Company to Company is for anyone studying or working in business, commerce or administration who needs to correspond in English. It is particularly suitable for learners at the lower-intermediate and intermediate levels, but more advanced learners who are unfamiliar with business correspondence will also find it invaluable. The fourth edition of this highly successful course contains thoroughly updated content and includes extensive work on email correspondence. It follows the successful interactive task and feedback approach of the previous editions.
Tracing the segmentation of the literary marketplace in 19th century America, this book analyses the implications of the subdivided literary field for readers, writers, and literature itself.
What if the real key to a richer and more fulfilling career was not to create and scale a new start-up, but rather, to be able to work for yourself, determine your own hours, and become a (highly profitable) and sustainable company of one? Suppose the better--and smarter--solution is simply to remain small? This book explains how to do just that. Company of One is a refreshingly new approach centered on staying small and avoiding growth, for any size business. Not as a freelancer who only gets paid on a per piece basis, and not as an entrepreneurial start-up that wants to scale as soon as possible, but as a small business that is deliberately committed to staying that way. By staying small, one can have freedom to pursue more meaningful pleasures in life, and avoid the headaches that result from dealing with employees, long meetings, or worrying about expansion. Company of One introduces this unique business strategy and explains how to make it work for you, including how to generate cash flow on an ongoing basis. Paul Jarvis left the corporate world when he realized that working in a high-pressure, high profile world was not his idea of success. Instead, he now works for himself out of his home on a small, lush island off of Vancouver, and lives a much more rewarding and productive life. He no longer has to contend with an environment that constantly demands more productivity, more output, and more growth. In Company of One, Jarvis explains how you can find the right pathway to do the same, including planning how to set up your shop, determining your desired revenues, dealing with unexpected crises, keeping your key clients happy, and of course, doing all of this on your own.
The future of work is already here. Customers are adopting disruptive technologies faster than your company can adapt. When your customers are delighted, they can amplify your message in ways that were never before possible. But when your company’s performance runs short of what you’ve promised, customers can seize control of your brand message, spreading their disappointment and frustration faster than you can keep up. To keep pace with today’s connected customers, your company must become a connected company. That means deeply engaging with workers, partners, and customers, changing how work is done, how you measure success, and how performance is rewarded. It requires a new way of thinking about your company: less like a machine to be controlled, and more like a complex, dynamic system that can learn and adapt over time. Connected companies have the advantage, because they learn and move faster than their competitors. While others work in isolation, they link into rich networks of possibility and expand their influence. Connected companies around the world are aggressively acquiring customers and disrupting the competition. In The Connected Company, we examine what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and why it works. And we show you how your company can use the same principles to adapt—and thrive—in today’s ever-changing global marketplace.
In the ever-changing world of business, we've arrived at a point where process has trumped culture, where the race toward efficiency has left us unable to reach our potential. Stuck in the land of status quo, we've forgotten how to think. The very structures put in place to help businesses grow are now holding us back;; it's time to Kill the Company. This book is a call to arms: to start a revolution in how we think and work. But instead of more one-size-fits-all change initiatives forced upon employees, we need to embrace small changes that create ripple effects throughout the organization. Lisa Bodell urges companies to move from "Zombies, Inc." to "Think, Inc." Thinking can no longer be exclusive to the creative team or lead strategists. A culture of curiosity must be fostered among the ranks to shake up our standard practices, from unproductive meetings to go-nowhere strategic planning. This revolution can and will awaken our ability to think, and ultimately, to innovate and grow.
The 1980s saw the beginning of the greatest merger boom in history. Year after year, the number of mergers and acquisitions climbed. Mergers between large companies make headlines, but companies of any size may find it beneficial to engage in mergers and acquisitions. Author H. Lee Rust explains the basics of acquisitions in clear, simple prose for companies that are too small to make the evening news. His book will be most useful to small- and medium-sized firms whose leaders lack experience in acquisitions. He provides sound, practical advice, easy-to-use checklists, and a CD-ROM workbook with spreadsheets, calculations, sample letters and more. If you manage a small company, getAbstract suggests reading this book before you get involved in your first acquisition.
In his much-anticipated memoir, The Company I Keep: My Life in Beauty, Chairman Emeritus and former CEO of The Estée Lauder Companies Leonard A. Lauder shares the business and life lessons he learned as well as the adventures he had while helping transform the mom-and-pop business his mother founded in 1946 in the family kitchen into the beloved brand and ultimately into the iconic global prestige beauty company it is today. In its infancy in the 1940s and 50s, the company comprised a handful of products, sold under a single brand in just a few prestigious department stores across the United States. Today, The Estée Lauder Companies constitutes one of the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of prestige skin care, makeup, fragrance and hair care products. It comprises more than 25 brands, whose products are sold in over 150 countries and territories. This growth and success was led by Leonard A. Lauder, Estée Lauder’s oldest son, who envisioned and effected this expansion during a remarkable 60-year tenure, including leading the company as CEO and Chairman. In this captivating personal account complete with great stories as only he can tell them, Mr. Lauder, now known as The Estée Lauder Companies’ “Chief Teaching Officer,” reflects on his childhood, growing up during the Great Depression, the vibrant decades of the post-World War II boom, and his work growing the company into the beauty powerhouse it is today. Mr. Lauder pays loving tribute to his mother Estée Lauder, its eponymous founder, and to the employees of the company, both past and present, while sharing inside stories about the company, including tales of cutthroat rivalry with Charles Revson of Revlon and others. The book offers keen insights on honing ambition, leveraging success, learning from mistakes, and growing an international company in an age of economic turbulence, uncertainty, and fierce competition.
This book raises a fundamental question, What are companies & what are they for? Whereas the standard answer is that companies are organizations that carry out economic processes to produce goods or services, he argues that such narrow thinking leads to management practices & priorities that are detrimental to everyone--from shareholders to employees to stakeholders--often leading to the demise of firms. Today's scarce resource is knowledge, which is created by a company's human assets. As a result, management's top priority must be the optimization of human resources & its knowledge-creation ability to ensure the longevity of the firm. The author explores the theme of organizational learning & identifies four key elements to organizational survival & renewal: sensitivity to the environment (a company's ability to learn & adapt), cohesion & identity (a company's innate ability to create a community & a persona), tolerance (the ability to build constructive relationships with other entities), & conservative financing (the ability of a firm to govern its growth & evolution). Together, these four factors are essential to growth & viability. Winner, The Edwin G. Booz Prize for the Most Innovative, Insightful Management Book of 1997, The Financial Times/Booz-Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Awards. A Business Week Best Business Book of the Year. Named as one of the Best Business Books of the Year by the Financial Times. "With a light touch & an interesting variety of examples, de Geus employs biological metaphors in order to analyze corporate management [&] provides an interesting challenge to basic assumptions about the way companies work."--Business Week "The Living Company earns a spot as one of this year's best business books."--Quality Digest "This profound & uplifting book is for the leader in all of us."--Dr. James F. Moore, Author of The Death of Competition "In contrast to the common gaggle of management books, few of which can truthfully be called thought-provoking, The Living Company is one that deserves a read."--Training "Arie de Geus has written an excellent book that gives senior executives & board members provocative insights into success."--Directors & Boards "A seminal book that will initiate far-ranging discussions regarding the nature & purpose of the company."--National Productivity Review
