This history of the internationally prominent insurance corporation Allianz AG in the Nazi era is based largely on new or previously unavailable archival sources. This book joins a growing body of scholarship based on free access to the records of German corporations in the Nazi era.
"Reinsurance has to be international in accordance with its nature." This is the well-known viewpoint of Carl von Thieme, one of the founders of Munich Re, who also served as its general director for many years. Thus, it was not a coincidence that the company rose to become the world market leader rather quickly after its founding in 1880. In the following period, Munich Re stayed on top or was occasionally second to Swiss Re. Nonetheless, the broader public does not know much about the company. Johannes Bähr and Christopher Kopper now present the first history of the reinsurer from its beginnings into the 1980s. Few companies have risen to become world market leaders as quickly as Munich Re, and only the fewest have succeeded in remaining at the top of the world market for as long. The company’s history reveals how insurers reacted to major catastrophes and technological shifts. Without sharing risks with reinsurers, countless direct insurers would not have survived the economic consequences of major natural catastrophes and would have been forced into bankruptcy by the weight of their payment obligations. Consequently, reinsurers even made coverage for some risks possible in the first place. Yet Munich Re itself also repeatedly contributed to the introduction of new segments of insurance, such as in the case of machine insurance or high-risk life insurance. Thus, the history of this pioneer of globalization is, at the same time, a history of dealing with risks and managing the distribution of risk. Last but not least, it is also the history of a German company that profited from the National Socialist dictatorship and, with great effort, had to find its way back into the world market after the two world wars.
Enduring Success addresses a key question in business today: How can companies succeed over time? To learn the source of enduring greatness, author Christian Stadler directed a team of eight researchers in a six-year study of some of Europe's oldest and most stellar companies, targeting nine that have survived for more than 100 years and have significantly outperformed the market over the past fifty years. Readers may wonder, "Why European companies?" Yet, Europe is the ideal place to seek the key to long-term success; half of the Fortune Global 500 companies that are 100 years old or older can be found in Europe, as can 72 of the 100 oldest family businesses in the world. Fifteen years after Collins and Porras' Built to Last, this new book incorporates fresh insights from management science and provides the first non-US perspective on long-range success. Through Stadler's study, a counterintuitive story emerges: the greatest companies adapt to a constantly changing environment by being intelligently conservative. Enduring Success provides a coherent framework, grounded in five principles and practical concepts, for business leaders who are prepared to learn from the history of some of the world's greatest institutions. Please visit the author's YouTube channel www.youtube.com/user/StadlerChristian for more discussion of the book.
The Challenge Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The Study For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great? The Standards Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. The Comparisons The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't. The Findings The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include: Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence. A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap. “Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.” Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?
A cutting-edge guide to applying the latest research in brain science to leadership - to sharpen performance, encourage innovation, and enhance job satisfaction. **Featured on NPR, Success, Investor Business Daily, Thrive Global, MindBodyGreen, The Chicago Tribune, and more** There's a revolution taking place that most businesses are still unaware of. The understanding of how our brains work has radically shifted, exploding long-held myths about our everyday cognitive performance and fundamentally changing the way we engage and succeed in the workplace. Combining their expertise in both neuropsychology and management consulting, neuropsychologist Friederike Fabritius and leadership expert Dr. Hans W. Hagemann present simple yet powerful strategies for: - Sharpening focus - Achieving the highest performance - Learning and retaining information more efficiently - Improving complex decision-making - Cultivating trust and building strong teams Based on the authors' popular leadership programs, which have been delivered to tens of thousands of leaders all over the world, this clear, insightful, and engaging book will help both individuals and teams perform at their maximum potential, delivering extraordinary results. **Named a Best Business Book of 2017 by Strategy+Business**
In the first edition of this landmark book, business loyalty guru Fred Reichheld revealed the question most critical to your company’s future: “Would you recommend us to a friend?” By asking customers this question, you identify detractors, who sully your firm’s reputation and readily switch to competitors, and promoters, who generate good profits and true, sustainable growth. You also generate a vital metric: your Net Promoter Score. Since the book was first published, Net Promoter has transformed companies, across industries and sectors, constituting a game-changing system and ethos that rivals Six Sigma in its power. In this thoroughly updated and expanded edition, Reichheld, with Bain colleague Rob Markey, explains how practitioners have built Net Promoter into a full-fledged management system that drives extraordinary financial and competitive results. With his trademark clarity, Reichheld: • Defines the fundamental concept of Net Promoter, explaining its connection to your company’s growth and sustained success • Presents the closed-loop feedback process and demonstrates its power to energize employees and delight customers • Shares new and compelling stories of companies that have transformed their performance by putting Net Promoter at the center of their business Practical and insightful, The Ultimate Question 2.0 provides a blueprint for long-term growth and success.
Sustainability thinking is rapidly gaining traction. It offers an inspiring vision for the future of the world and provides significant business and investment opportunities. Based on insights from over 300 empirical studies, this book explores the possibilities in the field of renewable energy finance, carbon trading, and sustainable investing. In addition, it describes innovative finance mechanisms – such as green bonds and peer-to-peer lending – that may further spur environmental and social sustainability. By taking an empirical, fact-based approach, this book aims to provide investors, business executives, and policymakers with a more thorough understanding of how sustainable finance can create value for business and society. Key words: Sustainable finance, renewable energy finance, cleantech, green investing, sustainable investments, responsible investments, carbon trading, carbon finance, ESG, impact investing.
Currently, there is no official method for how to measure innovation in business. This is where Innovation Accounting comes in. This book helps businesses to develop their level of capability and performance within innovation and accounting. This guide provides examples of tools, templates, and frameworks that businesses can utilize to improve their business culture, inspire innovation, and find a way to measure innovation. In a world where numbers, statistics, and analytics are increasingly becoming the most important aspect of everyday business, this book can help to find meaning in innovative practices and measure them. This will allow you to demonstrate to stakeholders how capital is used, and the impact it has on the business. So whether you're managing a lean startup aiming to meet a particularly difficult to meet KPI, or a corporation aiming to replicate the level of success you achieved in your most recent financial quarter, this book will contain something for everyone.
This book presents a selection of the latest arbitration cases, materials, and commentaries from China. It aims to provide information on the theory and practice of arbitration combined. It is intended to provide readers with a useful resource to guide them when they encounter actual China-related arbitration cases. This book is a valuable resource for all practitioners concerned with international and foreign-related arbitration matters in China, global law firms, companies engaged in multinational business, jurists, and academics.