Business

Brief Summary In only 30 days, entrepreneurs can craft business plans that make their goals a reality. A concrete business plan is essential when assessing a business's earning potential or when applying for financing. Tips & Traps for Writing an Effective Business Plan uses the popular Tips & Traps format to guide you step by step through the process of creating an effective plan that will work with a developing business. You'll learn how to assemble information and write each part of your plan, with the goal of having a ready-to-go, working strategy in just 30 days. The book also provides specific advice for crafting plans that apply to different industries and also includes detailed instructions for writing a financial plan. ISBN:9780071467513 Author:Greg Balanko-Dickson

Brief Summary Don Keough—a former top executive at Coca-Cola and now chairman of the elite investment banking firm Allen & Company—has witnessed plenty of failures in his sixty-year career (including New Coke). He has also been friends with some of the most successful people in business history, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Jack Welch, Rupert Murdoch, and Peter Drucker. Now this elder statesman reveals how great enterprises get into trouble. Even the smartest executives can fall into the trap of believing in their own infallibility. When that happens, more bad decisions are sure to follow. This light-hearted "how-not-to” book includes anecdotes from Keough’s long career as well as other infamous failures. His commandments for failure include: • Quit Taking Risks; • Be Inflexible; • Assume Infallibility; • Put All Your Faith in Experts; • Send Mixed Messages; and • Be Afraid of the Future. As he writes, "After a lifetime in business I’ve never been able to develop a step-by-step formula that will guarantee success. What I could do, however, was talk about how to lose. I guarantee that anyone who follows my formula will be a highly successful loser.” ISBN:9781591842347 Author:Donald R. Keough

Brief Summary Insider tips on every imaginable way of raising capital for a small business Financing Your Business Made Easy offers myriad ideas to get financing. The authors discuss the benefits and pitfalls of borrowing from family and friends, with tips on how to keep business relationships separate from personal ones. Dozens of government loan sources are explained in detail. Drawing on their insider knowledge of venture capital firms and angel investors, the authors reveal how to maximize your chances of success. Plus, they provide innovative financing ideas, such as borrowing from suppliers and customers, taking advantage of credit cards, and raising money from employees. ISBN:9781599180229 Author:Ralph Alterowitz and Jon Zonderman

Brief Summary Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing - Proven Steps to Inspire Confidence and Seize New Growth Drawing on more than a decade of new work, Kim and Mauborgne show you how to move beyond competing, inspire your people's confidence, and seize new growth, guiding you step-by-step through how to take your organization from a red ocean crowded with competition to a blue ocean of uncontested market space. By combining the insights of human psychology with practical market-creating tools and real-world guidance, Kim and Mauborgne deliver the definitive guide to shift yourself, your team, or your organization to new heights of confidence, market creation, and growth. Blue Ocean Shift is packed with all-new research and examples of how leaders in diverse industries and organizations made the shift and created new markets by applying the process and tools outlined in the book. Whether you are a cash-strapped startup or a large, established company, nonprofit or national government, you will learn how to move from red to blue oceans in a way that builds your people's confidence so that they own and drive the process. With battle-tested lessons learned from successes and failures in the field, Blue Ocean Shift is critical reading for leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs alike. You'll learn what works, what doesn't, and how to avoid the pitfalls along the way. This book will empower you to succeed as you embark on your own blue ocean journey. Blue Ocean Shift is indispensable for anyone committed to building a compelling future. " " ISBN:9780316314046 Author:Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim

Brief Summary What's Next for the Startup Nation?: A Blueprint for Sustainable Innovation Israel's position of a center for groundbreaking technological innovation has been the consequence of historical accident and good policy. Now history is moving on and the challenges that the world is facing are threatening to wipe out the remarkable economic progress Israel has achieved. Faced with new challenges and new conditions, the policies of the past are not likely to remain effective. Focusing on the state of Israel, This book addresses a multi-trillion dollar question: How can governments foster innovation in uncertain times. As nations around the world try to reignite their own economies and prepare for new challenges, this book offers a blueprint for fostering strong, sustainable innovation within a dynamic economy. " ISBN:9781477241202 Author:Uri Goldberg

Brief summary Lonely Planet England is your passport to all the most relevant and up-to-date advice on what to see, what to skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Seek out a guide lead you through the Tower of London, ponder the mysteries of Stonehenge, or sit back in a centuries-old pub with a traditional beer; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of England and begin your journey now! Inside Lonely Planet England Travel Guide: 1. Colour maps and images throughout 2. Highlights and itineraries show you the simplest way to tailor your trip to your own personal needs and interests 3. Insider tips save you time and money and help you get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots 4. Essential info at your fingertips - including hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, and prices 5. Honest reviews for all budgets - including eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, and hidden gems that most guidebooks miss 6. Cultural insights give you a richer and more rewarding travel experience - including history, art, literature, cinema, music, architecture, politics, landscapes, food, drink, and more 7. Free, convenient pull-out London map (included in print version), plus over 95 colour local maps 8. Useful features - including Walking Tours, Travel with Children, and Month-by-Month (annual festival calendar 9. Coverage of Newcastle, Lake District, Cumbria, Yorkshire, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Midlands, the Marches, Nottingham, Cambridge, East Anglia, Oxford, Costwolds, Wessex, London, Canterbury, Devon, Cornwall, and more The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet England, our most comprehensive guide to England, is perfect for those planning to both explore the top sights and take the road less travelled. 1. Looking for a guide focused on London? Check out Lonely Planet's London guide for a comprehensive look at all the city has to offer, Lonely Planet's Discover London, a photo-rich guide to the city's most popular attractions, or Lonely Planet's Pocket London, a handy-sized guide focused on the can't-miss sights for a quick trip. 2. Looking for more extensive coverage? Check out Lonely Planet's Great Britain for a comprehensive look at all the region has to offer, or Discover Great Britain, a photo-rich guide to the region's most popular attractions. ISBN:9781742200507 Author:Lonely Planet

Brief summary China's Disruptors: How Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent, and Other Companies Are Changing the Rules of Business. In September 2014, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba raised $25 billion in the world’s biggest-ever initial public offering. Since then, millions of investors and managers worldwide have pondered a fundamental question: What s "really "going on with the new wave of China s disruptors? Alibaba wasn’t an outlier it’s one of a rising tide of thriving Chinese companies, mostly but not exclusively in the technology sector. Overnight, its founder, Jack Ma, appeared on the same magazine covers as American entrepreneurial icons like Mark Zuckerberg. Ma was quickly followed by the founders of other previously little-known companies, such as Baidu, Tencent, and Xiaomi. Over the past two decades, an unprecedented burst of entrepreneurialism has transformed China s economy from a closed, impoverished, state-run system into a major power in global business. As products in China become more and more sophisticated, and as its companies embrace domestically developed technology, we will increasingly see Chinese goods setting global standards. Meanwhile, companies in the rest of the world wonder how they can access the fast-rising incomes of China s 1.3 billion consumers. Now Edward Tse, a leading global strategy consultant, reveals how China got to this point, and what the country s rise means for the United States and the rest of the world. Tse has spent more than twenty years working with senior Chinese executives, learning firsthand how China s most powerful companies operate. He’s an expert on how private firms are thriving in what is still, officially, a communist country. His book draws on exclusive interviews and case studies to explore questions such as 1. What drives China s entrepreneurs? Personal fame and fortune or a quest for national pride and communal achievement? 2. How do these companies grow so quickly? In 2005, Lenovo sold just one category of products (personal computers) in one market, China. Today, not only is it the world’s largest PC seller; it is also the world " ISBN:9781591847540 Author:Edward Tse

Brief summary Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die Mark Twain once observed, "A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus news stories circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas—entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and journalists—struggle to make them "stick.” In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds—from the infamous "kidney theft ring” hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony—draw their power from the same six traits. Made to Stick will transform the way you communicate. It’s a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures): the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the Mother Teresa Effect; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice. Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas—and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick. "