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Showing posts with label Management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Management. Show all posts

Monday, October 14, 2013

The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting Fresh from the Lemonade Stand, Revised edition, Judith Orloff



"Fantastic Learning Tool...Don't let this book title fool you. It is not an oversimplification of accounting and financial principles. It is, however, a serious and very effective examination of a very small but progressively complex business. There are not many books available on the market that make a complex and dry subject understandable and even fun. This book successfully does just that."
-Amazon Reviewer

The Clearest Explanation Ever of the Key Accounting Basics

The world of accounting can be intimidating. Whether you're a manager, business owner or aspiring entrepreneur, you've likely found yourself needing to know basic accounting...but baffled by complicated accounting books. What if learning accounting could be as simple and fun as running a child's lemonade stand? It can.

The Accounting Game presents financial information in a format so simple and so unlike a common accounting textbook, you may forget you're learning key skills that will help you get ahead! Using the world of a child's lemonade stand to teach the basics of managing your finances, this book makes a dry subject fun and understandable. As you run your stand, you'll begin to understand and apply financial terms and concepts like assets, liabilities, earnings, inventory and notes payable, plus:

--Interactive format gives you hands-on experience
--Color-coded charts and worksheets help you remember key terms
--Step-by-step process takes you from novice to expert with ease
--Fun story format speeds retention of essential concepts
--Designed to apply what you learn to the real world

The revolutionary approach of The Accounting Game takes the difficult subjects of accounting and business finance and makes them something you can easily learn, understand, remember and use!

"The game approach makes the subject matter most understandable. I highly recommend it to anyone frightened by either numbers or accountants."
-John Hernandis, Director of Corporate Communications, American Greetings

from the Introduction

The Accounting Game is written in a way that creates a specific learning experience for you as it teaches you the basic skills of accounting. We call the learning method accelerative learning. What do you think that means? It is a learning methodology that uses all of your senses as well as your emotions and your critical thinking skills. If you can remember your kindergarten or elementary school classrooms, you will see many colored maps, letters and numbers, bold (even raw) drawings by each child, etc. You learned the alphabet by singing. You learned the multiplication tables by saying them out loud with each other. You laughed a lot. You were creative.

Then, how you were taught began to change when you entered middle school or high school. Learning became more lecture, more black and white, more rote. You studied before tests and probably did well or maybe not. Yet, for all the endless homework and "cramming," most of the information you learned in high school you don't remember now. That's because it went into your short-term memory so that you could pass the tests and move on to the next grade.

Yet, look at all the things you remember from early childhood! While in elementary school, much of the information you learned went directly to your long-term memory, because it was peppered with music, color, movement, smells, emotional experiences and lots of play and fun.

The methodology we use in this book in many ways parallels how you learned in grade school. We do this by accessing the part of your brain where long-term memory lives. Now, the way to reach your long-term memory has to include emotion, because they reside in the same place in your brain--the limbic region.

The truth is, because of the way we humans learn, we have to discover something ourselves to really learn it. This book, based on Educational Discoveries' flagship seminar, is designed so you make dozens of discoveries. In short, you will learn a college semester's worth of accounting in the time it takes you to interact with this book.

This is quite a reversal, because business people and students have over the years found the subject of accounting quite difficult to master. Many have simply given up in frustration, others have decided to leave accounting to the "experts." This book is for all of you who have hated accounting, had difficulty learning it or ever thought you didn't really "get it."

We think that most attempts to teach accounting fail because of too much attention to details and a failure to present the big picture framework of how it all works and fits together. In this book, we promise not to overburden you with details and to focus on what are really the key concepts of accounting that any businessperson needs to know.

You will learn the structure and purpose of the three primary financial statements--the balance sheet, the income statement and the cash flow statement. You will learn how these fit together and their interrelationships. You will also learn the basic language of business--concepts like cost of goods sold, expenses, bad debts, accrual vs. cash methods of accounting, FIFO and LIFO, capitalizing vs. expensing, depreciation and the difference between cash and profit.

Our promise is that you will get all this information in a fun and easy way that allows you to participate, interact and discover all that you need to know. Many people need to have understanding and confidence in working with financial concepts, but are not ever going to be doing accounting details. If that is you, then this book fits that need, too. It is set up so that you can actually do financial statements as you are learning them. We invite you to "play the game" as you interact with this book.

Understanding all this information is nice, but what do you do with it? The final chapter will give you some tools for analyzing financial information and making better decisions for your company and your career.

About the Author
For the past 25 years, Judith Orloff has been helping people transform their lives through self-awareness and education. Among her most significant accomplishments is the founding of the Burlington College in Vermont, where she also created a B.A. program in Transpersonal Psychology. In addition, Orloff is the founder of Educational Discoveries, Inc., which not only produces The Accounting Game, but also is the training industry leader in accelerative learning and instructional design. EDI's The Accounting Game is the most successful financial seminar in the world, with over 100,000 graduates.

For the past decade, Darrell Mullis, the Director of Training and Development at Educational Discoveries, has taught EDI's learning technology and developed a training program for its trainers. Mullis has also taught over 300 of the phenomenally successful Accounting Game seminars to thousands of Americans. Mullis lives with his four daughters in Louisville, Colorado.

Product Details :
  • Paperback: 179 pages
  • Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.; Revised edition (April 18, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1402211864
  • ISBN-13: 978-1402211867
  • Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 8.3 x 10.5 inches

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Financial Management: Theory & Practice (with Thomson ONE - Business School Edition 1-Year Printed Access Card), 14th Edition, Eugene F. Brigham



Any suggestions for copywriter or provide generic description of the product to be used for the Internet or non-channel specific applications. NOTE: If you have a book only version for this product, it is imperative that you provide a description that does not include any references to package elements. Striking a balance between solid financial theory and practical applications, Brigham/Ehrhardt's FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: THEORY AND PRACTICE, 14e gives readers a thorough understanding of the essential concepts they need to develop and implement effective financial strategies. The book begins with a presentation of corporate finance fundamentals before progressing to discussions of specific techniques that are used to maximize the value of a firm. It also thoroughly explores the recent financial and economic crises and the role of finance in the business world and in readers' personal lives. With its relevant and engaging presentation, cutting-edge coverage, and numerous examples, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT help readers become First in Finance.

Review

"… [FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: THEORY & PRACTICE] complements the emphasis on case analyses in my Applied Financial Management and Financial Strategy and Valuation courses."

"I don't have background on finances, this book was very helpful. It comes with extra bonuses and excel exercises as well as online guidance."

About the Author

Dr. Eugene F. Brigham is Graduate Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida, where he has taught since 1971. Dr. Brigham received his M.B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley and his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina. Prior to joining the University of Florida, Dr. Brigham held teaching positions at the University of Connecticut, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California-Los Angeles. Dr. Brigham has served as president of the Financial Management Association and has written many journal articles on the cost of capital, capital structure, and other aspects of financial management. He has authored or co-authored ten textbooks on managerial finance and managerial economics that are used at more than 1,000 universities in the United States and have been translated into 11 languages worldwide. He has testified as an expert witness in numerous electric, gas, and telephone rate cases at both federal and state levels. He has served as a consultant to many corporations and government agencies, including the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the U.S. Office of Telecommunications Policy, and the RAND Corporation. Dr. Brigham continues to teach, consult, and complete research in addition to his academic writing. He spends his spare time on the golf course, enjoying time with his family and dogs, and tackling outdoor adventure activities, such as biking through Alaska.

Dr. Michael C. Ehrhardt is a Professor in the Finance Department and is the Paul and Beverly Castagna Professor of Investments. He completed his undergraduate work in Civil Engineering at Swarthmore College. After working several years as an engineer, he earned his M.S. in Operations Research and Ph.D. in Finance from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Ehrhardt has taught extensively at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of investments, corporate finance, and capital markets. He has directed and served on numerous dissertation committees and is a member of the team that developed and delivered the integrative first year of the MBA program. Dr. Ehrhardt teaches in Executive Education Programs and consults in the areas of corporate valuation, value-based compensation plans, financial aspects of supply-chain management, and the cost of capital. He has been awarded the Allen G. Keally Outstanding Teacher Award, the Tennessee Organization of MBA Students Outstanding Faculty member, the College of Business Administration Research & Teaching Award, and the John B. Ross Outstanding Teaching Award in the College of Business. Much of his research focuses on corporate valuation and asset pricing models, including pricing models for interest-rate sensitive instruments. His work has been published in numerous journals, including The Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Financial Management, The Financial Review, The Journal of Financial Research, and The Journal of Banking and Finance. He has also authored or co-authored several books addressing various areas of finance.

Product Details :
  • Hardcover: 1200 pages
  • Publisher: Cengage Learning; 14 edition (January 28, 2013)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1111972206
  • ISBN-13: 978-1111972202
  • Product Dimensions: 1.5 x 8.3 x 10.2 inches

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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Contemporary Strategy Analysis, 7th Edition, Robert M. Grant


The publisher merely released a lazy ecopy for the Kindle edition without thinking of how we would read it or interact with the content. You can't read any of the graphics on the Kindle for Mac edition (don't even think about it for my Kindle touch). This is where the 'experience' of reading needs to evolve from a publishers perspective and they need to think about it not as a book but the ability to consume everything from a users' experience perspective. I would get more out of an actual .pdf exact copy file than this kindle copy. The kindle version is worthless... I had to revert to the actual book to read and follow along. I uploaded pictures comparing the two... Quite frustrating.

For this to to be a book on strategy, they failed to understand the contemporary strategy surrounding consuming the content.

If you like to read books with coherent sentences, pick a different book. "Grammatically incorrect" is the best description I can give. The editor needs to be replaced considering this was the seventh attempt. Better luck on the eighth version.

Grant discusses industry evolution and strategic choices faced by several businesses including Madonna, Laura Ashley Holdings Plc, US airline industry, Ford and world automobile industry, Wal-mart, Manchester United, Eastman Kodak, Royal Dutch Shell, Harley Davidson, Raisio Group, Video game industry, Eni SpA, Birds Eye and US frozen food industry, Outback Steakhouse, Euro Disney, Virgin Group, GE (under both Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt), and AES Corporation. It was fun finding the rich details of each case in one place rather than hunt for them amongst multiple sources.

I liked Mr. Grant's readable style and enjoyed the reading of the text from cover to cover. Just waiting for the time when hard copies will be available for Kindle. Many times I'm off on travel and would like to take some references with me, but weight restrictions prohibit it from traveling with me.

I picked this up for a course on business strategy and enjoyed reading it. there some good information and the book is easy to read. amazon's buy back program is awesome and i sold the textbook back when the class was over since the book wasn't worth holding on to.

Product Details :
  • Paperback: 516 pages
  • Publisher: Wiley; 7th edition (February 9, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0470747102
  • ISBN-13: 978-0470747100
  • Product Dimensions: 0.9 x 7.6 x 9.7 inches

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Strategy and the Business Landscape, 3rd Edition, Pankaj E. Ghemawat


From the Back Cover

Strategy and the Business Landscape: Core Concepts offers a contemporary yet historically grounded perspective on the field of strategy. Pankaj Ghemawat in association with David. J. Collins, Jan W. Rivkin, and Gary P. Pisano, provides firm-centered and value-based logic to bridge some of the great debates about strategy today. Always practical, while still rigorous, key concepts are laid out succinctly and illustrated with rich examples, often drawn from the author team's rich professional experience.

This text represents the core concepts of Harvard's required Competition and Strategy course offered at the Harvard Business School.

About the Author

Pankaj Ghemawat is the Jaime and Josefina Chua Tiampo Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University's Graduate School of Business Administration and Head of the Strategy Unit. He received his Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University, he worked as a consultant with McKinsey & Company in London during 1982 and 1983, and has taught at the Harvard Business School since then. In 1991, he was appointed the youngest full professor in the Business School's history. One strand of his research and teaching focuses on the dynamics of globalization and generic strategies for international firms. Another strand of his work is concerned with foundational issues in business strategy, particularly work on the topics of competitive dynamics, business scope, and complexity.

Professor Ghemawat's publications include Commitment (Free Press, 1991), Games Businesses Play (MIT Press, 1997), and Strategy and the Business Landscape (Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), as well as several dozen articles and case studies. He serves on the editorial boards of Management Science, Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, LongRange Planning, the Strategic Management Journal, and Strategic Organization.

Pankaj Ghemawat is the Anselmo Rubiralta Professor of Global Strategy at IESE Business School. Between 1983 and 2006, he served on the faculty at the Harvard Business School where, in 1991, he became the youngest person in the school's history to be appointed a full professor. And before that, he earned his A.B. degree in Applied Mathematics and his Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard.

Ghemawat was also the youngest "guru" included in the guide to the greatest management thinkers of all time published in 2008 by The Economist. His books include Commitment, Games Businesses Play, Strategy and the Business Landscape and the award-winning Redefining Global Strategy, which The New York Times called " a nicely revised picture of globalization as regionalization."

He is the author of more than 100 research articles and case studies, ranks as one of the world's best-selling authors of teaching cases, and has been elected a fellow of the Academy of International Business and of the Strategic Management Society. Other recent honors include the McKinsey Award for the best article published in the Harvard Business Review and the Irwin Award for the Educator of the Year from the Business Policy and Strategy division of the Academy of Management.

Ghemawat is active in helping companies, governments, multilateral institutions, and business schools better understand and address international opportunities and challenges. He consults on strategy and leadership development around the world and is a regular speaker on globalization-related topics. He also served on the taskforce appointed by the AACSB, the U.S.-based accreditation body for business schools, on the Globalization of Management Education, and authored the report's recommendations concerning what to teach about globalization, and how.


Product Details :
  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Prentice Hall; 3 edition (July 12, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0136015557
  • ISBN-13: 978-0136015550
  • Product Dimensions: 0.3 x 7 x 9 inches

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Saturday, July 27, 2013

Framework for Marketing Management (5th Edition), Paperback, Philip Kotler


This book contains page after page of definitions and reads like a dictionary in paragraph form. The test bank (that my professor uses) is full of definition questions. At an MBA level, this is a mockery of the students' abilities. By graduate school it is safe to say we know how to memorize definitions. We are looking for applicable marketing skills, which are not addressed in this book. Waste of money!

As a Graduate student in an MBA program my focus has been in financial and sales. Not having any experience with marketing put me at a disadvantage.
This text managed to cover all aspects of this subject in an effective way and also provide real world examples.
A good read.

It is basically page after page of definitions and descriptions of concepts. Not many examples of good strategies. It is like reading a thesaurus. I hate this book.

This review is only for this book, not for any other books by the same authors. Yes, there is great information in this book about marketing, but I must say the greatest talent is wasted in poor writing (if they call this a book). The information is told in a very dry manner and rarely there are examples provided for ideas. It assumes you already know the author's other work. The authors' other books are much thicker, which makes me believe that this is just a "book of outlines" of all the great details in the other books. What I don't get the most is the cost, $113 at Amazon!!! Wow, I start to question the messages the authors are teaching on marketing! Who would buy this book?!! If I am not forced, I would never. There are many good marketing books out there that are fitting to modern day markets. Shame on the professors who only provide this book for the MBA classes and not providing the real marketing books!

"As a college professor I assign this book for several reasons; (1) it is concise and gives a summary overview of major topics in marketing; (2) this means that I as the teacher add in REAL TIME examples to supplement the book so the student aren't reading out-dated material; (3) it is MUCH cheaper than 'other' marketing textbooks since it is concise. I believe it is up to your teacher to add in any material that will make the content come alive for the class. This book clearly does what it intends to do - provides a concise summary of major topics so the creative teacher can add in his/her own examples, cases, simulations etc to enrich the content."



Product Details :
  • Paperback: 360 pages
  • Publisher: Prentice Hall; 5 edition (March 3, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0132539306
  • ISBN-13: 978-0132539302
  • Product Dimensions: 0.6 x 7.3 x 8.9 inches

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Bundle: Financial Management: Theory & Practice (with Thomson ONE - Business School Edition 1-Year Printed Access Card), 13th + CengageNOW Printed Access Card [CD-ROM], 13th Edition, Eugene F. Brigham


Dr. Eugene F. Brigham is Graduate Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida, where he has taught since 1971. Dr. Brigham received his M.B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley and his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina. Prior to joining the University of Florida, Dr. Brigham held teaching positions at the University of Connecticut, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California-Los Angeles. Dr. Brigham has served as president of the Financial Management Association and has written many journal articles on the cost of capital, capital structure, and other aspects of financial management. He has authored or co-authored ten textbooks on managerial finance and managerial economics that are used at more than 1,000 universities in the United States and have been translated into 11 languages worldwide. He has testified as an expert witness in numerous electric, gas, and telephone rate cases at both federal and state levels. He has served as a consultant to many corporations and government agencies, including the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the U.S. Office of Telecommunications Policy, and the RAND Corporation. Dr. Brigham continues to teach, consult, and complete research in addition to his academic writing. He spends his spare time on the golf course, enjoying time with his family and dogs, and tackling outdoor adventure activities, such as biking through Alaska.

Dr. Michael C. Ehrhardt is a Professor in the Finance Department and is the Paul and Beverly Castagna Professor of Investments. He completed his undergraduate work in Civil Engineering at Swarthmore College. After working several years as an engineer, he earned his M.S. in Operations Research and Ph.D. in Finance from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Ehrhardt has taught extensively at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of investments, corporate finance, and capital markets. He has directed and served on numerous dissertation committees and is a member of the team that developed and delivered the integrative first year of the MBA program. Dr. Ehrhardt teaches in Executive Education Programs and consults in the areas of corporate valuation, value-based compensation plans, financial aspects of supply-chain management, and the cost of capital. He has been awarded the Allen G. Keally Outstanding Teacher Award, the Tennessee Organization of MBA Students Outstanding Faculty member, the College of Business Administration Research & Teaching Award, and the John B. Ross Outstanding Teaching Award in the College of Business. Much of his research focuses on corporate valuation and asset pricing models, including pricing models for interest-rate sensitive instruments. His work has been published in numerous journals, including The Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Financial Management, The Financial Review, The Journal of Financial Research, and The Journal of Banking and Finance. He has also authored or co-authored several books addressing various areas of finance.




Product Details :
  • CD-ROM
  • Publisher: Cengage Learning; 13 edition (July 13, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 111122756X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1111227562
  • Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.1 x 1.7 inches

More Details about Bundle: Financial Management: Theory & Practice (with Thomson ONE - Business School Edition 1-Year Printed Access Card), 13th + CengageNOW Printed Access Card [CD-ROM], 13th Edition

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Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Financial Management: Theory & Practice, with Thomson ONE - Business School Edition 1-Year Printed Access Card, 14th edition, Eugene F. Brigham


Dr. Eugene F. Brigham is Graduate Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida, where he has taught since 1971. Dr. Brigham received his M.B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley and his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina. Prior to joining the University of Florida, Dr. Brigham held teaching positions at the University of Connecticut, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California-Los Angeles. Dr. Brigham has served as president of the Financial Management Association and has written many journal articles on the cost of capital, capital structure, and other aspects of financial management. He has authored or co-authored ten textbooks on managerial finance and managerial economics that are used at more than 1,000 universities in the United States and have been translated into 11 languages worldwide. He has testified as an expert witness in numerous electric, gas, and telephone rate cases at both federal and state levels. He has served as a consultant to many corporations and government agencies, including the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the U.S. Office of Telecommunications Policy, and the RAND Corporation. Dr. Brigham continues to teach, consult, and complete research in addition to his academic writing. He spends his spare time on the golf course, enjoying time with his family and dogs, and tackling outdoor adventure activities, such as biking through Alaska.


Dr. Michael C. Ehrhardt is a Professor in the Finance Department and is the Paul and Beverly Castagna Professor of Investments. He completed his undergraduate work in Civil Engineering at Swarthmore College. After working several years as an engineer, he earned his M.S. in Operations Research and Ph.D. in Finance from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Ehrhardt has taught extensively at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of investments, corporate finance, and capital markets. He has directed and served on numerous dissertation committees and is a member of the team that developed and delivered the integrative first year of the MBA program. Dr. Ehrhardt teaches in Executive Education Programs and consults in the areas of corporate valuation, value-based compensation plans, financial aspects of supply-chain management, and the cost of capital. He has been awarded the Allen G. Keally Outstanding Teacher Award, the Tennessee Organization of MBA Students Outstanding Faculty member, the College of Business Administration Research & Teaching Award, and the John B. Ross Outstanding Teaching Award in the College of Business. Much of his research focuses on corporate valuation and asset pricing models, including pricing models for interest-rate sensitive instruments. His work has been published in numerous journals, including The Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Financial Management, The Financial Review, The Journal of Financial Research, and The Journal of Banking and Finance. He has also authored or co-authored several books addressing various areas of finance.

Dr. Eugene F. Brigham is Graduate Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida, where he has taught since 1971. Dr. Brigham received his M.B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley and his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina. Prior to coming to the University of Florida, Dr. Brigham held teaching positions at the University of Connecticut, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California-Los Angeles. Dr. Brigham served as president of the Financial Management Association and wrote more than the 40 journal articles on the cost of capital, capital structure, and other aspects of financial management. The ten textbooks on managerial finance and managerial economics that he authored or co-authored are used at more than 1,000 universities in the United States, and have been translated into 11 languages worldwide. He has testified as an expert witness in numerous electric, gas, and telephone rate cases at both federal and state levels. He has served as a consultant to many corporations and government agencies, including the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the U.S. Office of Telecommunications Policy, and the RAND Corporation. Dr. Brigham continues to teach, consult, and do research, as well as work on textbooks. He spends his spare time on the golf course, enjoying time with his family and dogs, and tackling outdoor adventure activities, such as biking through Alaska.

Product Details :
  • Hardcover: 1200 pages
  • Publisher: Cengage Learning; 14 edition (January 28, 2013)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1111972206
  • ISBN-13: 978-1111972202
  • Product Dimensions: 1.5 x 8.3 x 10.2 inches
 

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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

The Price Advantage 2nd edition, Walter L. Baker



For all the advantages businesses pursue, there is one powerful advantage that is accessible to virtually every business—but realized by very few. That advantage is the price advantage. Pricing is far and away the most sensitive profit lever that managers can influence. Very small changes in average price translate into huge changes in operating profit, yet few companies are as disciplined and deliberate about pricing as they should be.

In the most comprehensive and insightful treatment of pricing management available today, this Second Edition of The Price Advantage shows companies how to use pricing excellence to outperform competitors and increase profitability in both good and bad times. Drawing on more than three decades of client success, three preeminent McKinsey & Company experts demonstrate why pricing is critical to bottom-line profitability and explain state-of-the-art approaches to analyzing pricing and building distinctive pricing capability. Working with colleagues and companies across the globe, they have helped develop leading-edge practical knowledge in pricing for clients in all major industries.

Written in pragmatic terms, this Second Edition of The Price Advantage continues to be the practical pricing guide for thoughtful general managers who have been tempted by the unrealized promise of improved pricing and, perhaps, even frustrated by attempts to translate pricing theory into bottom-line impact. It provides a structured approach for identifying where the most precious sources of untapped pricing opportunity reside in a business, along with practical, case-illustrated guidance on how to capture that opportunity.

Updated throughout to reflect changes in the global pricing environment and advances in McKinsey's pricing knowledge, this Second Edition covers a host of new topics including software and information products pricing, lifecycle pricing, custom-configured products pricing, pricing of high-count product lines, pricing in distributed sales environments, and tiered products and services pricing. Also, the building of a sustainable pricing capability and a high-performing pricing infrastructure is covered in much greater detail than ever before.

With emphasis on translating pricing theory into real improvements and bottom-line performance, the Second Edition of The Price Advantage is designed to give today's CEOs and business managers a competitive advantage in any economy.

The Price Advantage makes the case that pricing is the most under-appreciated lever for improving performance in most companies today. The authors put forth an argument that is compelling for business leaders in every company to elevate their view of pricing opportunities in general, and pricing as a key lever for performance management in particular. Most importantly, however, the book provides practical, pragmatic insights into what approaches a businessperson can take to identify and capture pricing opportunities. It brings both the opportunities and potential pitfalls to life through the frequent use of case examples where companies succeeded in "ringing the cash register" through effective pricing or left a great deal of money on the table through poor pricing actions.

Of particular usefulness are chapters on specific topics that a business leader tackling pricing is going to face sooner or later. The chapter on "industry strategy" where the authors lay out some of the tactics for being a price leader or good price follower seems to be fresh writing on these topics ( I have not seen anything written about this before, and I thought it was quite actionable). Also, the chapter on pricing architecture set forth nicely the different ways of structuring price to drive the right customer and reseller behavior, again providing a way to look at the issue that should drive toward results effectively.
The chapter on issues/opportunities that arise from mergers/acquisitions provides distinctive perspectives on how to take advantage of opportunities and/or avoid huge downside risks associated with these events. The price wars chapter provides a guide for many managers to utilize in avoiding counterproductive (often inadvertent) actions across the markets in which they compete. Sidestepping just one of the potholes that the authors describe is likely to save a business great pain. Executing a strategy that weaves its way through the price war minefield discussed is likely to make the business a top performer, and the managers leading such an effort heroes.

The discussion of pricing technology appeared only to scratch the surface, perhaps a necessity due to the rapid innovation underway. While I was left wanting more in this area, the book did provide a way to segment solutions and approaches in this area that should be useful for those exploring the range of options available in today's - or tomorrow's - marketplace.

Finally, as you would expect from the authors' backgrounds, the insights on how to architect an organizational change program provide a framework that should be useful regardless of whether the challenge is a large enterprise or if you're tackling a focused initiative to capture value in a single product line.

A friend of mine who knows I have an interest in pricing sent me a free copy of this book. Michael Marn has led the pricing practice at McKinsey & Company for a long time now, and I'd been wondering why he hadn't published a pricing book before now.

Unfortunately it turns out to be something of a one-trick pony, and a pony pretty long in the tooth at that. About half of it talks about the well-known price-benefit map. No question it's a fundamental idea, but hardly leading edge. Plus you need a McKinsey team to execute it. Given the pedigree of the authors I was hoping for more. A lot of the book just repeats McKinsey's early work on price wars, postmerger pricing, and overall strategy--good stuff but again nothing new.

If you're interested in pricing, in my opinion there are better options than this.

This is the best book on pricing out in the market today. It is easy to understand and pragmatic......not one of the theory intensive books written by academics that have little or no practical value. Mike Marn's ideas are both easy to understand and to implement. I manage pricing for a SBU of a very large industrial company. Using the ideas from the book (along with a lot of very hard work), we were able to realize a very significant improvement at our bottom line without adding to the competitive intensity of the marketplace. Nothing in the book is magic; however, it all hangs together. A company that executes well on his ideas, will no doubt improve their financial performance.

Product Details :
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Wiley; 2 edition (June 8, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0470481773
ISBN-13: 978-0470481776
Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.2 x 9.3 inches

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