The Future of Strategy: A Transformative Approach to Strategy for a World That Won’t Stand Still


Book Description

Own the Future of Your Industry with a Transformational Strategy Designed for Today's Business World Leaders today are inundated with strategic opportunities, besieged by business disruptions, andpressured to innovate--to do things better, faster, or differently. The CEO of a Fortune 500 firm explains it best: "I am looking at 23 different strategic initiatives. Trying to develop and implement so many strategies is like trying to change the driver, tires, the oil, and the bumpers; paint the body; and tune the engine. And doing all of this on a car that's running at full speed." The answer used to be found in strategy. But in thepast decade, the commonly deployed large-scale strategic exercises were largely discredited. They were slow and elaborate and did not deliver the expected returns, let alone help make sense of a glut of initiatives or cope with an increasingly unpredictable future. The Future of Strategy brings strategy back fromthose big top-down plans. It answers the questions of executives facing tumultuous business conditions and rapidly shifting markets: Is strategy still possible? Yes. Aren't strategies outdated before they can be implemented? Not if they are done right. Rather than developing strategy, aren't we better off being agile and able to capitalize on emerging trends faster than our peers? Agility complements strategy; it cannot replace it. This book is about reversing course and repositioningstrategy in its rightful place as the overarchingmanagement system. The authors introduce their core methodology, designed to future proof companies against the friction and "fog of war" that inexorably accompany changing times. They synthesize three fundamental principles that, when combined, provide the means to reclaim strategy: Take direct cues from fundamental trends affecting the company going forward Engage people across the company to translate these cues into strategy and effectively eliminate the handover hurdle between formulation and execution, a major reason for strategy failure Capture the output as competitive opportunities and manage their life cycles--when some have run their course, others are ready to take over Strategy today requires stepping over the shadows of one's own ingrained beliefs to capture new opportunities.This book reveals the inner workings of transformational strategies developed by leaders who gradually become more successful by advancing winning combinations of attitudes, values, habits, and practices.




Mapping a Winning Strategy


Book Description

Mapping a Winning Strategy introduces a new mapping method for creating and executing an effective business strategy. By mapping out the most effective strategy, organizations can make winning operational choices in today's VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) business environment.




Business Chemistry


Book Description

Business Chemistry: How to Build and Sustain Thriving Businesses in the Chemical Industry is a concise text aimed at chemists, other natural scientists, and engineers who want to develop essential management skills. Written in an accessible style with the needs of managers in mind, this book provides an introduction to essential management theory, models, and practical tools relevant to the chemical industry and associated branches such as pharmaceuticals and consumer goods. Drawing on first-hand management experience and in-depth research projects, the authors of this book outline the key topics to build and sustain businesses in the chemical industry. The book addresses important topics such as strategy and new business development, describes global trends that shape chemical companies, and looks at recent issues such as business model innovation. Features of this practitioner-oriented book include: Eight chapters covering all the management topics relevant to chemists, other natural scientists and engineers. Chapters co-authored by experienced practitioners from companies such as Altana, A.T. Kearney, and Evonik Industries. Featured examples and cases from the chemical industry and associated branches throughout chapters to illustrate the practical relevance of the topics covered. Contemporary issues such as business model design, customer and supplier integration, and business co-operation.




Project Portfolio Management Strategies for Effective Organizational Operations


Book Description

Continuous improvements in project portfolio management have allowed for optimized strategic planning and business process improvement. This not only leads to more streamlined processes, methods, and technologies, but it increases the overall productivity of companies. Project Portfolio Management Strategies for Effective Organizational Operations is a key resource on the latest advances and research regarding strategic initiatives for portfolio and program management. Highlighting multidisciplinary studies on value creation, portfolio governance and communication, and integrated circular models, this publication is an ideal reference source for professionals, researchers, business managers, consultants, and university students in economics, management, and engineering.




Future Viability, Business Models, and Values


Book Description

This book challenges the traditional models of modern economy, business education and management, which are devoted to the concepts of scarcity, competition, growth and yield. It deconstructs the spiral of acceleration in which technological shifts concerning global markets and enterprises produce a dynamic of unbridled disruption, concentration and erosion of human and natural resources. The book analyzes how, in the face of this dynamic, once successful business models increasingly lead to existential jeopardy.The book embeds its argument in the impact of technological change on strategy in general. It subsequently analyzes the degree of rationality in the strategy building process to juxtapose revenue and responsibility as the fundamental principles of diverging strategic concepts. In its central chapters the book explores the benefits of consciousness-driven business models and value-added strategies for the awareness markets of the future and their impact on team excellence and resource handling. It develops an understanding of how corporations can function as ecosystems – fostering the growth and development of the resources they operate on, rather than being based on their exploitation. Understanding this structure of viable future business models is the overall theme of this pioneering book. “This book endeavors to set out yet another paradigm for a viable economics, the paradigm of ethicology. It seeks to replace the concepts of competition, scarcity and growth with strategies and business models based on resource creation, added values cycles, enrichment and symbiosis in line with the awareness economy it describes.” Hunter Lovins,President and Founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions “... a very basic paradigm shift in our future strategies ...” Henner Klein, Chairman Emeritus A.T. Kearney “The book stands right on the tectonic fault line between our old and our new reality. It manages to do both: analyze the shifting paradigms and provoke new thinking.” Dr. Martin R. Stuchtey, Director of the McKinsey Center for Business & Environment “This book is raising the bar. His vision dares to rethink the principles of the liberal and social market economy in a globalized business world.” Prof. Dr. René Schmidpeter, CBS Köln “A book worth reading and reflecting on. Onwards to an economy that works for 100% of humanity.” Michael Pirson,Associate Professor, Director Center for Humanistic Management, Fordham University and Research Fellow, Harvard University „ ... powerful arguments and practical guidance on how companies can become sustainable and live up to the realities of global enterprise ...” Michael Hilti, Hilti AG




Strategic Tools and Methods for Promoting Hospitality and Tourism Services


Book Description

Tourism marketing is a vital tool in promoting the overall health of the global economy by not only bringing necessary revenue to a particular region, but also providing an opportunity for tourists to explore another culture, building tolerance and overall exposure to different ways of life. Strategic Tools and Methods for Promoting Hospitality and Tourism Services provides interdisciplinary perspectives in the areas of global tourism and hospitality. Highlighting cultural boundaries of strategic knowledge management through the use of case studies and theoretical research, as well as the opportunities and challenges of tourism marketing, this publication is an essential reference source for academicians, research scholars, marketing professionals, graduate-level students, and industry professionals interested in international travel and the vacation industry.




Perspectives on Philosophy of Management and Business Ethics


Book Description

This book presents a selection of articles with focus on the theoretical foundations of business ethics, and in particular on the philosophy of management and on human rights and business. This implies identifying and discussing conflicts as well as agreement with regard to the philosophical and other foundations of business and management. Despite the general interest in corporate social responsibility and business ethics, the contemporary discussion rarely touches upon the normative core and philosophical foundations of business. There is a need to discuss the theoretical basis of business ethics and of business and human rights. Even though the actions and activities of business may be discussed from a moral perspective, not least in the media, the judgments and opinions relating to business and management often lack deeper moral reflection and consistency. Partly for this reason, business ethicists are constantly challenged to provide such moral and philosophical foundations for business ethics and for business and human rights, and to communicate them in an understandable manner. Such a challenge is also of scientific kind. Positions and opinions in the academic field need to be substantiated by thorough moral and theoretical reflection to underpin normative approaches. Far too often, business ethicists may agree on matters, which they approach from different and sometimes irreconcilable philosophical standpoints, resulting in superficial agreement but deeper-lying disagreement. In other cases, it may be of high relevance to identify philosophical standpoints that despite conflicting fundamentals may arrive at conclusions acceptable to everyone.




Lead from the Future


Book Description

Gold Medal Winner for Best Leadership Book in the 2021 Axiom Business Book Awards Named one of the "Top Ten Technology Books Of 2020" — Forbes Named one of the "10 Best New Business Books of 2020" by Inc. magazine "Johnson and Suskewicz have raised a battle cry for the kind of leadership we need in these uncertain times." -- Sandi Peterson, Member, Board of Directors, Microsoft We all know a visionary leader when we see one. They're bold and prophetic and at the same time pragmatic. They don't just promote change--they drive it, while inspiring and mobilizing others to do the same. Visionaries like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos possess a host of innate qualities that make them extraordinary, but what truly sets them apart is their ability to turn vision into action. In Lead from the Future, Innosight's Mark W. Johnson and Josh Suskewicz introduce a new way of thinking and managing, called "future-back," that enables any manager to become a practical visionary. Addressing the many barriers to change that exist in established organizations, they present a systematic approach to overcoming them that includes: The principles and mind-set that allow leadership teams to look beyond typical short-term planning horizons A method for turning emerging challenges into the growth opportunities that can define an organization's future A step-by-step approach for translating a vision into a strategic plan that teams can align around and commit to Ways to ensure that visionary thinking becomes a repeatable organizational capability As practical as it is inspiring, Lead from the Future is the guide you and your team need to develop a vision and translate it into transformative growth.




Strategic Monoliths and Microservices


Book Description

Make Software Architecture Choices That Maximize Value and Innovation "[Vernon and Jaskuła] provide insights, tools, proven best practices, and architecture styles both from the business and engineering viewpoint. . . . This book deserves to become a must-read for practicing software engineers, executives as well as senior managers." --Michael Stal, Certified Senior Software Architect, Siemens Technology Strategic Monoliths and Microservices helps business decision-makers and technical team members clearly understand their strategic problems through collaboration and identify optimal architectural approaches, whether the approach is distributed microservices, well-modularized monoliths, or coarser-grained services partway between the two. Leading software architecture experts Vaughn Vernon and Tomasz Jaskuła show how to make balanced architectural decisions based on need and purpose, rather than hype, so you can promote value and innovation, deliver more evolvable systems, and avoid costly mistakes. Using realistic examples, they show how to construct well-designed monoliths that are maintainable and extensible, and how to gradually redesign and reimplement even the most tangled legacy systems into truly effective microservices. Link software architecture planning to business innovation and digital transformation Overcome communication problems to promote experimentation and discovery-based innovation Master practices that support your value-generating goals and help you invest more strategically Compare architectural styles that can lead to versatile, adaptable applications and services Recognize when monoliths are your best option and how best to architect, design, and implement them Learn when to move monoliths to microservices and how to do it, whether they're modularized or a "Big Ball of Mud" Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.




Facilitating Breakthrough


Book Description

Making progress on complex, problematic situations requires a new approach to working together: transformative facilitation, a structured and creative process for removing the obstacles to fluid forward movement. It is becoming less straightforward for people to move forward together. They face increasing complexity and decreasing control. They need to work with more people from across more divides. In such situations, the most common ways of advancing—some people telling others what to do, or everyone just doing what they think they need to—aren't adequate. One better way is through facilitating. But the most common approaches to facilitating—bossy vertical directing from above or collegial horizontal accompanying from alongside—aren't adequate. They often leave the participants frustrated and yearning for breakthrough. This book describes a new approach: transformative facilitation. It doesn't choose either the bossy vertical or the collegial horizontal approach: it cycles back and forth between them. Rather than forcing or cajoling, the facilitator removes the obstacles that stand in the way of people contributing and connecting equitably. It enables people to bring their whole selves to the process. This book is for anyone who helps people work together to transform their situation, be it a professional facilitator, manager, consultant, coach, chairperson, organizer, mediator, stakeholder, or friend. It offers a broad and bold vision of the contribution that facilitation can make to helping people collaborate to make progress.