Other books that might interest you

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  The End of Normal - The Great...

  James K. Galbraith

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  The years since the Great Crisis of 2008 have seen slow growth, high unemployment, falling home values, chronic deficits, a deepening disaster in Europe—and a stale argument between two false solutions, “austerity” on one side and “stimulus” on the other. Both sides and practically all analyses of the crisis so far take for granted that the economic growth from the early 1950s until 2000—interrupted only by the troubled 1970s—represented a normal performance. From this perspective the crisis was an interruption, caused by bad policy or bad people, and full recovery is to be expected if the cause is corrected. The End of Normal challenges this view. Placing the crisis in perspective, Galbraith argues that the 1970s already ended the age of easy growth. The 1980s and 1990s saw only uneven growth, with rising inequality within and between countries. And the 2000s saw the end even of that—despite frantic efforts to keep growth going with tax cuts, war spending, and financial deregulation. When the crisis finally came, stimulus and automatic stabilization were able to place a floor under economic collapse. But they are not able to bring about a return to high growth and full employment. Today, four factors impede a return to normal. They are the rising costs of real resources, the now-evident futility of military power, the labor-saving consequences of the digital revolution, and the breakdown of law and ethics in the financial sector. The Great Crisis should be seen as a turning point, a barometer of the rise of unstable economic conditions, which should be regarded as the new normal. Policies and institutions going forward should be designed, above all, modestly, to cope with this fact, maintaining conditions for a good life in difficult times.

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  Managing Brand Equity -...

  David A. Aaker

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  The most important assets of any business are intangible: its company name, brands, symbols, and slogans, and their underlying associations, perceived quality, name awareness, customer base, and proprietary resources such as patents, trademarks, and channel relationships. These assets, which comprise brand equity, are a primary source of competitive advantage and future earnings, contends David Aaker, a national authority on branding. Yet, research shows that managers cannot identify with confidence their brand associations, levels of consumer awareness, or degree of customer loyalty. Moreover in the last decade, managers desperate for short-term financial results have often unwittingly damaged their brands through price promotions and unwise brand extensions, causing irreversible deterioration of the value of the brand name. Although several companies, such as Canada Dry and Colgate-Palmolive, have recently created an equity management position to be guardian of the value of brand names, far too few managers, Aaker concludes, really understand the concept of brand equity and how it must be implemented.  In a fascinating and insightful examination of the phenomenon of brand equity, Aaker provides a clear and well-defined structure of the relationship between a brand and its symbol and slogan, as well as each of the five underlying assets, which will clarify for managers exactly how brand equity does contribute value. The author opens each chapter with a historical analysis of either the success or failure of a particular company's attempt at building brand equity: the fascinating Ivory soap story; the transformation of Datsun to Nissan; the decline of Schlitz beer; the making of the Ford Taurus; and others. Finally, citing examples from many other companies, Aaker shows how to avoid the temptation to place short-term performance before the health of the brand and, instead, to manage brands strategically by creating, developing, and exploiting each of the five assets in turn

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  Why She Buys - The New Strategy...

  Bridget Brennan

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  If the consumer economy had a sex, it would be female.If the business world had a sex, it would be male. And therein lies the pickle.Women are the engine of the global economy, driving nearly 80 percent of consumer household spending in the United States alone. They hold the purse strings, and when they've got a tight grip on them as they do now, companies must be shrewder than ever to win them over. Just when executives have mastered becoming technology literate, they find there's another skill they need: becoming female literate.This isn't always easy. Gender is the most powerful determinant of how a person views the world and everything in it. It's stronger than age, income, or race. While there are mountains of research done every year segmenting consumers and analyzing why they buy, more often than not it doesn't factor in the one piece of information that trumps them all: the sex of the buyer.It's stunning how many companies overlook the psychology of gender when we all know that men and women look at the world so differently. Bridget Brennan's Why She Buys shows decision makers how to bridge this divide and capture the business of the world's most powerful consumers just when they need it most.

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  The Secret of Directional...

  James P. Pinkerton

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  To know the trend, spot the trend, or shape the trend is to make money.The trend is your friend—investors know that. But the biggest money comes from the biggest events. The more delta, the more alpha.In that spirit, The Secret of Directional Investing offers a new way of thinking about investing, steeped in culture and history. Focusing on megatrends, this book points out ways to profit from an understanding of two kinds of trends: those that can be spotted, and those that can be shaped. There's money in both. The Romans weren't kidding when they said, Audentes Fortuna luvat—Fortune favors the bold. The Secret of Directional Investing is a bold look at investments and potential investments.

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  Clash of the Generations -...

  Valerie M. Grubb

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  Case studies and strategies for more effective multi-generational management 
  Clash of the Generations explores this new and increasingly common workplace phenomenon, and provides strategies to help managers navigate this ever more complex maze. Traditionally, older workers would retire and make room for the next generation; instead, Baby Boomers are now prolonging their time in the workplace, yet the successive generations are still coming in. Senior leaders are now left to manage a blended workplace comprised of up to four generations—each with their own ideas of work ethic, work/life balance, long-term career goals, and much more. Management is challenging at the best of times, but the new prevalence of generation gaps—sometimes even layered—add an entirely new dimension to an already complex responsibility. This book presents case studies and interviews with representatives of companies with age-diverse workforces, detailing innovative strategies for smoothing out the bumps and helping everyone work together. 
  Managers have long wished that their positions came with an instruction manual, and this book delivers with a host of effective inter-generational management strategies illustrated by real-world companies.

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  The Risk of Trading - Mastering...

  Michael Toma

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  The Risk of Trading takes an in-depth look at the challenges traders have in regards to one of the most critical facets of trading: risk management. The book takes a magnifying look at risk that every trader needs to have and understand in order to be successful in trading. Most traders look at risk in terms of a "stop-loss" that enables them to exit a losing trade quickly. In The Risk of Trading, Michael Toma explains that risk is ever-present in every aspect of trading and advocates that traders adopt a more comprehensive view of risk that encompasses the strategic trading plan; account size; drawdowns; maximum possible losses; psychological capital; and crisis management. He advocates that traders conduct a detailed statistical analysis of their methodology through backtesting and real-time results so as to identify when the methodology may be breaking down in actual trading. Ultimately, Toma asserts, traders should look at themselves more as project managers who are constantly managing risk rather than gamblers placing bets and hoping over time to come out ahead. In so doing, traders will begin to operate more as business managers and are much likely to avoid market-busting losses and achieve consistently good results.

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