This book brings home the message that meticulous integration management is the key to success in M&A transactions. Half of all M&A transactions are unsuccessful because many companies embarking on a merger neglect this key success factor. Based on 30 years of experience of corporate mergers and acquisitions as well as the subsequent implementation of growth strategies, the authors have developed a practical manual that helps managers optimize and streamline their growth strategy using persistent integration and transformation management. The book provides first-hand accounts of M&A transactions that the authors led or were involved in, assessing each case from an insider perspective and outlining the key success factors and pitfalls. It concludes with practical checklists including the most relevant topics for each individual step toward successful integration.
The airline industry is a vast international business that is central to world economies. In today's environment, it faces many challenges and a tight operational strategy is vital to survive. In-flight catering is a central part of these strategies at all levels: be they customer satisfaction, marketing, operations or logistics. Fully endorsed by the International Flight Catering Association, Flight Catering is an authoritative guide to this specialised and vital area on the catering industry. With an international team of contributions from both academia and industry it provides a user friendly guide, taking the reader through every aspect from marketing and on board service, to cost control and logistics.
The Airline industry has been under increasing pressure recently, from the increased competition of low-cost airlines and the terrorist events of 2001 to name but a few. Various US airlines, including Delta and Northwest, have been declared bankrupt, oil prices have soared, and seat prices are still being forced down, the supply far outweighing the demand. This e-book looks at recent case studies of airlines in crisis (Continental Airlines), and also airlines which have excelled at expansion during this turbulent time such as Easyjet and Ryanair, and offers examples of successful strategies previously used. The collection also features interviews with high-profile figures from airlines such as Go!, Qatar Airways and SWISS International Airlines.
Outsourcing has become one of the key restructuring tools for companies seeking to boost their growth and business performance. As the outsourcing phenomenon has mushroomed, so a range of academic studies have sought to define and describe a unifying theoretical model. Outsourcing: Design, Process and Performance draws upon managerial, economic, sociological, historical and psychological perspectives to bring about an understanding of how outsourcing design and the outsourcing process feed into the performance of firms. Blending empirical insights from a range of international cases and large-scale statistical tests with existing theoretical perspectives, the author argues that a negative curvilinear relationship exists between outsourcing and firm performance. A critical analysis of current outsourcing strategies, together with a discussion of future trends, offers a new agenda for academic researchers and business managers alike.
Over half of all people working on behalf of any given organization are typically not their own employees. Some are freelance contractors working in their own right. A significant proportion is employed to provide these services by another firm, under agency or outsourcing service agreements. The services they perform under these agreements are often vital in supporting the organization’s customer relationships, reputation and brand identity. Yet, remarkably, little attention has been paid to how these ‘non-employees’ are managed, motivated and meaningfully engaged. Management protocol generally sees them as outside the organization’s remit or control. The law paints them as victims. This ground-breaking book challenges both these assumptions. Through a combination of pioneering legal analysis and rigorous case-study research, it demonstrates that non-employees are often the organization’s most important hidden resource. Patricia Leighton and her collaborators highlight the limited good practice that is available, based on examples in large corporations, public sector organizations and smaller firms in a variety of countries. More importantly she clearly sets out the issues and imperatives employers should address, supported by new management concepts and models of effective practice developed specifically for the book. Far from being victims, she argues, non-employees often choose flexible working patterns for their own intrinsic ends and have ambitions, career aspirations and workplace needs that can be responded to and exploited by forward-looking employers. “Looking at the role they now play, these people are no longer marginal, atypical or peripheral as they are still termed and regarded by both legal and management practitioners. They are, however, still in the shadows in terms of the literature available on how best to develop and motivate them. This book aims to rectify this.”
Written by two highly experienced authors, this new text provides a concise, global approach to logistics and supply chain management. Featuring both a practical element, enabling the reader to ‘do’ logistics (select carriers, identify routes, structure warehouses, etc.) and a strategic element (understand the role of logistics and supply chain management in the wider business context), the book also uses a good range of international case material to illustrate key concepts and extend learning.
How can I develop a team if they're not in the same place? How can I build a company culture that works for employees in an office, working at home and in co-work spaces? How can I maintain organizational oversight if I can't see my employees? Remote Work answers all these questions and more and provides guidance on how to build a successful remote working strategy that engages employees, allows them to perform to their full potential and improves business performance. The COVID-19 pandemic has put remote work into the business norm, but demand from employees to work remotely was already increasing, with a 2019 report stating that 34% of people surveyed would even take a pay cut if they could work remotely part of the time. HR professionals and business leaders need to address this demand to attract and retain the talent the business needs. Remote Work is written by two industry experts who have successfully transitioned their workforces to remote models. It provides essential guidance on how to implement policies, processes and strategies for remote working, including meeting types, measuring performance and creating virtual 'water cooler' environments. Featuring advice on technological solutions to adapting processes and driving engagement, this book also outlines the business benefits of a remote workforce including improved productivity and output and how it allows for faster expansion and execution. With insights from leading experts such as Marshall Goldsmith and case studies from Cornerstone OnDemand, Buffer and United States Marine Corps, Remote Work is essential reading now that increased home and flexible working is here to stay.
This book presents the first thoroughgoing analysis of the contractual effect of letters of comfort as it appears in both common law and civil law systems. The commentary draws on cases from a wide variety of jurisdictions and on the full range of legal scholarship on the subject in several languages. Among the specific issues and topics raised along the way are the following: the typology of letters of comfort; the legal nature of letters of comfort; the use of letters of comfort in corporate group and banking practice; the economic explanation for the use of letters of comfort; the contractual effect of letters of comfort in French law; ‘ten commandments’ of letters of comfort; Clearly evoking the tension between business needs, the law, and judicial application, the book analyses what happens when the relationship between a lender and a creditor breaks down, or the latter becomes insolvent, and courts or arbitrators are asked to determine the legal status of a comfort letter. This is an area of practice in which lawyers in any field of business activity are inevitably concerned, and in which useful guidance is scarce. For this reason this detailed analysis will be very welcome.
This is the final book in a series of volumes on the history of the Transport & General Workers’ Union (T&G). After the neo-liberal assault on the unions and working people more generally carried through by Margaret Thatcher and John Major in the 1980s and 1990s, the unions, including the T&G, were faced with making some tough decisions about their future. The T&G initially turned to restructuring and engaged US management consultants to make recommendations about how the union should be moulded to fit the fast approaching new millennium. In other parts of the world at this time, particularly in the US and Australia, forward thinking unions were realising that the way out of the crisis was to switch from what was called the servicing model, where the union did things for its members, to an organising model, where the union did things with its members, and early in the millennium, the political and industrial logic of forming a large general workers’ union became more and more apparent. This fascinating volume looks at this history of the T&G, and considers how a three way union merger eventually became a reality with the merger of the T&G and Amicus to form Unite.
This book is about strategic performance management for the Twenty-First Century organization. In a practical step-by-step approach it navigates readers though the identification, measurement, and management of the strategic value drivers as enables of superior performance. Using many real life case examples this book outlines how organizations can visualize their value creation, design relevant and meaningful performance indicators to assess performance, and then use them to extract real management insights and improve everyday strategic decision making as well as organizational learning. A key focus of the book is the important issue of creating value from intangible assets. Much has been written about the importance of intangible assets such as knowledge, skills, relationships, culture, practices, routines, and intellectual property as levers for organisational success. However, little has been published that tells managers how to do that. This book moves beyond just raising awareness and provides practical tools and templates, gathered in many extensive case studies with world-leading organizations. The key issues the book addresses are: • How do we identify the strategic value drives, especially the intangibles, in our organisations? • How do we understand their strategic value using the powerful mapping tools? • How do we then measure the business performance? • How do we use performance indicators to improve decision making and organisational learning? • How do we align performance reviews and risk management with our strategy? Well grounded in theory and packed with case studies from around the world, this book will function as a guide for managers as well as a reference work for students and researchers. The tools described in this book are not only suitable for leading international corporations, but have been designed to be equally appropriate for not-for-profit organizations, central and local government institutions, small and medium sized businesses, and even departments and business units. The ideas, tools, and templates provided allow managers to apply them straight away and transform the way they manage strategic performance at all levels of their organization.
