Profit From The Core

Book Description :

When Profit from the Core was published in 2001, it became an international bestseller, helping hundreds of companies find their way back to profitable growth after the bursting of the Internet bubble. The 2007 global financial meltdown reaffirmed the perils of pursuing heady growth through untested strategies, as firms in industries from finance to retailing to automobiles strayed too far from their core businesses and suffered the consequences. In this updated edition of Profit from the Core, authors Chris Zook and James Allen show that a renewed focus on the core is more critical than ever as firms seek to rebuild their competitive advantage coming out of the downturn—and that a strong core will be the foundation for successful expansion as the economy recovers. Based on more than ten years of Bain & Company research and analysis and fresh examples from firms responding to the current downturn, the book outlines what today’s executives and managers need to do now to revitalize their core, identify the next wave of profitable growth, and build on it successfully. Zook and Allen explain how companies can: • Develop a strong, well-defined core and use it to establish a leadership position • Follow the golden rule of strategy: discourage competitors from investing in your core • Assess whether your core is operating at its full potential • Uncover hidden assets in your core that provide the seeds for new growth • Find a repeatable formula to apply core business strengths in adjacent markets Building on powerful and proven ideas to meet today’s formidable business challenges, Profit from the Core is the back-to-basics strategy field guide no manager should be without.

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Clear-headed advice on strategy from the international consulting firm Bain & Company restores a timely and refreshing "back-to-basics" approach to growth.

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Is your company delivering products to customers at the right time, place, and price—with the best possible availability and lowest possible cost and working capital? If not, you’re probably alienating your customers and suppliers, eroding shareholder value, and losing control of your fixed costs. These dangerous mistakes can put you out of business.

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This work shows executives how to grow profitably by finding and focusing on their core business. It shows how they can increase the odds of successful expansion once their core business no longer provides sufficient new growth.

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Over the next decade, two out of every three companies will face the challenge of their corporate lives: redefining their core business. Buffeted by global competition and facing an uncertain future, more and more executives will realize that they must make fundamental changes in their core even as they continue delivering the goods and services that keep them in business today. Unstoppable shows these managers how to look deep within their organizations to find undervalued, unrecognized, or underutilized assets that can serve as new platforms for sustainable growth. Drawing on more than thirty interviews with CEOs from companies such as De Beers, American Express, and Samsung, it shows readers how to recognize when the core needs reinvention and how to deploy the "hidden assets" that can be the basis for tomorrow's growth. Building on the author's previous books, Profit from the Core and Beyond the Core, this book shows how any company in crisis can transform itself to become truly unstoppable.

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A Washington Post Bestseller Three Principles for Managing—and Avoiding—the Problems of Growth Why is profitable growth so hard to achieve and sustain? Most executives manage their companies as if the solution to that problem lies in the external environment: find an attractive market, formulate the right strategy, win new customers. But when Bain & Company’s Chris Zook and James Allen, authors of the bestselling Profit from the Core, researched this question, they found that when companies fail to achieve their growth targets, 90 percent of the time the root causes are internal, not external—increasing distance from the front lines, loss of accountability, proliferating processes and bureaucracy, to name only a few. What’s more, companies experience a set of predictable internal crises, at predictable stages, as they grow. Even for healthy companies, these crises, if not managed properly, stifle the ability to grow further—and can actively lead to decline. The key insight from Zook and Allen’s research is that managing these choke points requires a “founder’s mentality”—behaviors typically embodied by a bold, ambitious founder—to restore speed, focus, and connection to customers: • An insurgent’s clear mission and purpose • An unambiguous owner mindset • A relentless obsession with the front line Based on the authors’ decade-long study of companies in more than forty countries, The Founder’s Mentality demonstrates the strong relationship between these three traits in companies of all kinds—not just start-ups—and their ability to sustain performance. Through rich analysis and inspiring examples, this book shows how any leader—not only a founder—can instill and leverage a founder’s mentality throughout their organization and find lasting, profitable growth.

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Based on a multiyear study of such firms as Apple, IKEA, and Vanguard, the authors warn against complexity as a strategy for business planning, advocating instead for a simple, repeatable model that provides for constant improvement.

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Procurement can be your company's secret weapon for winning in turbulent times. In most companies, procurement is an unglamorous, unloved part of the business. A job in the procurement office? A fast track to nowhere. Sourcing and supplier management is strictly about costs, the thinking goes, and all that matters is playing hardball to get these as low as possible. No connection to innovation or strategy or creating positive value. Not so fast. As Boston Consulting Group thought leaders Christian Schuh, Wolfgang Schnellbächer, Alenka Triplat, and Daniel Weise explain in Profit from the Source, procurement should be regarded in a new light, because it has the potential to be a CEO's secret weapon in these fast-moving, disruptive times. The authors offer a wake-up call and a new strategic blueprint for leaders everywhere. With vivid stories and in-depth case studies, they illustrate that no other business function offers the same holistic view of a company—from suppliers who provide the organization with raw materials and components to consumers who buy the finished product. While it's true that a core task of any procurement function is to keep costs from spiraling out of control, the authors show how procurement can help businesses generate phenomenal value from five other sources of competitive advantage critical to success—innovation, quality, sustainability, speed, and risk reduction. Drawing on BCG research and the authors' firsthand experience working with some of the world's leading companies—in high tech, automotive, consumer goods, and many other industries—Profit from the Source provides proven strategies to drive new bottom-line, as well as top-line, growth for your company.

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Author of cult classics The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur offers a simple, counterintuitive cash management solution that will help small businesses break out of the doom spiral and achieve instant profitability. Conventional accounting uses the logical (albeit, flawed) formula: Sales - Expenses = Profit. The problem is, businesses are run by humans, and humans aren't always logical. Serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz has developed a behavioral approach to accounting to flip the formula: Sales - Profit = Expenses. Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows. Using Michalowicz's Profit First system, readers will learn that: · Following 4 simple principles can simplify accounting and make it easier to manage a profitable business by looking at bank account balances. · A small, profitable business can be worth much more than a large business surviving on its top line. · Businesses that attain early and sustained profitability have a better shot at achieving long-term growth. With dozens of case studies, practical, step-by-step advice, and his signature sense of humor, Michalowicz has the game-changing roadmap for any entrepreneur to make money they always dreamed of.

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Wall Street Journal Bestseller Jay Steinfeld, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and the founder and CEO of Blinds.com (acquired by Home Depot), never planned to create the biggest online window blinds retailer in the world. Against all odds to succeed, Steinfeld’s journey in business included failed acquisitions, partnerships gone wrong, perpetual self-doubt, deaths in his family, budget-limited guerilla marketing, corporate buy-outs, brutal market competition, and a complete disruption of industry leaders, including Amazon and big-box retailers. To build something meaningful like Steinfeld, you need to do more than dream about it. You need to Lead from the Core. Learn Steinfeld’s “Four Es”—a set of guiding principles that help overcome any obstacle to your organization’s success: Evolve Continuously, Experiment Without Fear of Failure, Express Yourself, and Enjoy the Ride. In these pages, you’ll also learn specific, actionable tactics, including: • How to start a business with little money and experience • Ways to avoid the early failure that plagues many businesses • Strategies to scale beyond the startup phase • Exactly how to communicate with boards and investors • Proven lessons to attract potential acquirers of your company Told with humor and heart, Lead from the Core is not just a roadmap to make your company a resounding success. It’s a masterclass for leaders looking to prevent costly business mistakes, no matter where you are in your journey.

Book Description :

Serial entrepreneur and business visionary Dale Partridge reveals seven core beliefs that create success by putting people first. Every day major headlines tell the story of a new and better American marketplace. Established corporations have begun reevaluating the quality of their products, the ethics of their supply chain, and how they can give back by donating a portion of their profit to meaningful causes. Meanwhile, millions of entrepreneurs who want a more responsible and compassionate marketplace have launched a new breed of socially focused business models. Sevenly founder Dale Partridge uncovers the seven core beliefs shared by consumers, starters, and leaders behind this transformation. These beliefs have enabled Dale to build a multimillion-dollar company that is revolutionizing the marketplace In People Over Profit, Partridge will help you realize: People matter Truth wins Transparency frees Authenticity attracts Quality speaks Generosity returns Courage sustains Partridge believes these beliefs are the secret to creating a sustainable world that values honesty over deception, transparency over secrecy, authenticity over hype, and ultimately, people over profit.

Book Description :

Your lack of focus on Procurement is limiting your profits. Multiply them by making Procurement a company-wide priority. Profit from Procurement: Add 30% to Your Bottom Line by Breaking Down Silos delivers an insightful, compelling, and fresh take on a subject that typically comprises 50% of a business's total costs: Procurement. Alex Klein, Simon Whatson and Jose Oliveira, leaders at the world's largest dedicated Procurement consultancy, highlight the limitations of the traditional, functionally siloed approach to Procurement, and demonstrate how significant EBITDA gains can be made by lifting Procurement out of the back office and enabling it to fundamentally reset a company's cost base. Its accessible, frank, and refreshing style, combined with practical, actionable advice, based on the authors' extensive real-life experience, make it a must read for any executive looking to make an impact through Procurement. The book offers readers a practical and concrete roadmap to optimizing, integrating, and deploying a company’s Procurement capabilities, creating a less siloed, more impactful function. Readers will learn how to: Plan their company's Procurement transformation Reskill teams for the coming change Reposition the Procurement function to become the driver of cross-functional change Integrate new topics such as digitalization and sustainability into their Procurement roadmaps Ensure that Procurement efficiencies are fully reflected in bottom-line profits Perfect for C-Suite executives and Procurement professionals at companies of all sizes, Profit from Procurement belongs on the bookshelves of every employee and leader tasked with company operations and profit strategy.

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Learn how to apply the principles of Charles Koch’s revolutionary Market-Based Management® system to generate good profit in your organization, company, and life “This book helps show you the way to good profit—whether you work for an international supermarket chain, a medium-sized regional business, or your own start-up.”—John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO, Whole Foods Market The technological innovations, extreme politics, civil unrest, cyber attacks, demographic shifts, and global pandemic that have affected all businesses since this book was published have only confirmed Charles Koch’s belief that “the only reason a business should exist (and the only way it can legitimately survive long term) is to create value in a responsible way.” Hence, the principles in Good Profit are more important today than ever before. What exactly does Koch Industries, Inc., do and why is it so remarkably profitable? Koch’s name may not be on your home’s plywood, vehicle’s grille, smartphone’s connectors, or baby’s ultra-absorbent diapers but it makes them all. And Koch’s Market-Based Management® (MBM) system is what drives these innovations and many more. The core objective of MBM is to generate good profit. Good profit results from products and services that customers vote for freely with their dollars. It results from a bottom-up culture where employees are empowered to act entrepreneurially to discover customers’ preferences and the best ways to improve their lives. Drawing on six decades of interdisciplinary studies, experimental discovery, and practical implementation across Koch businesses worldwide, Charles Koch walks the reader through the five dimensions of MBM to show how to apply its framework in any business, industry, or organization of any size. Readers will learn how to: • Craft a vision for how to thrive in spite of increasingly rapid disruption and ever-changing consumer values • Select and retain a workforce possessing both virtue and talent • Create an environment of knowledge sharing that prizes respectful challenges from everyone at every level • Award employees with ownership and decision rights based on their comparative advantages and proven contributions, not job title • Motivate all employees to maximize their contributions by structuring incentives so compensation is limited only by the value they create A must-read for any leader, entrepreneur, or student, as well as anyone who wants a more civil, fair, and prosperous society, Good Profit is one of the greatest management books of all time.

Book Description :

A fully updated follow-up to Peter Schiff's bestsellingfinancial survival guide-Crash Proof, which described theeconomy as a house of cards on the verge of collapse, with over 80pages of new material The economic and monetary disaster which seasoned prognosticatorPeter Schiff predicted is no longer hypothetical-it is here today.And nobody understands what to do in this situation better than theman who saw it coming. For more than a decade, Schiff has not onlyobserved the economy, but also helped his clients restructure theirportfolios to reflect his outlook. What he sees today is a nationfacing an economic storm brought on by growing federal, personal,and corporate debt; too little savings; and a declining dollar.Crash Proof 2.0 picks up right where the first edition-abestselling book that predicted the current market mayhem-left off.This timely guide takes into account the dramatic economic shiftsthat are reshaping the world and provides you with the insights andinformation to navigate the dangerous terrain. Throughout the book,Schiff explains the factors that will affect your future financialstability and offers a specific three step plan to battle thecurrent economic downturn. Discusses the measures you can take to protect yourself-as wellas profit-during these difficult times Offers an insightful examination of the structural weaknessesunderlying the economic meltdown Outlines a plan that will allow you to preserve wealth andprotect the purchasing power of your savings Filled with in-depth insights and expert advice, Crash Proof2.0 will help you survive and thrive during the coming years ofeconomic uncertainty.

Book Description :

A practical approach to business transformation Fit for Growth* is a unique approach to business transformation that explicitly connects growth strategy with cost management and organization restructuring. Drawing on 70-plus years of strategy consulting experience and in-depth research, the experts at PwC’s Strategy& lay out a winning framework that helps CEOs and senior executives transform their organizations for sustainable, profitable growth. This approach gives structure to strategy while promoting lasting change. Examples from Strategy&’s hundreds of clients illustrate successful transformation on the ground, and illuminate how senior and middle managers are able to take ownership and even thrive during difficult periods of transition. Throughout the Fit for Growth process, the focus is on maintaining consistent high-value performance while enabling fundamental change. Strategy& has helped major clients around the globe achieve significant and sustained results with its research-backed approach to restructuring and cost reduction. This book provides practical guidance for leveraging that expertise to make the choices that allow companies to: Achieve growth while reducing costs Manage transformation and transition productively Create lasting competitive advantage Deliver reliable, high-value performance Sustainable success is founded on efficiency and high performance. Companies are always looking to do more with less, but their efforts often work against them in the long run. Total business transformation requires total buy-in, and it entails a series of decisions that must not be made lightly. The Fit for Growth approach provides a clear strategy and practical framework for growth-oriented change, with expert guidance on getting it right. *Fit for Growth is a registered service mark of PwC Strategy& Inc. in the United States

Book Description :

Explains how companies must pinpoint business strategies to a few critically important choices, identifying common blunders while outlining simple exercises and questions that can guide day-to-day and long-term decisions.

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Are purpose and profit in conflict, or can both be achieved simultaneously with the right mindset and tools? What are the forces that are reshaping the relationship between the two? What can we all do to strengthen the relationship between purpose and profit as entrepreneurs, managers, employees, consumers, and investors? Backed by cutting-edge research, Purpose and Profit provides answers to these fundamental questions that are increasingly defining the business landscape all around the world. Distinguished Harvard Business School Professor George Serafeim takes readers on a research-driven journey to understand: How and why environmental and social issues are becoming increasingly relevant for organizations worldwide; The ways that companies can design and implement strategies that generate greater impact; The six archetypes of value creation enabled by these new trends; The role of investors in driving greater recognition of ESG issues; and How we can all look at the choices we make and careers we pursue in a way that maximizes purpose and profit in our own lives.

Book Description :

Nonprofit organizations are increasingly resembling private firms in a transformation bringing with it a shift in financial dependence from charitable donation to commercial sales activity. This book, first published in 1998, examines the reasons and consequences of the mimicry of private firms by fundraising nonprofits. User fees and revenue from 'ancillary' activities are mushrooming, with each having important side effects: pricing out of the market certain target groups; or distracting the nonprofit from its central mission. The authors focus first on issues that apply to nonprofits generally: the role of competition, analysis of nonprofit organization behavior, the effects of distribution goals and differential taxation of nonprofit and for-profit activity revenue, the effects of changes in donations on commercial activity, and conversions of nonprofits to for-profits. They then turn to specific industries: hospitals, universities, social service providers, zoos, museums, and public broadcasting. The book concludes with recommendations for research and for public policy toward nonprofits.

Book Description :

Taking control of your company’s destiny starts with planning strategically from the beginning. How will you determine if your company has succeeded if you can’t base its performance on a well-defined business strategy? A strategic plan, established at your venture’s birth, helps crystalize the future of the organization--mapping a clear path from where the company stands today to where you wish it to be. Setting a business strategy enables you to develop absolute clarity on priorities, organize resources, and get better results than ever before. Renowned business author Brian Tracy has provided a simple path to creating the specific business strategy needed for your company’s success. In Business Strategy, Tracy will help you discover how to: Ask the five key questions vital to any strategic plan Determine a corporate mission that lifts and inspires people Define themselves in relation to their competition Reposition their business with new products, services, and technology Anticipate crises, and more! Incorporating wide-ranging examples--from Alexander the Great to IBM to General Electric--this concise, practical guide gives readers proven ideas for increasing their company’s bottom line and maximizing their strengths and opportunities. The path to success starts at the beginning!

Book Description :

Named one of the best strategy books of 2021 by strategy+business Get to better, more effective strategy. In nearly every business segment and corner of the world economy, the most successful companies dramatically outperform their rivals. What is their secret? In Better, Simpler Strategy, Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee shows how these companies achieve more by doing less. At a time when rapid technological change and global competition conspire to upend traditional ways of doing business, these companies pursue radically simplified strategies. At a time when many managers struggle not to drown in vast seas of projects and initiatives, these businesses follow simple rules that help them select the few ideas that truly make a difference. Better, Simpler Strategy provides readers with a simple tool, the value stick, which every organization can use to make its strategy more effective and easier to execute. Based on proven financial mechanics, the value stick helps executives decide where to focus their attention and how to deepen the competitive advantage of their business. How does the value stick work? It provides a way of measuring the two fundamental forces that lead to value creation and increased financial success—the customer's willingness-to-pay and the employee's willingness-to-sell their services to the business. Companies that win, Oberholzer-Gee shows, create value for customers by raising their willingness-to-pay, and they provide value for talent by lowering their willingness-to-sell. The approach, proven in practice, is entirely data driven and uniquely suited to be cascaded throughout the organization. With many useful visuals and examples across industries and geographies, Better, Simpler Strategy explains how these two key measures enable firms to gauge and improve their strategies and operations. Based on the author's sought-after strategy course, this book is your must-have guide for making better strategic decisions.