You don't have to have an MBA to understand the basics of accounting and finance, although it helps. This short book is a primer that will give you and those in your organization some basic tools for making smarter business decisions. Like many of my senior team colleagues at the time, many people believe that finance is the responsibility of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and perhaps a few staff accountants. Over the years, I have learned that we all need to understand some of the principles of accounting and finance as well as some best practices.In our experience, most strategic leaders do not have formal training in accounting and finance. This is not their fau
You think you have a winning strategy. But do you? Executives are bombarded with bestselling ideas and best practices for achieving competitive advantage, but many of these ideas and practices contradict each other. Should you aim to be big or fast? Should you create a blue ocean, be adaptive, play to win—or forget about a sustainable competitive advantage altogether? In a business environment that is changing faster and becoming more uncertain and complex almost by the day, it’s never been more important—or more difficult—to choose the right approach to strategy. In this book, The Boston Consulting Group’s Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Janmejaya Sinha offer a proven method to determine the strategy approach that is best for your company. They start by helping you assess your business environment—how unpredictable it is, how much power you have to change it, and how harsh it is—a critical component of getting strategy right. They show how existing strategy approaches sort into five categories—Be Big, Be Fast, Be First, Be the Orchestrator, or simply Be Viable—depending on the extent of predictability, malleability, and harshness. In-depth explanations of each of these approaches will provide critical insight to help you match your approach to strategy to your environment, determine when and how to execute each one, and avoid a potentially fatal mismatch. Addressing your most pressing strategic challenges, you’ll be able to answer questions such as: • What replaces planning when the annual cycle is obsolete? • When can we—and when should we—shape the game to our advantage? • How do we simultaneously implement different strategic approaches for different business units? • How do we manage the inherent contradictions in formulating and executing different strategies across multiple businesses and geographies? Until now, no book brings it all together and offers a practical tool for understanding which strategic approach to apply. Get started today.
When Fortune Magazine estimated that 70% of all strategies fail, it also noted that most of these strategies were basically sound, but could not be executed. The central premise of Strategic Project Management Made Simple is that most projects and strategies never get off the ground because of adhoc, haphazard, and obsolete methods used to turn their ideas into coherent and actionable plans. Strategic Project Management Made Simple is the first book to couple a step-by-step process with an interactive thinking tool that takes a strategic approach to designing projects and action initiatives. Strategic Project Management Made Simple builds a solid platform upon four critical questions that are vital for teams to intelligently answer in order to create their own strong, strategic foundation. These questions are: 1. What are we trying to accomplish and why? 2. How will we measure success? 3. What other conditions must exist? 4. How do we get there? This fresh approach begins with clearly understanding the what and why of a project - comprehending the bigger picture goals that are often given only lip service or cursory reviews. The second and third questions clarify success measures and identify the risky assumptions that can later cause pain if not spotted early. The how questions - what are the activities, budgets, and schedules - comes last in our four-question system. By contrast, most project approaches prematurely concentrate on the how without first adequately addressing the three other questions. These four questions guide readers into fleshing out a simple, yet sophisticated, mental workbench called "the Logical Framework" - a Systems Thinking paradigm that lays out one's own project strategy in an easily accessible, interactive 4x4 matrix. The inclusion of memorable features and concepts (four critical questions, LogFrame matrix, If-then thinking, and Implementation Equation) make this book unique.
Finance for Strategic Decision Making demystifies and clarifies for non-financial executives the basics of financial analysis. It shows how they can make important financial decisions that can critically enhance their institution’s ability to respond to competitive challenges, undertake new projects, overcome financial setbacks, and most importantly, create shareholder value. Written by M. P. Narayanan and Vikram K. Nanda—two of the country’s leading authorities on financial strategy—this book offers a practical guide for using financial analysis to enhance strategicdecision making. The book includes a coherent framework that outlines practical and intellectually sound guidance for executives who must make strategic decisions. Finance for Strategic Decision Making Explains the role of finance in corporate strategy Offers guidance on resource allocation decisions Explores how to determine the right balance of debt and equity capital to maximize firm value Demonstrates how to use payout policy as a strategic tool Clarifies if a merger, acquisition, or divestiture is in the best interest of an organization Shows how to manage risk Reveals how to measure value created and the effectiveness of upper level management
Be a more effective leader with strategic thinking Leading with Strategic Thinking reveals what effectiveleaders do differently. Eschewing the one-size-fits-all leadershipmodel, this helpful guide outlines four general leadership typesand demonstrates how each type achieves success – whetherthrough personal vision, structured process, collaboration, or byempowering others. The authors identify the actions and skills thatdistinguish strategic leadership, drawn from interviews and focusgroups with over three hundred leaders from around the world.Examples and case studies illustrate these concepts in action, andthe provided reference materials steer readers toward more advancedinformation on this important topic. The disruptive forces of technology and globalization raise newchallenges for leaders. This book is a manual that will helpexecutives and aspiring leaders harness these forces and addressthe two central questions of strategic leadership: How do the best leaders develop their strategy? How do effective leaders drive strategic change? Becoming a strategic leader isn’t about mimicking an icon.The most effective leaders seize opportunity in a way thatconsciously integrates environmental requirements, stakeholderexpectations, and personal ability. Leading with StrategicThinking shows what these leaders do, and gives anyone thetools to be a more strategic leader.
Today’s organizations face difficult challenges in order to remain competitive—the quickening pace of change, increasing uncertainty, growing ambiguity, and complexity. To meet these challenges, organizations must broaden the scope of leadership responsibility for strategic leadership and engage more people in the process of leadership. In Becoming a Strategic Leader Rich Hughes and Kate Beatty from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) offer executives and managers a handbook for implementing a strategic leadership process that reaches leaders at all levels of organizations. Based on CCL’s successful Developing the Strategic Leader Program, this book outlines the framework of strategic leadership and contains practical suggestions on how to develop the individual, team, and organizational skills needed for institutions to become more adaptable, flexible, and resilient. The authors also show how individual managers can exercise effective strategic leadership through their distinctive and systemic approach—thinking, acting, and influencing.
Publisher's description: What the Best MBAs Know provides professionals who don't have the coveted M.B.A. designation with the skills and knowledge taught in today's finest programs. Professors from Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, and other influential programs contribute detailed chapters on broad-scope topics such as strategy, functional areas including accounting, and key disciplines from managerial economics to decision analysis. The resulting application-based book gives readers complete mastery over the most important concepts of an M.B.A. education, leveling the playing field between M.B.A. and non-M.B.A. professionals. Organized according to the subject matter of the core M.B.A. curriculum, this unique and valuable book features: fascinating boxes discussing real-world situations and applications; companion website with interactive exercises, key links, and more; and focused review questions and exercises for each chapter and area.
Strategic Financial Management is an all-inclusive textbook intended to meet the necessities of postgraduate management students specializing in area of finance. The purpose of this book is to acquaint readers with the theoretical and practical aspects of managing finance in an organization to maximize its value through various examples and exhibits. The book begins with an introduction to strategy, financial planning and the method of financial forecasting. Then it explains the concept related to strategic financial management, its scope and how it is used by managers across organizations. Following this, it explores the risk analysis techniques in the selection of any project. The book also discusses the various aspect of valuation of business and talks about all the valuation approaches used by an organization to value the business in case of strategic alliances like mergers, takeovers etc. Further, various sources of international long term finances and methods for international trade finance have been explained in detail. This book gives the clarity on the concept of strategy and its relationship with financial management and also gives clear picture on valuation aspects of the business in an organization. Providing an interface between strategy and finance, it facilitates both, strategic thinking and financial acumen. It contains creative, pragmatically-tested ideas on strategic management of finance and financial evaluation of strategies. This book has plenteous examples, solved numerical examples and questions for intellectual discussions. A very useful book for the students of MBA and other related program of finance.
Hone your ability to make strategic leadership decisions in a volatile and complex world In the revised and updated edition of Leading with Strategic Thinking, a team of leadership and strategy experts deliver an incisive and engaging approach leaders can use to make better decisions and drive strategic change. Rooted in academic research and tested with over three thousand leaders around the world, this practical book reveals how the most effective leaders and organizations gain insight, make good choices, and manage risk. Building on strategies introduced in their first book, Leading with Strategic Thinking, this new work offers the latest guidance on navigating the extreme volatility inherent in today’s commercial markets, as well as new actions, strategies, and tools rooted in a four-part framework that helps match the right leadership approach to a given situation. You’ll also find: Case studies featuring the hands-on, in-depth tactics real leaders use to handle a wide variety of contexts and situations Tools and techniques strategic leaders will find helpful as they address challenges inherent in volatile and uncertain environments Insights drawn from the latest research and thinking at leading universities Principles to inform a personal action plan for being more strategic in an increasingly uncertain world A can’t-miss resource for managers, executives, and other business leaders, the revised and updated edition of Leading with Strategic Thinking will also earn a place in the libraries of people just beginning a new career and consultants who regularly work with organizations and teams of all kinds.
