Favourite Books
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.
- Abraham Lincoln
Chindia: How China and India Are Revolutionizing Global Business
by Pete Engardio
This book is a comprehensive compilation of articles that were featured in BusinessWeek Magazine over the last few years. The best minds at BusinessWeek explore ways a company can survive-and thrive-amid the business growth and innovation of China and India.
The economic rise of China and India has indeed refashion the way the world does business – and today’s companies need to pull up their socks and step up their game and start exploring how a company can stay competitive. With a diverse array of viewpoints, ideas, and forward-thinking strategies, Chindia discusses new avenues businesses can use to embrace change and encourage growth.
China’s growth and manufacturing dominance are two of the biggest global trends of the last 10 years. India’s technology, service, and outsourcing industries make it a valued partner, as well as a formidable competitor.
The stunning rise of China and India makes it clear: to survive and thrive in the new global market, we have to engage with China and India. This comprehensive guide is the road map to meeting this challenge, featuring
- A crash course in their cultures, economies, and business practices
- The future of trading, manufacturing, investing, and negotiating
- New corporate models, global paradigms, and other strategies
China and India share many characteristics as future growth markets: immense upwardly mobility, an emerging middle class whose aspirations and outlook on life differ from those of the previous generation. Rapid social changes and greater diversity means companies must employee more sophistication in tailoring their message and products to a different consumer segment.
Mavericks at Work : Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win
by William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre
In Mavericks at Work, Fast Company cofounder William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre, a longtime editor at the magazine, give you an inside look at the “most original minds in business” wherever they find them: from Procter & Gamble to Pixar, from gold mines to funky sandwich shops. Want to stop doing business as usual? Then take some lessons from the 32 maverick companies Taylor and LaBarre profile.
“Mavericks at Work” starts off with a great introduction and keeps on going. I love the quote from Alan Kay : “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Why does business spend so much time trying to figure out what the competition will be bringing to the market place instead of trying to “invent the future”? Why not invent the market? Then you don’t have any competition!
My favorite chapters are :-
Chapter One – “Not Just a Company, a Cause: Strategy as Advocacy.”
This chapter does a great job of explaining why you need to create a cause, not just a company. Causes make raving fans. Raving fans bring profits.
Chapter Three – “Maverick Messages (1): Sizing Up Your Strategy”.
The authors give five questions every company should ask when sizing up your strategy.
Chapter Four – “Innovation Inc.: Open Source Gets Down to Business”.
Do you need some “innovative” ideas on how to get your company to embrace innovation as a way of life? This chapter shows you how. Don’t be shy about putting some of these ideas to work.
Chapter Ten – “The Company You Keep: Business as if People Mattered”.
Great chapter on TALENT! Business today needs to put Talent at the top of the agenda for every strategy meeting, every business plan, every performance review, etc. All companies say that their people are their most important asset. Few prove it through their actions. This chapter shows some organizations that know and act as if People Matter and the payoff are increased profits.
World is Flat : The Globalized World in the Twenty-First Century
by Thomas L. Friedman
Extremely important subject – globalisation. Thomas L. Friedman states, “It is now possible for more people than ever to easily collaborate and compete in real time with more people on more different kinds of work from more different corners of the planet and on a more equal footing than at any previous time in the history of the world.”
He claims, “When the world is flat, you can innovate without having to emigrate”. But, how did the world `become flat’? Friedman suggests the trigger events were the collapse of communism, the dot-com bubble resulting in over investment in fiber-optic telecommunications, and the subsequent outsourcing of engineers engaged to fix the perceived Y2K problem.
Those events created an environment where products, services, and labor are cheaper. However, the West is now losing its strong-hold on economic dominance. Depending on if viewed from the eyes of a consumer or a producer – that’s either good or bad, or a combination of both.
Friedman sounds the alarm with a call for diligence and fortitude – academically, politically, and economically. He sees a dangerous complacency, from Washington down through the public school system. Students are no longer motivated. “In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears – and that is our problem.”
Managing Information Technology for Business Value: Practical Strategies for IT and Business Managers
by Martin G. Curley
This book provides an excellent road-map to enable the IT function to increase its business value to an organisation in a more meaningful and purposeful manner. It provides a useful mix of what should be done with how it should be done. The presentation of ideas and approaches via maturity frameworks is helpful as it allows us to easily identify how effective your IT function really is and where it needs to be.
Curley treats the subject of business value and IT with the rigor of a practical manager and the open mind of a researcher. Incorporating tools like maturity models to assess where you stand and the techniques used at different levels is a real help to executives looking to lead IT.
This book is a must read/reference for IT managers and executives. The publisher is Intel press so the book concentrates on the IT operational metrics and business values and often uses Intel as their examples. This is great in terms of providing deep practical advice. However, many of the business value challenges of the future rest with that the business value of IT beyond operations.
