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This review manual on business organizations will help the reader understand the different types of business and how they function. The reader will learn about sole proprietorships, partnerships and limited partnerships, joint stock companies, joint ventures, limited liability companies and corporations. It covers organizational structure and discusses formation, taxation, management, shareholders, distributions, dissolution, termination and other topics pertinent to all kinds of businesses.
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As many countries in the world seek to improve their economic performance by increasing their vocational education and training, Japan is being looked to as a leader in this field--the ideal model to imitate. This book provides a thorough examination of vocational education and training in all parts of the Japanese education system; from primary education to in-house training within companies and on the shop floor. It highlights the role of the government, and shows how success in Japan is often achieved by going against what is regarded as ideal practice elsewhere: for example, much Japanese training is carried out informally by colleagues, the motivation being pride in doing the job well rather than a means to personal advancement. Fully updated from the first edition, this book offers the most comprehensive review of the subject available in English.
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The Congruence of People and Organizations: Healing Dysfunction from the Inside Out
Lloyd C. Williams
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This book explains in theoretical and practical terms the creation of effective change within organizations. The book states that dysfunction is a current fact of life, creating chronic problems for people and organizational systems. The author describes the basis for dysfunction and develops an effective belief system that can guide personal and organizational functioning. Specifically, the author defines the parameters of creating effective balance and, through three primary cases (city government, utility corporations and gay/lesbian organizations), shows how dysfunction can guide personal and organizational action. The author displays an abiding belief that change should occur only when people and systems begin to experience dysfunction. He describes a process for change and effectively walks the manager, professional, consultant, student, or faculty person through creating balance, change, and congruence for the long term.
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Praise for Benchmarking "Benchmarking provides a practical, hands-on approach by a team that has been there." —Susan Anderson-Khleif, Group Education Manager, Digital Equipment Corporation "Benchmarking continuously focuses on developing meaningful action plans to become `Best-in-Class' in your business." —Rolf E. Soderstrom, Corporate Vice-President, Motorola, Inc. Praised as the most effective, thorough book on the subject today, Benchmarking shows you how to benchmark every aspect of your business, from new product development to operations and "back office" functions. You'll see how to use benchmarking successfully to achieve a competitive edge, target specific areas for maximum results, and further continuous improvement goals. Seasoned advice from the authors covers such topics as:
- Creating value from the customer's perspective
- How to develop both qualitative and quantitative benchmarks
- How to identify key performance drivers
- Realizing the most effective methods for implementing and managing a benchmarking initiative
Numerous examples from companies such as Avon Products, AT&T, and Janssen Pharmaceutica are included to illustrate the power and diversity of successful benchmarking initiatives.
Customer Reviews:
Offshore Outsourcing Propaganda.......2006-06-12
After reading this book, I am confused as to its classification. The authors ask you to accept so much of their argument on faith that the book really belongs in the religion section rather than business and economics. This failure is particularly annoying because it is the product of authors who are also teaching staff at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. They obvious attained the educational position due to the relentless progress of diversity rather than any particular knowledge or skills. This does, however, go a long way to explain why the precipitous drop in the intellectual quality of the graduates of their institution has taken place.
Not having any real data does not, however, restrain the author from lecturing, at length, about the many rewards of offshore outsourcing as though they were laws of nature. The boldness reaches a crescendo when the author makes a statement in one chapter and uses that as the basis for an established fact in the next. These "revelations" are punctuated by the complete and total lack of any supporting data. With a wave of the hand, the most egregious and outrageous propositions are made without attempt to support them with data and any questioning of their conclusions briskly brushed away.
Of particularly humorous interest is the author's tactic of creating an example that perfectly illustrates the point he is trying to make and passes that off as a sole-scenario case study that proves his point. The use of actual case studies merely continues the established procedure of taking selected events from selected cases and using them to support broad, sweeping notions of the insanity of offshore outsourcing. Not even the slightest attempt is make to introduce any of the very many risks involved in the process or to explain why some firms, having tried offshore outsourcing to India, returned home or, like Apply Computer most recently, abandoned the idea altogether.
This book is yet another Indian propaganda tome which will doubtless be used to support countless offshore outsourcing proposals and presented to the intended victims as "fact." The truly unfathomable characteristic of this debate is the total absence (or unwillingness of the proponents to produce) facts. Theory, hypothesis and pure conjecture are presented as irrefutable fact and, having learned their perverted lessons from the civil rights movement, have labeled any attempt to apply a metric to their claims "racist" and those who dare to question their conclusions, dolts doomed to economic tar pits.
The terrible shame of all this is that so very many people, both here and overseas, are going to pay (or are paying) such a heavy price because business leaders have abdicated their responsibility to consider their actions and have allowed a handful of powerful, already global, companies to set the pace of development. They have grabbed at offshore outsourcing as their salvation in lieu of making a quality product at a reasonable cost that consumers actually want to buy.
A few of the chapters are worth a read.......2006-04-17
A plethora of books on offshore outsourcing have been released in the last two years, periodically I take a look at them looking for a great handbook for companies looking to get started offshoring. The authors of Offshore Outsourcing - Path to New Efficiencies in IT and Business Processes, start defining the reasoning behind offshoring. Probably anyone picking up this book will have decided that offshoring is necessary. Chapter 2 takes a good look at the costs of offshoring and more specifically the costs beyond labor. Most vendors stick to the labor differential so this is a good breakdown of the other costs involved including recurring costs in management and control and the one time costs of determining what to offshore in the first place.
Chapter 3 looks at the short-sighted strategy of not offshoring. The authors spend quite a bit of time talking about the costs of not offshoring; being left behind. It will not be possible to move from a fixed to a variable cost structure, running the risk of under-using capital resources during a slowdown, and the inability to ramp up quickly enough when the need arises (intermittent needs for professional services or field engineers - those that configure per customer requirements may not always be used if sales are not high enough).
To illustrate the costs to companies not outsourcing, they provided two examples: an R&D Tale and a tale from an insurance company. While examples would normally be a good thing, both examples make the assumption that onshore management and processes cannot be executed (for reasons other than high cost of labor) and offshore processes execute perfectly. This is a bad assumption even if you are dealing with companies certified at CMM level 5.
Chapter 4 reviews the offshore movement. According to the authors, offshore outsourcing began only in 1994 with the offshoring of information technology. I would say that that is debatable. Offshore outsourcing of information technology started as early as the 70's, with some of the larger companies and overall offshore outsourcing has been around for centuries. The authors try to put a timeline to the progression from onshore to offshore outsourcing, the exact years they use are debatable, but you will get the idea.
The beneficial part of this chapter for some readers is that in addition to look at the various aspects of IT outsourcing; e-commerce work, application maintenance outsourcing, etc., they also go in to human resources outsourcing, business process outsourcing, and contact center outsourcing - both inbound and outbound calls. Some of these areas, a reader, may be unaware that it is possible to outsource these activities.
Chapters six and seven define the largest individual companies involved in the market and the most widely used offshore location, India. With the exception of two companies, all mentioned were primarily Indian based. Also only two multi-national firms, EDS and IBM were mentioned, nothing, for example, on Accenture in India and the Czech Republic. Good stats were provided on the countries discussed; India, Russia, China and the Philippines. However, even though this book was published only in 2004, more updated information can be found via articles online.
Chapter 8 finally gets in to the meat of offshoring and defines what they consider to be the four phases of offshoring:
1. Finding a champion to sell the idea of outsourcing.
2. Identifying and prioritizing the processes to be outsourced.
3. Finding an offshore vendor.
4. Executing the contract.
Phase 1 is defined as having someone in top management sell the idea. If they are not on board, it will not get pushed throughout the company. I would add to this that:
1. If top management changes and they are not believers of offshoring, offshoring can change in an instant. Processes can be brought back in house.
2. If top management does not get others on board, offshoring is going no where. For example if top management cannot get the VP of engineering on board with offshoring, either through motivation through bonuses for cost cutting measures or a push to get more product functionality out sooner so the company can get revenue sooner, then offshoring software development will go nowhere as well. The VP of engineering may have had bad experiences before or he/she may not want to deal with the intricacies of distributed development. Top management has to be able to sell their idea internally and see that it gets in place and works. Expecting the vendor to sell the idea internally will not get you too far.
Phase 2 is identifying and prioritizing processes to be outsourced. This is a key issue. One item I believe is missing in their process is to look at what type of a company you are. It seems they are writing the book only for the large corporations, not for small and medium sized businesses which can also benefit from offshore outsourcing. For example on page 93 the authors refer to a typical outsourcing agreement lasting 7 to 10 years, clearly these are the large IT management contracts undertaken by the larger firms. If a firm is smaller, this is not the case, they will be able to change more frequently, or by going with a smaller vendor, be able to influence their vendor much more.
A great suggestion from the author is that an organization should determine its immediate and medium-term tactical goals. Including a chart here would have been helpful.
Under phase 3, finding an offshore vendor, I could find nothing that was specific to offshore outsourcing versus standard outsourcing contracts. In any outsourcing contract, even within the US a company should still be interested in the use of freelancers (contractors), the number of part-time people, how the vendor will protect your assets, how they protect against industrial espionage, intrusion, etc.
The authors provide a good section, albeit only a page and a half, on meeting the challenges of offshoring.
1. Losing control over a process. Look at the software that is being written; define quality measures for any BPO processes.
2. Integrating business processes, direct reporting between vendor management and the company's management.
3. If a company does not have a set of repeatable processes; clear directions, specs, objectives, time frames, quality level and communications process.
4. Create accurate, clear and concise specs.
5. Build-and-release management. Define how you will handle configuration management, defect tracking and management, and release control and how this will be replicated offshore.
6. Cross-border communication. How will your company deal with any cultural issues and distance communication?
7. Geopolitical stability. How will your company manage this potential risk?
The list of challenges is good, the readers would be better served if the authors had expanded on how a company deals with these issues in more detail.
Chapter 9 on Offshoring and shifting jobs is an interesting chapter. It is not clear the purpose of this chapter. It almost seems like we should feel bad that the process a company has to go through to get worker in the US on an H1B visa is so difficult. Having hired workers from Russia and the US to work in Ukraine, I do not think that the process to get an H1B visa is any more complicate than what Ukraine makes a company go through to hire a foreign worker. The authors argue that it would be better to bring the foreign workers here, better because they will pay taxes and spend money here. But this seems to go against the very premise of the book which is to help companies explore the benefits of offshore outsourcing.
Chapter 10 is attempting to point the US towards possible trade barriers that could be created on the basis of educational subsidies. They mention that US education has to be paid for and is quite expensive, especially in highly specialized fields such as software engineering. This is somewhat strange. Certainly there are a high number of private universities in the US, but there are also many state schools with excellent reputations for their computer science and engineering programs, where on average a student pays for only 24% of the cost of their education, the rest is paid for by tax payers. In California, a resident can attend the University of California Berkeley or San Louis Obisbo, and have the state (or the tax payers) pay $20,000 per year towards their education, the student would pay approximately $5000 per year.
To a company looking in to how they get started offshoring for the first time, there are three relevant chapters in this book in addition to the case studies. Chapter 2 for its detailing of the total costs involved in offshoring, Chapter 4 for the types of activities which a company can offshore and Chapter 8 for the phases of offshoring and the challenges. The other chapters would be interesting only of the reader has never read anything about offshore outsourcing.
VERY VERY VERY GOOD!!!.......2005-11-15
This was a great book and it had great info. I loved reading it. It broadens the mind completely. How could someone not be happy with the data that this book gives.
Remember the beanie baby fad?.......2004-12-04
Just because something is popular doesn't make it a good idea. My firm outsourced half our processes and we lost our shirts. The Indians simply aren't familiar enough with colloquial English to talk to Americans. They're churning out IT people so quick that they're ignoring quality. And their paralegals have no idea what confidentiality means. Check out the cons of offshoring by doing a thorough web search. And don't fall for this book's shell game.
A manual for bankruptcy.......2004-12-02
None of these books are telling the readers the true costs of outsourcing. Since we outsourced, our systems have been hacked into seven times by anti-outsourcing nuts, customer after customer has complained about the Indian call center workers, and last week my Mercedes was stolen from my garage. There was a note tacked to the front door that said "you outsourced American jobs, now we've outsourced your ride." These people are serious and they're crazy!
Customer Reviews:
The Madness of Crowds.......2007-09-20
This book is one of the best I have read on the Bull Market. He takes Galbraith as his foil and expresses his profound discontent with Galbraith's unilinear formulation of govt. inactivity and outright stupidity. As Sobel argues, the The Great Bull Market was a product of a particular world view that grew up in the easy-money days of the 1920s. Parts of this world view were:
1) A notion that everyone should and could get rich
2) that hard work and risk as a pre-requisite for gaining wealth was a thing of the past -- indeed, inside the large brokerages it was loudly spoken that such older ethos' were not part of modern Wall Street.
3) supplanting risk and hard work was an ethos of power elites that scrathed each other's back. And that was assumed to be part of the normal healthy business processes.
4) There was a general overall lack of attention to detail and people working through the risks of financial euphoria.
In addition, unlike Galbraith, Sobel says that the powers that be actually made good choices, that the falls were really not as bad as they were made to look at the time.
It is a well written and cogent analysis of this exciting time.
Into the heads of the manic crowd.......2002-10-12
While many stock market books have lots to say about parallels in financial history, this one is very different. The Great Bull Market is not really about the stock market at all. It's about the factors that led to the market mania of the late 1920s. Changes in social patterns, dramatic changes in the economy and living standards and a liberalisation of financial laws all led to the belief that life had really changed for everyone for the better.
Of course, there are wider things to consider than the rather simplistic and sometimes left-wing views put forward here. Even so, The Great Bull Market does take you away from the now perfunctory trawl through margin statistics and takes you into the heads of those who were actually parting with cash. For that it's a great read.
A ride on the wild bull.......2000-07-25
The market could only go up. Margin requirements were minimal. Investment in equities, seemingly ANY equities was a risk-less, rock solid path to fortune. Why buy one of the new electronic phonographs, or a refrigerator, on "time" (credit) when for the same amount of money, one could buy equities on margin, gain immense leverage, and be "guaranteed" to make the money back many times over, and be able to buy many more luxuries.
According to Mr. Sobel, this was, in a nutshell, the mentality of the average investor. Investment houses and financial institutions fueled the fire by making margin cheap and easy. Ultimately, stock prices were held up by nothing. Tremors of instability began to ripple through the market as the impending crash approached, often dismissed as buying opportunities. Ultimately, reality set in, and the unthinkable happened.
Are things different today? Yes and No. More safeguards would seem to be in place, however valuations of today make those of the 20's look miniscule. While a direct comparison is difficult to make between the period covered in the book, and the market of 2000, there are lessons to be learned. "The Great Bull Market" provides a fascinating account of the crash and the events that led up to it. A must read for anyone feeling a little jittery about the climate on Wall Street today!
Product Description
Wall Street and the stock market were major symbols of the 1920's and the great crash was considered the end of that era. It is surprising, therefore, that little intensive study has been given to the bull market of the period. Several books have been written on the crash itself but none before has dealt with events leading up to it.
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Canadian Economic History: Classic and Contemporary Approaches (Carleton Library, No 176)
Manufacturer: Carleton University Press
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Core Concepts of Marketing
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Offshoring Information Technology: Sourcing and Outsourcing to a Global Workforce
ASIN: 0471469483 |
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Core Concepts: Marketing
Roy T. Shaw
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Marketing Core Concepts
Assael
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Core Concepts of Marketing
BXS , and
C. Clott
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Amazon.com
If you've been burned on Wall Street (and who hasn't?) but still need a practical place to park your savings (who doesn't?), Gregory Baer and Gary Gensler have your number. While somewhat mistitled because it decries "active investing" in individual stocks as well as in mutual funds, The Great Mutual Fund Trap is nonetheless a clearly and even entertainingly written argument in favor of the alternative: investing broadly in stocks that mirror the performance of the overall market. During their years in private investment and with the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve, Baer and Gensler have come to believe the high fees and high risks that go with always trying to beat the market make "active investing"--be it constantly fiddling with your own portfolio or relying on professionals to do so for you--a no-win proposition. Instead, they say, you can actually improve returns by shifting to "passive investments" that offer lower costs and greater tax efficiency. After explaining why they feel as they do, the authors thoroughly describe the appropriate vehicles--index mutual funds, exchange-traded index funds, and several other products--in a way that makes these staid options seem almost exciting and gives interested readers all the tools they need to utilize them. --Howard Rothman
Book Description
Convinced that your star mutual fund manager will help you beat the market? Eager to hear the latest stock picking advice on CNBC? FORGET ABOUT IT! The Great Mutual Fund Trap shows that the average mutual fund consistently underperforms the market, and that strategies for picking above-average funds -- everything from past performance to expert rankings -- are useless. Picking individual stocks on the advice of brokers and analysts works no better. The only sure things are the fees and commissions you’ll pay.
Fortunately, the news is not all bad. Investors willing to ignore the constant drumbeat of “trade frequently,” “trust the experts,” and “beat the market” now have the opportunity to do better. Using new investing products investors can earn higher returns with lower risks.
Drawing on their years of Wall Street, Treasury and Federal Reserve experience, Gary Gensler and Gregory Baer offer a fresh and realistic look at how money is managed in America. From new indexing strategies to risk-managed stock selection, The Great Mutual Fund Trap offers investors an escape from high costs and immunity from seductive marketing messages.
Download Description
Convinced that your star mutual fund manager will help you beat the market? Eager to hear the latest stock picking advice on CNBC? Forget about it!
The Great Mutual Fund Trap shows that the average mutual fund consistently underperforms the market, and that strategies for picking above-average funds—everything from past performance to expert rankings—are useless. Picking individual stocks on the advice of brokers and analysts works no better. The only sure things are the fees and commissions you'll pay.
Fortunately, the news is not all bad. Investors willing to ignore the constant drumbeat of "trade frequently," "trust the experts," and "beat the market" now have the opportunity to do better. Using new investing products investors can earn higher returns with lower risks.
Drawing on their years of Wall Street, Treasury and Federal Reserve experience, Gary Gensler and Gregory Baer offer a fresh and realistic look at how money is managed in America. From new indexing strategies to risk-managed stock selection, The Great Mutual Fund Trap offers investors an escape from high costs and immunity from seductive marketing messages.
"A compelling work that takes a hard look at how Americans invest their money, and suggests better options. A serious book by serious people, The Great Mutual Fund Trap also contains practical and humorous illustrations guaranteed to engage any reader."
LAWRENCE SUMMERS, FORMER SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
"The folks at Fidelity are not going to like this book, but anyone who still invests via an actively-managed mutual funds or who buys variable annuities or who favors Social Security privatization should read it."
ANDREW TOBIAS, AUTHOR OF THE ONLY INVESTMENT GUIDE YOU'LL EVER NEED
"Mutual funds have brought millions of Americans into the investment markets—and for that alone they deserve much praise. Unfortunately, the returns that many of these investors have received have been less than spectacular. The Great Mutual Fund Trap exposes many of the flaws that drag down fund performance and suggests ways that investors can tune out the noise and focus on meeting their long term goals. The mutual fund industry isn't going to like this book one bit, but its story needs to be heard."
DON PHILLIPS, MANAGING DIRECTOR, MORNINGSTAR, INC.
"In this fascinating book investors will get a new take on how the odds are stacked against them by Wall Street's vested interests. Gary Gensler and Gregory Baer, two of the stars of the Treasury Department during the Clinton years, tell consumers how to avoid the traps and make the markets work for them with less risk."
ARTHUR LEVITT, FORMER CHAIRMAN OF THE U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Customer Reviews:
Not totally inaccurate.......2006-02-22
The Great Mutual Fund Trap is primarily a compilation of complaints about mutual funds and conveyed little new or useful information. To a great extent the information could have been consolitated in about a dozen pages, but then it could not have been sold as a book.
Someone with no financial investing experience could learn about the problems with mutual funds from the book. But I would not recommend it.
Pulled Together the Missing Investment Pieces.......2006-01-19
I feel this book is a must read for any individual investor who wants long term success. For 10 years I have been trying to become a confident, knowledgable investor. I read the books and magazines, the Financial Times, I roam MSN Money, I listen to radio shows etc. I have experimented and learned a great deal, done some things well and made many mistakes always feeling that most of the time my results--both gains and loses--seem random. I also have an actively managed account that seems to get the same random results I get but for much more expense. Upon reading this book all my experiences came together in a clear understanding that the market is indeed random and how I can best participate in it. Baer and Gensler not only affirm what I had learned here and there from others but many new things as well. They do so with excellent substantiation in a readable, straightforward manner that gave me the confidence I was looking for to make dramatic changes in my financial holdings. They gave me simple, excellent recommendations to execute my plan and navigate past the the traps laid out by investment companies. I agree with one reviewer that I too was amazed at how much I did not know. Filling in those gaps so I can now make informed choices was certainly worth the small investment in buyng this book.
Social Security Reform Anyone?.......2005-07-19
In the spirit of Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street, The Great Mutual Fund Trap proposes that the most viable strategic alternative for investors is passive investing, also known as indexing.
The authors point out that a variety of hurdles to outperformance of the averages are strewn in the investor's path, including overconfidence in security selection and market timing skills, a blizzard of commercial mis-information and questionable third party investment resources, among various others.
Along the way to the book's conclusion attention is drawn to the ongoing social security debate and it is strongly suggested that passively managed mutual funds play an important role in addressing the problem.
Finally, the authors indicate that sometimes the best performers in a game are those that are able to successfully make the largest number of effective small decisions. A list of factors investors may want to consider in the implementation of their investment plans is introduced.
While the authors delivered some interesting points, quite a bit of the information was already available. [As indicated by at least one of the previous reviewers.] As such: 4/5 stars.
Good job revealing internals of mutual funds industry.......2004-04-12
It's a very well written book. The main purpose of this book is to show that mutual funds industry overall does not provide a good choices for regular individual investors and the book covers this topics exceptionally. It really reveals the real intentions of the industry and shows that this is the only way this indstry can work. The book advocates passive investment and especially index funds and exchange traded funds (ETF). While there were already quite a few good, if controversial, books about efficient market theory ('You can't beat the market'), such as famous 'Random walk On Wall Street', this book brings more details about today market environment and explains what choices passive investor has. My only complain is that sometimes I feel some kind of zealotry in authors considerations. Even for somebody that believes in efficient market theory some of the statements in this books could seem very questionable. Stock mutual funds takes majority of books space but the moment authors venture to the other territory (and they do try to cover practically all kinds of investments) their arguments often seem too absolute. Still, this is the book every investor in mutual funds must read (and it will probably convince you to make some changes in your investment strategy - it did this for me)
Not bad but nothing special.......2003-09-08
There is really nothing new in this book that has not been beat to death elsewhere and the reader will probably find William Bernstein's books more rewarding. For those who buy this book however you will not go too far wrong.
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