Books

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Diffusion of Innovations

Now in its fifth edition, Diffusion of Innovations is a classic work on the spread of new ideas. It has sold 30,000 copies in each edition and will continue to reach a huge academic audience. In this renowned book, Everett M. Rogers, professor and chair of the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico, explains how new ideas spread via communication channels over time. Such innovations are initially perceived as uncertain and even risky. To overcome this uncertainty, most people seek out others like themselves who have already adopted the new idea. Thus the diffusion process consists of a few individuals who first adopt an innovation, then spread the word among their circle of acquaintances–a process which typically takes months or years. But there are exceptions: use of the Internet in the 1990s, for example, may have spread more rapidly than any other innovation in the history of humankind. Furthermore, the Internet is changing the very nature of diffusion by decreasing the importance of physical distance between people. The fifth edition addresses the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas.

Rapid Transformation: A 90-day Plan for Fast and Effective Change

Profound organizational transformation takes years and, in most cases is unsuccessful, right? Not according to change expert Behnam Tabrizi. In Rapid Transformation: A 90-Day Plan for Fast and Effective Change , Tabrizi shows you how to accomplish successful transformational change in your firm in just 90 days. Based on ten years of research into more than 500 leading companies including 3M, IBM, GE, Nissan, Apple, Bay Networks, Verisign, HP and Best Buy this book demystifies fast, effective change and lays out a clear roadmap for achieving it. Tabrizi’s 90-day transformational model comprises three main phases, each lasting 30 days. The model enables you to analyze your company’s specific challenge, develop a new course of action, and carry out the plan. Moreover, you apply the model in parallel with the normal workings of your organization so you don’t have to put your company on hold for the sake of the change effort. With its detailed recipe and insightful stories from actual corporate reinventions, this book defies long-held assumptions about change and provides a practical and immediately actionable guide.

Enterprise Programme Management: Delivering Value

Many large scale projects are delivered over schedule and over budget. Programme management is a new approach to maximize the likelihood of successful change management. While being based around a set of techniques, this book describes an approach to programme management that outlines the skills and capabilities that organizations need to develop in order to manage change programmes effectively. This updated paperback edition includes a new chapter on programme governance.

Balanced Scorecard (Express Exec)

Fast track route to understanding and implementing the balanced scorecard in your business. Covers the key aspects of the balanced scorecard, from basing the balanced scorecard on the company’s strategy and relating it to existing control systems to setting goals and monitoring progress. Examples and lessons from some of the world’s most successful businesses, including Ricoh, Xerox and Ericsson Enterprise and ideas from the smartest thinkers including Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton. Includes a glossary of key concepts and a comprehensive resources guide.

The Future of Management

“Like many great inventions, management practices have a shelf life….Gary Hamel explains how to jettison the weak ones and embrace the ones that work. (Fortune) “There’s much here that will resonate with forward-thinking managers.” (BusinessWeek) Publisher’s Summary: What really fuels long-term business success? Not operational excellence or new business models, but management innovation: new ways of mobilizing talent, allocating resources, and building strategies. Over the past century, breakthroughs in the “technology of management” have enabled a few companies, including General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, and Visa, to cross new performance thresholds and build long-term advantages. Yet most companies lack a disciplined process for radical management innovation. World renowned business sage Gary Hamel argues that organizations need bold management innovation now more than ever. The current management model, centered on control and efficiency, no longer suffices in a world where adaptability and creativity drive business success. In his most provocative book to date, Hamel takes aim at the legacy beliefs preventing 21st-century companies from surmounting new challenges. With incisive analysis and vivid illustrations, he explains how to turn your company into a serial management innovator, and reveals: The make-or-break challenges that will determine competitive success in an age of head-snapping change; The toxic effects of our legacy-management beliefs; The unconventional management practices generating breakthrough results in a handful of pioneering organizations; The new principles every company must weave into its management DNA; The Web’s potential to obliterate smokestack management practices; The actions your company can take now to build its own management advantage. Get ready to throw off the shackles of yesterday’s management dogma. Tomorrow’s winners will be those companies that start inventing the future of management today.

Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution

Geoffrey Moore is one of the most respected and bestselling names in business books. In his widely quoted Crossing the Chasm, he identified and addressed the greatest challenge facing new ventures. Now he’s back with a book for established businesses that need to learn how to adapt – or suffer the slow declines into marginalized performance that have characterized so many Fortune 500 icons in recent years. Deregulation, globalization, and e-commerce are exerting unprecedented pressures on company profits. In this new economic ecosystem, companies must dramatically differentiate from their direct competitors – or risk declining performance and eventual extinction. But how do companies choose the right innovation strategy? Or overcome internal inertia that resists the kind of radical commitments needed to truly set the company’s offers apart? Illustrating his arguments with more than one hundred examples and a full-length case study based on his unprecedented access to Cisco Systems, Moore shows businesses how to meet today’s Darwinian challenges, whether they’re producing commodity products or customized services. For companies whose competitive differentiation to the marketplace is still effective, he demonstrates how innovations in execution can help boost productivity, whether a company is competing in a growth market, a mature market, or even a declining market. For companies in danger of succumbing to competitive pressures, he shows how to overcome inertia by engaging the entire corporate community in an unceasing commitment to innovate and evolve. For any business competing in today’s eat-or-be-eaten economic jungle, this groundbreaking guide shows not only how to survive, but also thrive.