Good Additions to your Bookshelf...
Robert C. Camp
"A non-technical text, Camp walks the reader through the benchmarking process in a step-by-step format. Using a case study approach to illustrate topics, the author covers all the bases. From determining the right issues to address and questions to ask, to selecting a benchmark organization, to final results analysis, the text is comprehensive."
Business Process Benchmarking Robert C. Camp
“Business Process Benchmarking, provides the most up-to-date information to show readers how to conduct successful benchmarking projects. Readers will discover how t use Camp's renowned 10-step benchmarking process to achieve peak performance; analyze the performance gap and ensure that every employee contributes toward enhanced corporate performance; train employees to use benchmarking tools to maximize the company's results.”
Global Cases in Benchmarking Robert C. Camp
“Now, innovative executives can learn from actual success stories and case studies that demonstrate the power of benchmarking--sharing the best practices to set quality standards for topics, problems, and, most importantly, processes. Camp shows how global leaders in manufacturing, service, government, and other areas have used benchmarking to reduce waste, improve quality, and streamline current systems.”
Competitive Advantage - Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance Michael E. Porter
"Competitive Advantage introduces a whole new way of understanding what a firm does. Porter's groundbreaking concept of the value chain disaggregates a company into 'activities,' or the discrete functions or processes that represent the elemental building blocks of competitive advantage."
Competitive Strategy - Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors Michael E. Porter
"Porter's analysis of industries captures the complexity of industry competition in five underlying forces. Porter introduces one of the most powerful competitive tools yet developed: his three generic strategies -- lowest cost, differentiation, and focus -- which bring structure to the task of strategic positioning. He shows how competitive advantage can be defined in terms of relative cost and relative prices, thus linking it directly to profitability, and presents a whole new perspective on how profit is created and divided."
The Art of the Long View-Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World Peter Schwartz
"Presents lessons in thinking for the future. Schwartz offers scenarios from the oil industry that can be applied to all aspects of life. His first-hand accounts, originally developed for Royal Dutch/Shell, are invaluable tools for creative thinking in one's personal life and in business."
Scenarios-The Art of Strategic Conversation Kees van der Heijden
"Artful scenario spinning is a form of convergent thinking about divergent futures. It ensures not that you are always right about the future but—better—that you are almost never wrong about the future."
Learning from the Future: Competitive Foresight Scenarios Liam Fahey, Robert M. Randall
"Reveals how innovative organizations harness imagination and strategic management techniques to create scenarios that simulate future opportunities and threats. Shows how scenario learning readies companies for industry and market evolutions and customers new needs."
2025 -Scenarios of US and Global Society Reshaped by Science and Technology Joseph Coates, John Mahaffie, Andy Hines
"This book taps the worlds of science, technology, and engineering to look at the thirty year period of 1995 to 2025. Written in the form of a history book in 2025, Coates gives fifteen scenarios which reflect what life will be like in the United States as well as other societies (both affluent and less prosperous)."
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How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate Andrew Hargadon, Kathleen M. Eisenhardt
"...Based on ten years of study into the origins of historic inventions and modern innovations from the lightbulb to the transistor to the Reebok Pump athletic shoe, How Breakthroughs Happen takes us beyond the simple recognition that revolutionary innovations do not result from flashes of brilliance by lone inventors or organizations. In fact, innovation is really about creatively recombining ideas, people, and objects from past technologies in ways that spark new technological revolutions. This process of "technology brokering" is so powerful, explains Hargadon, because it exploits the networked nature-the social side-of the innovation process. Moving between historical accounts of labs and factory floors where past technological revolutions originated and field studies of similar processes in today's organizations, Hargadon shows how technology brokers create an enduring capacity for breakthrough innovations."
The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor
"Drawing on years of in-depth research and illustrated by company examples across many industries, Christensen and Raynor argue that innovation can be a predictable process that delivers sustainable, profitable growth. They identify the forces that cause managers to make bad decisions as they package and shape new ideas—and offer new frameworks to help managers create the right conditions, at the right time, for a disruption to succeed."
Radical Innovation: How Mature Companies Can Outsmart Upstarts R.Leifer, C.McDermott, G.O'Connor, L.Peters, M.Rice, R.Veryzer
"This book reveals the patterns through which game-changing innovation occurs in large, established companies, and identifies the new managerial competencies firms need to make radical innovation happen. Defines a radical innovation project as one that delivers a product, process, or service with either unprecedented performance features, or with familiar features that will enable market transformation through significant performance improvements or cost reductions."
40 Principles: TRIZ Keys to Technical Innovation Genrikh Altshuller, Lev Shulyak (Translator), Steven Rodman
"TRIZ (the Russian acronym for Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) was developed by this book's author, Genrich Altshuller. Studied and respected around the world, TRIZ shows that technical systems evolve following predictable patterns. "
Breakthroughs! John M. Ketteringham, P. Ranganath Nayak
"Remarkable accounts of impossible visions made possible by human endeavor. The authors examine the creativity, determination, special skills, politics, and perceptions that opened the way to new processes and products that changed the way millions of us do things. "
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Marketing Management- Analysis, Planning and Control Phillip Kotler
"Emphasizes the importance of teamwork between marketing and all the other functions of the business; introduces new perspectives in successful strategic market planning; and presents additional company examples of creative, market- focused, and customer-driven action. Kotler underscores the importance of computers, telecommunications, and other new technologies in improving marketing planning and performance. "
The Market Research Toolbox Edward F. McQuarrie
An introduction to market research which defines and examines the goals and techniques associated with six traditional market research methods. Also discusses nontraditional market research, and shows how to combine individual market research techniques into a research strategy.
What Were They Thinking? Robert M. McMath, Thom Forbes
"What Were They Thinking?, by 30-year marketing industry veteran Robert McMath and journalist Thom Forbes, clearly spells out its cautionary contents in its subtitle: Marketing Lessons I've Learned from over 80,000 New-Product Innovations and Idiocies. The insightful suggestions for avoiding the extraordinarily damaging (or at least extremely embarrassing) commercial misstep, illustrated perfectly by tales of formidable foul-ups from days of yore, ensure that this trip down memory lane can be more than just a pleasure cruise. Nonetheless, it's simply fun to relive such agonies as Ben-Gay Aspirin, Rabbit Jerky, and of course, New Coke." --Howard Rothman
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Total Quality Development - A step-by-step Guide to World Class Concurrent Engineering Don Clausing
"Total quality development is the modern way of developing new products that will be competitive in the global economy. It combines the best engineering, the best management, the best strategy, and especially, the best teamwork- far beyond traditional product development practices. The resulting improvements are greatly reduced development time, a reduction in all costs, higher quality and increased product variety. Combined these improvements greatly increase customer satisfaction"
Design and Marketing of New Products Glen Urban, John Hauser
"Presents a thorough yet practicial, how-to exploration of each step in the strategy, opportunity identification, design, testing, launch and profit management stages of new-product development"
Value - Its Measurement, Design and Management Larry Shillito, David De Marle
"Offers a modern approach to using value analysis for product development, this is a structured process that unites interdisciplinary teams in an organization to select and analyze projects in terms of investment potential and to integrate quality and productivity."
The Power of Product Platforms: Building Value and Cost Leadership M.H. Meyer, A. Lehnerd
"Most companies know that long-term success does not hinge on any single product but on a continuous stream of value-rich products that target growth markets. Yet many firms inexplicably develop one product at a time, and by doing so fail to embrace commonality, compatibility, standardization, or modularization among different products and product lines. Firms must focus their energies on developing families of products simultaneously which share common components and technology."
Winning at New Products : Accelerating the Process from Idea to Launch Robert G. Cooper
"Demonstrates why consistent product development is so vital to corporate growth and how to maximize your chances of success. Most product concepts never make it to market, and of those that do, most fail. Winning at New Products cites the most recent research and showcases innovative practices to present a field-tested game plan for achieving product leadership."
The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development Milton D. Rosenau (Editor)
"Product development professionals at the cutting edge of knowledge in their respective areas of new product expertise present a complete picture of the information needed for effective product development. Describes all aspects of the topic from the creation of the concept through development and design to the final production, marketing, and service."
Developing Products in Half the Time: New Rules, New Tools Preston G. Smith, Donald G. Reinertsen
"Time is worth money, and if you quantify this value you can buy time wisely, often to enormous advantage. Rather than pursing development speed at any price, the authors emphasize subjecting time-to-market decisions to the same hard-nosed business logic used for other management decision. Developing Products in Half the Time, 2/E is unique in providing tools for trading off schedule against other business objectives. It integrates powerful methods to manage risk and use resources effectively with proven techniques to accelerate product development. "
Product Design and Development Karl T. Ulrich and Steven D. Eppinger
"Contains a collection of methods that guide teams in developing new products. Focuses on a different method per chapter and provides examples drawn from industrial practice to illustrate each step. Focuses on tools and techniques that draw together members of cross-functional teams to make sound development decisions."
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New Products Management C. Merle Crawford, C. Anthony Di Benedetto
"Provides a management approach, with the perspective of marketing. In every organization there is a person or group of persons who are charged with getting new goods and services onto the market. Frequently those people are new product managers, or project managers, or team leaders. They lead a multifunctional group of people, with the perspective of a general manager. This book recognizes the value of the cross-functional team with representatives from all areas of business. A team leader (or future team leaders) will benefit from this text and its approach"
Product Juggernauts : How Companies Mobilize to Generate a Stream of Market Winners Jean-Philippe Deschamps, P. Ranganath Nayak (Contributor)
"Two management concepts that have received a lot of attention recently are 'virtual corporation' and 'continuous improvement.' A key component of each is the idea that product development becomes an ongoing and interactive process, with the manufacturer, sales force, and customer all working together to refine, adapt, and improve products and to suggest and create new ones. The authors call companies that are successful at doing this 'product juggernauts.' Deschamps and Nayak provide specific, practical advice on how best to organize companies to emulate these juggernauts, using examples such as Phillips, Casio, Rubbermaid, SONY, Lexus, and Braun. "
Type Talk at Work Otto Kroeger, Janet Thuesen
"The first layman's version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Where they take Typewatching to the workplace and reveal how managers, executives, and workers can use the technique to better handle both personal and personnel matters."
The Creative Brain Ned Herrmann
"Presents a four-quadrant model of the brain and the corresponding thinking styles: logician, organizer, communicator, and visionary. Most people and organizations are stuck in a "brain rut" because their work is dominated by just one mode."
The Blind Men and the Elephant: Mastering Project Work David Schmaltz
""The Blind Men and the Elephant," is a welcome addition to the project management literature. It won't teach you how to draw a PERT chart, or use Microsoft Project, or construct a formal work breakdown and budget. What it will do is give you some invaluable tools for thinking about projects and the people who do them--including yourself.."
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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Stephen Covey
"True success encompasses a balance of personal and professional effectiveness. Anecdotes are as frequently from family situations as from business challenges"
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Portfolio Management for New Products Robert G. Cooper, Elko J. Kleinschmidt
"Provides corporate leaders with the tools, practical guidelines, & cutting-edge strategies they need to manage their product portfolio, make better use of R&D, & prosper in the competitive environment of product development. "
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Strategy
Inside the Tornado Geoffrey Moore
"Moore shows how to capitalize on the profit-rich niches and hypergrowth mass markets beyond the chasm. Continuing to chart the impact of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle, he explores its effects not just on marketing but on overall business planning, especially partnership, competitive advantage, positioning and organizational leadership."
Crossing the Chasm Geoffrey Moore
"Every year millions of dollars invested in high-tech entrepreneurial ventures are lost trying to 'cross the chasm' from early market success to mainstream market leadership. Presents specific strategies in marketing and all other areas of the business to help technology companies cross this critical chasm successfully. "
The Innovator's Dilemma Clayton Christensen
"Shows how Honda Supercub, Intel's 8088 processor, hydraulic excavators and other products cut into the low end of the marketplace and eventually evolved to displace high-end competitors and their reigning technologies."
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Quality Function Deployment-How to Make QFD Work for You Lou Cohen
"Explains the fundamentals and advanced techniques of a structured planning system to incorporate the desires of the customers into the design of software, hardware, services, and other products. Provides details of the House of Quality, the most commonly used matrix and explores the potential for other matrices at every phase of product development. Also discusses organizational aspects such as establishing support, creating a schedule, and gathering customer data. "
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A New American TQM-Four Practical Revolutions in Management Shoji Shiba, Alan Graham, David Walden
"Focusses on the topics of customer focus, continuous improvement, total participation and societal networking, providing methods and dramatically depicting actual implementation of TQM methods in a variety of organizations."
Hohin Kanri - Policy Deployment for Successful TQM Yoji Akao
"Hoshin Kanri, the Japanese term for policy deployment, is an approach to strategic planning and quality improvement that has become a pillar of TQM for a growing number of US firms. This book is a compilation of examples of policy deployment that demonstrates how company vision is converted into individual responsibility."