learn how to: Investigate the Needs—define the social challenge, determine unmet needs, and examine opportunities for achieving them Innovate the Solution—devise a workable solution and develop a powerful social business model Implement the Solution—ensure the solution creates shared value and discover techniques to make certain that it does not become an orphan innovation In The Social Innovation Imperative, Bates combines everything she has learned as a high-level business consultant to offer a refreshing new approach for developing breakthrough products, programs, and services to meet society’s needs. The Framework for Social Innovation outlined in this book removes the mystery from innovation success and provides a systematic approach anyone can adopt. The Social Innovation Imperative offers essential wisdom for innovators everywhere—whether nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, government agencies, or corporations—who wish to generate meaningful social value.

Book Strategic Customer Service

Download or read book Strategic Customer Service written by John A. GOODMAN and published by AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. This book was released on 2009-05-13 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The success of any organization depends on high-quality customer service. But for companies that strategically align customer service with their overall corporate strategy, it can transcend typical good business to become a profitable word-of-mouth machine that will transform the bottom line. Drawing on over thirty years of research for companies such as 3M, American Express, Chik-Fil-A, USAA, Coca-Cola, FedEx, GE, Cisco Systems, Neiman Marcus, and Toyota, author Goodman uses formal research, case studies, and patented practices to show readers how they can: • calculate the financial impact of good and bad customer service • make the financial case for customer service improvements • systematically identify the causes of problems • align customer service with their brand • harness customer service strategy into their organization's culture and behavior Filled with proven strategies and eye-opening case studies, this book challenges many aspects of conventional wisdom—using hard data—and reveals how any organization can earn more loyalty, win more customers...and improve their financial bottom line.

Book INSPIRED

    Book Details:
  • Author : Marty Cagan
  • Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
  • Release : 2017-11-17
  • ISBN : 111938754X
  • Pages : 370 pages

Download or read book INSPIRED written by Marty Cagan and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-11-17 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do today’s most successful tech companies—Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla—design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of people around the world? Perhaps surprisingly, they do it very differently than the vast majority of tech companies. In INSPIRED, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love—and that will work for your business. With sections on assembling the right people and skillsets, discovering the right product, embracing an effective yet lightweight process, and creating a strong product culture, readers can take the information they learn and immediately leverage it within their own organizations—dramatically improving their own product efforts. Whether you’re an early stage startup working to get to product/market fit, or a growth-stage company working to scale your product organization, or a large, long-established company trying to regain your ability to consistently deliver new value for your customers, INSPIRED will take you and your product organization to a new level of customer engagement, consistent innovation, and business success. Filled with the author’s own personal stories—and profiles of some of today’s most-successful product managers and technology-powered product companies, including Adobe, Apple, BBC, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix—INSPIRED will show you how to turn up the dial of your own product efforts, creating technology products your customers love. The first edition of INSPIRED, published ten years ago, established itself as the primary reference for technology product managers, and can be found on the shelves of nearly every successful technology product company worldwide. This thoroughly updated second edition shares the same objective of being the most valuable resource for technology product managers, yet it is completely new—sharing the latest practices and techniques of today’s most-successful tech product companies, and the men and women behind every great product.

Book The Blue Line Imperative

Download or read book The Blue Line Imperative written by Kevin Kaiser and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-01-28 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking guide to making profitable business decisions Do you wonder why your value initiatives aren't providing the payoff you'd hoped for? Could it be because you've been thinking about value all wrong? According to the authors of this groundbreaking guide, there's a very good chance that you have. Using examples from leading companies worldwide, they explain why every decision a company makes either creates value or detracts from it, and why, if they hope to survive and thrive in today's increasingly competitive global marketplace, company leaders must make value-creation the centrepiece of every business decision. Authors Kaiser and Young have dubbed this approach "Blue-Line Management," (BLM), and in this entertaining, highly accessible book, they delineate BLM principles and practices and show you how to implement them in your company. Explains why the failure to properly define and assess value often makes it difficult for the people who manage businesses to effect long-term success Offers guidelines for making the satisfaction of customer needs and wants—i.e. value creation—the driver of all business activities The authors are respected academics at INSEAD, the world's largest and most respected graduate business school, with campuses in Europe, Asia and the Middle East

Book Literacy as a Moral Imperative

Download or read book Literacy as a Moral Imperative written by Rebecca Powell and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 1999-09-08 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this important new book on literacy and teaching practices, education scholar and former schoolteacher Rebecca Powell argues that the decisions we make about literacy in a pluralistic society are fundamentally moral ones, either supporting inequitable power relationships, or seeking to transform them. Powell explores the underlying ideological assumptions of Oschooled literacyO and examines the ways teaching practices create tensions in the lives of students—tensions that often result in alienation and educational failure, particularly among those whose cultural knowledge and language tends to be marginalized in our nationOs schools. While primarily ground in critical theory, this volume also draws from multicultural and holistic perspectives in the teaching of written and oral language and addresses the link between whole language and critical pedagogy. Thus, the text is both theoretical and practical. Powell effectively argues that literacy instruction should encourage social responsibility and civic action, should enable students and teachers to understand the transformative potential of language, and should nurture a culture of compassion and care.

Book Who Stole My Customer

Download or read book Who Stole My Customer written by Harvey Thompson and published by FT Press. This book was released on 2014-12-12 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rebuild customer loyalty, strengthen customer relationships, and leverage the immense power of customer co-innovation! Harvey Thompson's Who Stole My Customer?? is the world's definitive guide to rebuilding customer loyalty: must-reading in C-Suites and top business schools worldwide. That's no surprise: for decades, Thompson has been the go-to expert for CxOs seeking to optimize their customer growth and retention strategies. Now, in this extensively updated Second Edition, Thompson sharpens his focus on two of the most crucial strategic challenges identified by 1,300+ current CEOs: strengthening customer relationships and promoting innovation. Drawing on his immense enterprise experience, Thompson helps you overcome fundamental corporate culture issues that impede both relationship-building and innovation. Next, he demonstrates how to construct customer-driven business models and management systems that improve retention by systematically involving customers in co-innovation around goals and visions they help define. Who Stole My Customer?? Second Edition helps you identify up-to-the-minute answers to the classic "tough questions" surrounding loyalty: Who's stealing my customers? Why is it happening? How can I stop it? How can I win back lost customers? You'll discover new ways to view business processes through customer's eyes... identify today's real drivers of loyalty... tightly focus relationship investments for maximum value... rebuild touch points around customers' current and future needs. Throughout, updated questions help you apply Thompson's techniques in your competitive environment. Thompson's questions have also been updated to serve MBA or Executive MBA level students more effectively as they seek to add more value in future work assignments.

Book No More Throw away People

Download or read book No More Throw away People written by Edgar S. Cahn and published by Edgar Cahn. This book was released on 2000 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Co-production is a bold, pragmatic strategy that shatters limits on social change. This book exposes the Dark Side of money and market. It redefines economics by treating households and community as a separate economy. Placing that economy on a par with market generates a new exchange dynamic the empowers us all to become change agents who can shape the future; convert failing social programs into catalysts for social justice; enlist Throw-Away People as partners in a shared mission; and create the world we want for our children."--Publisher's description.

Book The Collaboration Imperative

Download or read book The Collaboration Imperative written by Ron Ricci and published by . This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Free  Perfect  and Now

Download or read book Free Perfect and Now written by Robert Rodin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1999-08-06 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world where knowledge is king, the Web never sleeps, and competitive challenge increases exponentially, Robert Rodin shows you how to prepare for the three insatiable demands of today's customers: they want their product or service FREE, they want it PERFECT, and they want it NOW. No matter what business you're in, you have to find a way to respond -- or risk losing your customers to competitors who are discovering new ways to sell your product or service cheaper, better, and faster than you've ever imagined. As the dynamic CEO of electronics distributor Marshall Industries who trained with the worldfamous W. Edwards Deming, Rob Rodin engineered the astounding reinvention of his company, turning a conventionally successful $500 million business into a $2 billion competitive powerhouse, a high-speed, high-profit junction box wired to today's imperatives. Rodin isn't a consultant, pretending change is a matter of five steps and a pep talk. He's lived inside its gut-wrenching turmoil. Six years ago Rodin and his colleagues bet their company on a radical experiment, tearing a healthy business down to bedrock. They threw out all the old tools, taking 1,100 managers off MBOs and incentives and abolishing commissions for 600 salespeople. They threw out all the old technology, too, changing every operating system in a single tense night. Then they set out to reinvent themselves, finding new ways to help people and technology work together -- creating a dynamic pioneer for our new electronic era, a company twice named as the #1 business-to-business Web site in the world by Advertising Age magazine. Free, Perfect, and Now tells the dramatic story of that transformation from the inside. Detailing the hard lessons learned in competitive battle, it offers a compelling new perspective on the most pressing issue facing businesspeople today: how to prepare a customer-focused corporation for a future you can't predict. But Free, Perfect, and Now is a book of solutions, too, a guide to help every manager turn ideas into concrete results. Each chapter explains, step by step, how to design a different element of a company, from how to anticipate customers' shifting demands to how to make a Web site profitable. And each chapter ends with a Manager's Workbook, containing detailed advice managers can use to make their business more competitive today.