Book Description

Since its initial publication in 1987, Revelance Lost has gone through nine printings, won two major awards from the accounting profession, and had a profound impact on how management accounting systems operate in the 1990s. It has become a manifesto for managers in accounting and control. By exploring the evolution of management accounting in American business from the early textile mills to present-day computer-automated manufacturers, Johnson and Kaplan reveal why modern corporations must make major changes in the way they measure and manage costs. In a world of rapid technological change, vigorous global and domestic competition, and enormous information-processing capabilities, it is critical that managers receive information that is timely, accurate, and relevant. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

this is a book that revolutionized management accounting
Relevance lost of a book about the history of management accounting. The book is very well documented in that in times they were able to deduce different conclusions made by others. They start from the very beginning exploring as far back as the 18th century. They start out by discussing how textile mills started recording in their books accounting information. They begin from the very beginnings of accounting. Accounting emerged as a discipline in the early 18th century, but their underlying purpose in not for internal uses but it was created so that stakeholders can gauge the value of their investment in the firms that put out these financial statements. In the book there are a number of firms they highlight that made important contributions to management accounting. The first company they highlight is DuPont corporation in the nineteenth century. There is a theme to the development of management accounting. DuPont first staterted out as a manufacturer of gunpowder but went on to become bigger. The first companies that innovated their way of internal controls in management accounting grew out of a necessity. DuPont first came out with a measure of their business which was the return on investment measure. Because Dupont was becoming bigger and it needed to measure return on investment to measure the profitability of individual business units. It was a measuring rod to asses the different business activities of it business units. With this measure the managers of DuPont could make decisions such us which business units to invest on and do away with units that are performing poorly.
In the 1920's at General Motors they have been experimenting with using variances to measure how well they are doing in their manufacturing. In to the picture is a man named Alfred Sloan, he is one of the most brilliant thinkers in management. With implementing variances GM was able to have a uniform way to impose standards to its managers. With this system, GM's growth became remunerative.
Then there came a period as the authors put it when relevance was lost. Financial accounting accounted for the bulk of the innovations in accounting leaving behind management accounting. This is like the "dark ages" of cost accounting when companies and academics did not innovate methods and processes to advance management accounting. There were a number of reasons for this, first is the requirement imposed in companies to generate financial statements for the stakeholders of the companies. Second, the cost of putting together the necessary information was prohibitive. Technology has not yet grown mature enough to allow managers to go through the trouble of compiling the information needed to make the decisions.
The beauty of this book is that it traces beginnings of topics that are familiar to us now. Topics like variances, discounted cash flow analysis, return on investment, sunk cost, and even just-in-time inventory systems. The next evolution of management accounting is to be led by academicians according to the authors. In this stage of the life of management accounting arose discounted cash flow analysis. This is a step ahead of the return on investment method. This is also a time when economist started to innovate management accounting further. The concept of sunk cost is introduced by economist in the London School of Economics. Innovations also arose by way of the field of operations research. Operations research deals primarily of mathematics. And about this time management accounting was taking hold as a discipline of its own. Along with discounted cash flow analysis, opportunity cost is introduces as well as agency theory and residual income. Residual income is interesting in that it was a step backward in the innovations of theories. Even though, GM started using this instead of the return-on-investment measure. The driving force of this period of the growth of management accounting is the need to have better decision making. This is why economics along with operations research contributed to the growth of management accounting.
Next up, management accounting in its evolved form before 1980 falls short. Management accountants make a couple of theoretical mistakes. They are no longer providing managers of the critical information needed to make decisions. Management accounting has become obsolete in a sense. The next development is what happened after 1980. Because of bitter and growing competition because of global forces and deregulation there needed to be more changes. In this period arose what is now called total quality management, and its progeny just-in-time systems. Manufacturers needed to control their work-in-process inventory. Meaning the Japanese where beating Americans by having zero inventory. This led to changes in management accounting systems throughout the United States.

Historical backgrounds of BSC, ABC & EVA
If you want to understand everything about the historical backgrounds of such now well-known management instruments like the balanced scorecard, activity based costing and EVA, there is no better book to read than this book. This book started off a transformation of management accounting and of organizational performance management. Essential reading for controllers, students of management and management consultants.

Broad History of Mgmt Accounting
Good in-depth survey of the history and purpose of Management Accounting. Classic book. You see Kaplan's thought processes as he develops the basis of his later works on new forms of accounting such as the Balanced Scorecard and EVA.

If you are a management accountant this book will put your work into perspective as well as caution you about the pitfalls of doing things the way theu have always been done.

A good read for discouraged management accountants.
For those management accountants who feel less than totally appreciated (the real ones will know this to be a common feeling) then this book shows how financial accounting usurped management accounting when the bean counters went looking for shareholders and needed to tell less than the truth about what was going on inside their firms.

If auditors are just hookers with a degree, then financial accountants are then just politicians without a cause - you cannot run a business on late and averaged data from the financial perspective.

This book reminds us that knowing what things cost to make and cost to sell is what keeps a firm on the black ink side of the ledger.

Worth a read.

Excellent treatment of subject
This is a small book which puts forward the idea that we must return to a better use of product cost data to make decisions. The authors review the literature going back to the first industries in the 1700's that used cost data in a managerial way. The work quotes heavily A. Chandler, J.M. Clark and Vatter for their contributions. It then reformulates their idea's and other historical data to come to the author's conclusion. In summary, it is well done for those interested in the subject and have an appreciation for business history ... Read more

Book Description

It is common knowledge that CEOs declare their direct reports as a "team at the top." Yet with a culture of individual accountability and self-reliance prevading executive suites, few management groups ever function as real teams. Now, in a natural follow-up to his bestselling The Wisdom of Teams, John Katzenbach moves his focus farther up the organizational ladder to offer practical guidelines for increasing leadership capacity at the highest executive levels. In Terms at the Top, he shows how even the strongest and most successful CEO can improve a company's performance by turning the senior executive group into a real team-without sacrificing each member's individual leadership capabilities. Teams at the Top explains how to recognize when a team effort at the management level is preferable and when a work group under single leadership will do. Then, the book shows how to develop the capability to shift into whichever mode is appropriate. With stories and examples from well-known companies including Enron, Ben & Jerry's, Champion, Citicorp, and Mobile, as well as lessons that are applicable for management groups anywhere in the organization, Teams at the Top will help companies of all sizes and in all industries maximize the full potential of their leadership. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A Delicate but Essential Balance
In one of his several brilliant studies of leadership, Organizing Genius, Warren Bennis examines high-performance teams such as those associated with the Disney studios (which created the first full-length animation film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), the Manhattan Project, Xerox's PARC, and Lockheed's "Skunk Works." But if your own organization has few (if any) geniuses, what are the best strategies for unleashing the potential of both collaborative teamwork and individual leadership? Katzenbach is himself the author or co-author of a number of brilliantly conceived and executed studies, notably The Wisdom of Teams and Real Change Leaders. In this book, his central thesis is that "an integrated balance of real team, individual, and single-leader working group performance is both possible and desirable at the top -- not that one mode is intrinsically better than the other." The key phrase is "integrated balance." Whatever the size and nature of your organization, Katzenbach offers "three major messages":

1. The best senior leadership groups are rarely a true team at the top -- although they can and do function as real teams when major, unexpected events prompt that behavior.

2. Most of the team members can optimize their performance as a group by consciously working to obtain a better balance between their team and non-team efforts -- rather than by trying to become an ongoing single team.

3. The secret to better balance lies in learning to integrate the discipline required for team performance with the discipline of executive (single-leader) behavior -- not in replacing one with the other.

This third "message" is especially relevant to smaller companies, probably privately-owned, in which the CEO (the archetypical single-leader) is either the founder or related to the founder. In such companies, the need for an "integrated balance" may be even greater than it is for much larger organizations. Katzenbach organizes his material within nine chapters. Rather than list their titles, I have selected a few key passages which, hopefully, will suggest the potential value of this book to you and your own organization's specific needs and interests.

Executive Leadership Discipline requires an individual to "create and maintain urgency, resolve the critical strategic issues, enforce individual accountability, leverage executive time, make the tough decisions individually, pick the best individuals for the key jobs, and periodically raise the bar." (Chapter One)

"The notion of 'leadership capacity' implies a system of leadership, if you will, that can extract leadership wisdom, insight, and behaviors from many more individuals. [This is obviously essential to concensus-building.] Thus it fuels the continuing search for different kinds of leadership approaches, both individual and joint, at all levels of the organization." (Chapter Three)

Team Leadership Discipline requires members to "create a meaningful purpose, commit to a team performance goals, be mutually accountable (no member can fail... only the team fails), commit to real work, share decision among members, strive for the right skill mix, and establish the height of the bar." (Chapter Four)

"Integrating real team performance with executive leadership performance requires both a sharp understanding of the differences between the two two disciplines required and a relentless determination to integrate the two. It is hard work, counterintuitive, and outside the comfort zone of most senior executives. Nevertheless, it is well worth the effort." (Chapter Nine)

In Appendix B, Katzenbach offers this definition of a real team: "A small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable." My own opinion is that unless an organization has the two disciplines (both executive leadership and team leadership) in appropriate balance, it will probably have neither. Hopefully, this brief commentary will encourage you to read and then re-read this important book. Also, to check out the other books authored or co-authored by Katzenbach.

Misses the Point
I was hugely disappointed with this book. It held such promise of addressing one of the most important barriers to building collaborative behavior in organizations---the behavior of the senior people.

Throughout the book the author seemed to defend the hierarchical behavior of senior executives and diminish team benefits. And it completely missed the essence of teams which is collaboration. Phrases such as "amorphous groups with overlapping responsibilities," "disrupt the natural order of things," "seldom the best way to get normal work accomplished or routine problems solved," "seldom the fastest way for a group with an experienced, capable leader to get where they are going," "time-consuming 'forming, norming, and storming' stuff," had me wondering if the author really understands collaboration.

This book may do more to maintain the traditional topdown, hierarchical decision making model than to foster real collaboration and teamwork. ... Read more

Book Description

In this article, Bob Zider, president of the Beta Group, a California-based firm that invests in commercializing new technologies, presents an analysis of present-day venture capitalists and shows why its practitioners have a lot more in common with investment bankers than you might think. The popular mythology surrounding the U.S. venture-capital industry derives from a previous era. Venture capitalists who nurtured the computer industry in its infancy were legendary both for their risk taking and for their hands-on operating experience. But today things are different, and separating the myths from the realities is crucial to understanding this important piece of the U.S. economy. Today's venture capitalists are more like conservative bankers than the risk takers of days past. They have carved out a specialized niche in the capital markets, filling a void that other institutions cannot serve. They are the linchpins in an efficient system for meeting the needs of institutional investors looking for high returns, of entrepreneurs seeking funding, and of investment bankers looking for companies to sell. Venture capitalists must earn a consistently superior return on investments in inherently risky businesses. The myth is that they do so by investing in good ideas and good plans. In reality, they invest in good industries--that is, industries that are more competitively forgiving than the market as a whole. And they structure their deals in a way that minimizes their risk and maximizes their returns. Although many entrepreneurs expect venture capitalists to provide them with sage guidance as well as capital, that expectation is unrealistic. Given a typical portfolio of 10 companies and a 2,000-hour work year, a venture capital partner spends on average less than 2 hours per week on any given company. In addition to analyzing the current venture-capital system, the author offers practical advice to entrepreneurs thinking about venture funding. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Clear introduction into venture capital
Bob Zider is president of the Beta Group, a firm that develops and commercializes new technology with funding from individuals, companies, and venture capitalist. This Harvard Business Review-article was published in November-December 1998, which was during the Internet/e-commerce boom.

"Contrary to popular perception, venture capital plays only a minor role in funding basic innovation." Zider discusses the role venture capital plays: it "fills the void between sources of funds for innovation and traditional, lower-cost sources of capital available to ongoing concerns." He then continues to describe the investment profile and the logic of the deal venture capitalists use to achieve their investors' high expectations at an acceptable risk. Zider also explains the attractive returns for venture capitalists (in return for financing one or two years of a company's start-up) and the reason why "seemingly bright and capable people seek such high-cost capital?" The article is complemented with some extremely useful sidebars to clarify this mythical industry.

Yes, I do like this article. This clear article kills some myths and fairytale stories about the venture-capital industry. It is primarily aimed at beginners, although some financial knowledge is useful for readers. For readers who appreciate this type of article I also recommend Justin Pettit's 2001-article 'Is Share Buyback Right for Your Company?' The author uses simple business US-English. ... Read more

Book Description

Most companies do not survive the upheavals of change and competition over the long haul. But there are a few remarkable firms that have withstood the test of several centuries. What hidden lessons do they hold for the rest of us? Arie de Geus, the man who introduced the revolutionary concept of the learning organization, reveals the key to managing for a long and prosperous organizational life.

The Living Company speaks not just to aspiring leaders, but to anyone trying to adapt to a turbulent business environment. Only those steeped in the habits of a living company will survive.

"This profound and uplifting book is for the leaders in all of us. Arie de Geus challenges most of the conventional wisdom in management thinking today."

-Dr. James F. Moore, author of The Death of Competition

"Arie de Geus gives leaders of the future an indispensable guidebook in which commitment to values, people, learning, and innovation defines the living company. It's in my book bag."

-Frances Hesselbein, President and CEO, The Drucker Foundation

... Read more

Reviews (16)

This experience is like a busines trip to the Galapagos!
Arie De Geus turns on its head the idea that companies must go through stages of life and eventually mature and fade away. Instead, those that really succeed constantly adapt, having conserved the resources to allow that to occur. You will develop new ideas about how to help your company succeed. The book also explains how and why scenario planning began, and how critical it is to being ready to adapt to the changing environment. With today's increasing volatility in business, resources and world economies, this book should be required reading.

This book is must reading for any leader or aspiring leader!
Arie de Geus is probably the most unique business thinker around. He combines the pragmatism of someone who had a very successful career at Shell with the curiosity of a talented academic. Behind this unique perspective is a deep appreciation for people. Most of us automatically relate to organizations like Newton related to the natural world, as one big physical mechanism. We casually talk about "aligning parts of the organization", "operating in organizational smokestacks or silos", and "fixing communications channels". Mr. de Geus helps us learn to think about organizations from the natural perspective, as living organisms, subject to many of the same limitations and forces as individual people are. When you read this book, you will become a much better and more effective person in all parts of your life. You will also feel better about yourself, and make those around you feel better about themselves. Read THE LIVING COMPANY today. This book is a wonderful gift to us all!

Excellent Management Book
This is a must read for all those people who are interested in the subject of organizational learning. The book illustrates clearly the challenges companies face in encouraging its employees to learn. Also, it provides a lot of examples and strategies from Shell. Overall, it is an excellent for a any person, even if they are not in a managerial position in a company. If the reader is such a position, then this is a must read.

Insightful yet sarcastically entertaining.
I found this book to be a relief and escape to the way the corporate world has evolved. By taking a look at long living companies, the author has extracted some timeless advice for corporations to pay attention to. The thing that "lowered the score," so to speak is that there were hardly any statistics or hard numbers involved to back up his claims, regardless of the intuitive excellence of their teachings. If this book is to make a difference and it has the ingredients to do so, I thought some hard results outside of the longevity would have to be produced and they weren't. What I particularly liked was how the distinction was made between living companies and economic companies. More importantly, how people need to realize that you can't run a company with some of one philosophy and some of the other. You'll have to pick this up and read it to understand this, but I think if you do, you'll see that most companies are attempting to mix oil and water today and unfortuneately, I agree that they will be "dead before their time." Overall, this was a very insightful book and upon reflection to my own life, sarcastically entertaining.

the living book
If I have to stay with only one business book in my shelf( I have more than 300 in the last count), the living company would be this book. My review will be more emotional I think. This is so, because the way this book touched me. I read it three times and some time think I have to read it again.

This is a very similar with the "Built to last", one of the bestsellers of Amazon. If you liked that book this will be an excellent complement of your reading and thoughts.

Perhaps this is the book that a Startup's CEOs should had read before launch their enterprise, because one of the characteristic of a living company is that they are conservative in their finances.

De Geus wrote a book that it is not limit to a period of time like recent books dot com books. By this I mean that you can go back to it and reapply its contents in your business reality again and again.

An import thing to say is that this is a book of principles, not rules or easy steps to success. Although the author is going to show you that there is a pattern in all the living company, he goes beyond that, showing the root that origin these patterns. The principles was constructed by observing companies, specially Royal Doutch/shell, were Arie de Geus worked for many years, but with the help of other disciplines like psychology and biology, which study the behavior and life of humans and animals. To discuss about innovation for instance, you will observe how a specie of bird is very smart to pass a learning to the whole specie. And to understand how we react or anticipate an external change in our business, it will be useful to look some psychology's theories about the human mind, and so on.

Don't think this is a book for academic public, it is not. You will find not only theories but many examples and cases of the thesis of De Geus. But it is different, I think, of the recent business book. Some times it seems so easy to look a successful company today and says "look, this is what you have to do in your company". A couple of years ago you could find many books explaining why Netscape was so great. Where are Netscape now?. It would not pass in the test of time.

So if you are only worried to make your money no matter what is going to happen to your company, this is not a book for you. Probably you are Jim Clark type. Read the new, new thing instead. But if you thing that management is more than stock options ( I said more. I am saying that is a consequence not the only objective), if you believe the every company must have a reason to exist, if you believe the people are important, than I guarantee, you gonna like this book, tell me about ... Read more

Book Description

Innovation is an undisputed catalyst for company growth, yet many managers across industries fail to create a climate that encourages and rewards innovation. Managing Creativity and Innovation explores the manager's role in sparking organizational creativity and offers insight into what managers and leaders must do to increase successful innovation. Contents include:

Generating new ideas and recognizing opportunities
Moving innovation to market
Removing mental blocks to creativity
Establishing a strategic direction for profitable product development
Brainstorming and fostering creative conflict within groups
Creating an innovation-friendly culture
Plus, readers can access free interactive tools on the Harvard Business Essentials companion web site.

Harvard Business Essentials The Reliable Source for Busy Managers

The Harvard Business Essentials series is designed to provide comprehensive advice, personal coaching, background information, and guidance on the most relevant topics in business. Drawing on rich content from Harvard Business School Publishing and other sources, these concise guides are carefully crafted to provide a highly practical resource for readers with all levels of experience. To assure quality and accuracy, each volume is closely reviewed by a specialized content adviser from a world class business school. Whether you are a new manager interested in expanding your skills or an experienced executive looking for a personal resource, these solution-oriented books offer reliable answers at your fingertips. ... Read more

Book Description

No one believed the IRS could ever run like a twenty-first-century business. Until it did.

When Charles O. Rossotti became Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in 1997, the agency had the largest customer base-and the lowest approval rating-of any institution in America. Mired in scandal, caught in a political maelstrom, and beset by profound management and technology problems, the IRS was widely dismissed as a hopelessly flawed enterprise.

In Many Unhappy Returns, Rossotti-the first businessperson to head the IRS-recounts the remarkable story of his leadership and transformation of this much-maligned agency. In the glare of intense public scrutiny, he effected dramatic changes in the way the IRS did business-while it continued to collect $2 trillion in revenue.

Through fascinating accounts of heated Congressional hearings, encounters with Washington bigwigs, frank exchanges with taxpayers and employees, and risky turnaround strategies, Rossotti serves up a colorful story of leadership and change against daunting odds.He also underscores why every honest taxpayer should demand reform in the broader U.S. tax system.

Infused with keen wit and hard-won business wisdom, Many Unhappy Returns illuminates the perils and possibilities of leading large, complex organizations in a transparent world.

... Read more

Book Description

Harvard Business Review on Corporate Responsibility

What and whom is a business for? This collection of articles gathers the latest thinking on the strategic significance of corporate social responsibility. Readers will develop an understanding of why businesses should continue to give money away even while laying off workers, how companies play a leadership role in today's social problems by incorporating the best thinking of governments and nonprofit institutions, and how community needs are actually opportunities to develop ideas and demonstrate business technologies. Readers will see how corporate responsibility can lead to new markets and solutions to long-standing business problems.

The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series

The series is designed to bring today's managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world. From the preeminent thinkers whose work has defined an entire field to the rising stars who will redefine the way we think about business, here are the leading minds and landmark ideas that have established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for ambitious businesspeople in organizations around the globe.

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Reviews (1)

8essays that see corporate responsibility as an opportunity
Traditional corporate executives may shudder when they hear the term "corporate responsibility". In their view, the corporation's responsibility is to maximize shareholder value within the bounds of the law. That's a tall order as it is, so resistance to the thought of additional sources of responsibility and additional relevant "stakeholders" isn't surprising. The writers gathered in this collection of papers from HBR see corporate responsibility less as a burden and more as an opportunity. The opportunity lies in creating new markets, resolving age-old business problems, improving public perception, strengthening brands, and melding the best ideas for governments and nonprofit institutions for doing well while doing good.

This collection of eight essays provides a firm foundation in both critical and creative thinking on issues of corporate responsibility and active philanthropy. If the terrain is unfamiliar, the collection's fifth essay - "The Path of Kyosei should be a comfortable entry point. Canon's honorary chairman, Ryuzaburo Kaku, sets out five steps along a path toward a "spirit of cooperation". Practical but still intellectually not so challenging is Rosabeth Moss Kanter's "From Spare Change to Real Change: The Social Sector as Beta Site for Business Innovation". Craig Smith in "The New Corporate Philanthropy" sees philanthropic strategies as giving a competitive edge. A similar perspective, worked out in some detail, comes from Michael Porter and Mark Kramer in their contribution, "The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy".

Charles Handy takes his turn at defining the extent of corporate responsibility in "What's A Business For?". A more impressive piece with far more potential payback for the executive reader comes from C.K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond in their recent essay, "Serving the World's Poor, Profitably". Also of high quality is Roger Martin's "The Virtue Matrix: Calculating the Return on Corporate Responsibility". For the more philosophical, a challenging and well-presented argument for strong corporate responsibility appears in "Can a Corporation Have a Conscience?" by the fittingly-named Kenneth Goodpaster and John Matthews. With a couple of weaker spots, this collection succeeds in bringing together some of the best recent thinking on the issue in recent years. To fill in the gaps, be sure to look at the best pieces from other publications. ... Read more

Book Description

Emulating the Success Strategies of Enduring Family Businesses

Fidelity, Hallmark, Michelin, and Wal-Mart are renowned industry powerhouses with long leadership track records. Yet these celebrated companies are united by another factor not generally equated with competitive success: They are all family-controlled businesses.

While many view the hallmarks of family businesses-stable strategies, clan cultures, and unencumbered family ownership-as weaknesses, Danny Miller and Isabelle Le Breton-Miller argue that it is these very characteristics that create formidable competitive advantages for many such firms.

Managing for the Long Run draws from a worldwide study of enduring, family-run organizations-including Cargill, Timken, L.L. Bean, The New York Times, and IKEA-to reveal their unconventional success strategies and how these strategies can be adopted and applied in any organization. Miller and Le Breton-Miller show how four driving passions of family-run firms-command, continuity, community, and connection-give rise to a set of practices that defy modern management thinking yet ensure a company's long term competitive advantage.

Outlining how these practices can enhance strategic efforts from operations to brand leadership to innovation, this book shows what every company must do to manage for the long run.

... Read more

Book Description

Revolutionizing Innovation and Performance Through New Experimentation Technologies

Every company's ability to innovate depends on a process of experimentation whereby new products and services are created and existing ones improved. But the cost of experimentation often limits innovation. New technologies-including computer modeling and simulation-promise to lift that constraint by changing the economics of experimentation. Never before has it been so economically feasible to ask "what-if" questions and generate preliminary answers. These technologies amplify the impact of learning, paving the way for higher R&D performance and innovation and new ways of creating value for customers.

In Experimentation Matters, Stefan Thomke argues that to unlock such potential, companies must not only understand the power of experimentation and new technologies, but also change their processes, organization, and management of innovation. He explains why experimentation is so critical to innovation, underscores the impact of new technologies, and outlines what managers must do to integrate them successfully.

Drawing on a decade of research in multiple industries as diverse as automotive, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and banking, Thomke provides striking illustrations of how companies drive strategy and value creation by accommodating their organizations to new experimentation technologies. As in the outcome of any effective experiment, Thomke also reveals where that has not happened, and explains why. In particular, he shows managers how to:

• Implement "front-loaded" innovation processes that identify potential problems before resources are committed and design decisions locked in
• Experiment and test frequently without overloading their organizations
• Integrate new technologies into the current innovation system
• Organize for rapid experimentation
• Fail early and often but avoid wasteful "mistakes"
• Manage projects as experiments

Pointing to the custom integrated circuit industry-a multibillion dollar market-Thomke also shows what happens when new experimentation technologies are taken beyond firm boundaries, thereby changing the way companies create new products and services with customers and suppliers.

Probing and thoughtful, Experimentation Matters will influence how both executives and academics think about experimentation in general and innovation processes in particular. Experimentation has always been the engine of innovation, and Thomke reveals how it works today.

... Read more

Reviews (8)

Innovation redefined
Observation, exploration and experimentation have been the three basic means of learning for scientists. Of these, experimentation calls for the highest levels of external intervention and as a topic by itself has always been of interest to statisticians who have developed powerful techniques to derive maximum information through the least possible number of experiments. Application of these statistical techniques has resulted in substantial reduction in research expenditure, quicker understanding of scientific principles and shorter time to convert ideas into useful products. On the other hand new technologies like simulation, CAD/CAE that harness the advances in computing have completely changed the experimental landscape by providing powerful techniques for rapid and economical experimentation on our desktops and servers. To cite one example discussed in this book, car maker BMW's crash simulation test progressed from 3000 to 700000 finite elements between 1982 to 2002 while simultaneously resulting in reduction of processing time from 3 months to 30 hours. Power of computing enables "front-loaded" innovation - understanding the phenomenon before committing resources into physical manufacturing.

But the lacuna is that experimentation has never been thought as a separate management discipline cutting across functional silos to bring innovative solutions into the marketplace. Experimentation as a strategic tool that needs management attention and involvement is the core theme of this book.

Management deals with producing results under uncertainty. Uncertainty can be broadly classified under technical, production, market and customer needs. Experimentation should tell us not only what will work, but also what does NOT work. The knowledge so derived should seamlessly flow across the Design-Build-Run-Analyze cycle that cuts across departmental boundaries in large organizations. This is analogous to the concept of ERP in business processes. Though this concepts looks simple, organizational barriers prevent the seamless sharing of information for innovation. Design, manufacturing , marketing and procurement functions fail to optimize on the organizational repository of knowledge that can put winning products into the marketplace. This book is an excellent study on how management can use experimentation as a unique strategy within and beyond organizational boundaries. Case studies are quite detailed and well illustrated.

Read this book. It is worth experimenting.

This book matters!
The way to succeed is to double your failure rate. That comment by Thomas Watson, Sr. is not among the innovators' words of wisdom in Stefan Thomke's densely informative exploration of technologies and processes of experimentation but it perfectly fits the message. Central to Thomke's message in this book is the idea that iterated experimentation through the use of models, prototypes, and computer simulations is the key to learning and innovation. Getting the key to fit in the lock of increased organizational innovation capability, however, takes some jiggling and struggling. Experimentation Matters details the technologies that can transform innovation but place just as much emphasis on the changes that must be made to business processes, organization, culture, incentives, and management. Thomke provides plenty of detailed illustrations of companies wrestling with these issues, and offers six principles revolving to help companies experiment early and often and to organize for rapid iteration.

The first part of the book explains in depth the reasons why experimentation matters for learning and innovation, and how new technologies are affecting the development of both products and services. Thomke shows how the rate of learning is influenced by several factors that affect the process and how it is managed: fidelity, cost, iteration time, capacity, sequential and parallel strategies, signal-to-noise ratio, and type of experiment. Beneath the bewildering diversity of approaches to innovation in different industries, Thomke uncovers six principles that can improve how experimentation occurs: Anticipate and exploit early information through front-loaded innovation processes; Experiment frequently but do not overload your organization; Integrate new and traditional technologies to unlock performance; Organize for rapid experimentation; Fail early and often but avoid "mistakes"; and Manage projects as experiments.

In the final chapter, Thomke looks at how some companies are "shifting the locus of experimentation" to customers as a way to create new value. This approach, sometimes referred to as "co-creation", not only raises productivity but helps fundamentally change the sorts of products and services that can be created. Innovation toolkits given to customers need to enable them to iterate through the steps of experimentation, be user-friendly, contain libraries of useful, pretested and debugged components and modules, and they must contain information abut the capabilities and limitations of the production process. In addition to the development of a customer toolkit, Thomke adds four other steps for shifting experimentation and innovation to customers and, very importantly, notes how the creation and capture of value also shifts.

One great strength of Thomke's book is the attention given to the managerial and organizational challenges of implementing new technologies such as computer modeling and simulation and combinatorial and high-throughput testing. As other writers have repeatedly emphasized - but many managers have not yet understood - new technologies *must* be introduced only in concert with revised business processes, structures, and management approaches. Iterated experimentation helps learning by increasing the number of failures. But if incentives continue to punish failures, the new technologies will be underused or misused. Financial incentives, organizational culture, and management communications will have to change if experimenters are to feel free to fail at the most productive rate.

Thomke illustrates and details the crucial role of organization, process, and management in realizing the potential of experimentation technologies with a range of illuminating cases. He devotes a chapter to these effects in the integrated circuit industry, examines the challenges faced by Bank of America in its bold service experimentation efforts, and shows how managers at Eli Lilly struggled with non-technological aspects of high-powered experimentation in the drug discovery process. A study of experimentation in the auto industry, particularly at BMW, suggests several lessons regarding the reality of technology introduction: Technologies are limited by the processes and people that use them; organizational interfaces can get in the way of experimentation; and technologies change faster than behavior. Thomke also shows how managers can look at projects as experiments, reiterating, refining, and learning from them as they proceed through the stages of design, build, run, and analyze.

Buy This Book!
Buy this book!! Thomke's important new book on innovation is the best that I have read. As a lecturer in product development, I would recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in innovation. In particular, it will be of benefit to company executives wishing to improve the efficacy and efficiency of new technology generation and product development within their firms and students of all levels in this area.

New technologies have allowed for experimentation to be conducted on a much larger scale and in a much more cost effective fashion than ever before. However, what most organisations do not realise is that merely employing new technologies is not sufficient to unlock their true value. The organisation itself must be structured to fully exploit their potential. In today's competitive environment, innovation is crucial and speed is the essence. How this can be done most effectively within organisations is the critical issue addressed in this book. Six simple yet practical principles have been promulgated by Thomke to help senior managers optimise value from experimentation.

The importance of experimentation in driving innovation is wonderfully highlighted and Thomke discusses important paradigms such as failing often to succeed sooner as well as contemporary issues thrown up by new technologies such as what to do with the opportunity to experiment more. He even delves into real-world issues of engineers not trusting computer simulations resulting in the seeming paradox of even more physical prototyping.

The book is written in a highly readable style which engages the reader. Particularly fascinating are the case study examples which illustrate vividly the importance of experimentation in driving innovation and the practical value of the principles which he advocates. These studies cover such diverse companies as Eli Lilly, BMW and there is even one on the design of yachts for the America's Cup! User-friendly boxes explaining important concepts such as computer simulation make the book accessible even to those unfamiliar to this field.

All in all, this is an excellent book and it is highly recommended. Five Stars!

Innovation through Experimentation
Stefan Thomke has produced a landmark book that beautifully reinforces an often ignored aspect about innovation -- experimentation matters. Indeed, experimentation is at the heart of innovation, and Thomke has delivered that much-needed message very well. Drawing upon his extensive research and with many insightful case studies from across the industries, Thomke's book is a powerful account of how new technologies and processes
can be leveraged to innovate and compete. This book is a "must read" for anyone who believes that innovation will increasingly be the driving element of competitive success, and that strategic experimentation design and management are at the center stage of innovation. Those not believing so, needless to say, will obviously be left behind. Read this book now and implement its ideas faster than your competitors.

Sound Experimentation
The book's significance lies in Stefan Thomke's idea that sound experimentation is at the crux of the innovation process. This is a departure from either the fairly generalised thinking about product development and/or innovation, on the one hand, and the overly specific focus on techniques like simulation, on the other, that one tends to find nowadays. Experimentation is, of course, an old and commonplace idea in scientific circles and in some specialised management areas. But I believe this book will lead the way in making experimentation a crucial part of mainstream corporate management.

Thomke has developed his own conceptual framework for this purpose consisting of the four stages of "design-build-run-analyse". He focuses on a wide range of new experimentation technologies (including simulation) and he has studied how they are applied in a wide range of industries. He makes it a point to distill the knowledge thus gained into sets of principles, key factors, steps, findings etc at regular intervals. Thus the book's contents have been made highly accessible to a managerial audience. Managers will appreciate the challenge Thomke presents of tapping into the full potential of experimentation.

The book should also prove a valuable academic resource in management given the rigour of the research and its great managerial relevance. In fact, Thomke's cutting edge idea of customer toolkits for innovation (which catapult experimentation from the corporate realm to the customer domain) is already germinating in India. I, myself, have published a scholarly article on it very recently and I know others who have devoted sessions to it in top-flight MBA and executive programs here.

The book should make for absorbing reading by the management community worldwide and I recommend it highly. ... Read more

Book Description

The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series brings managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world. Gathered in a highly accessible format are the leading minds and landmark ideas that have established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for forward-thinking businesspeople worldwide.

With concern for environmental issues growing, defining the controversial relationship between business and the environment has become even more essential. Harvard Business Review on Business and the Environment brings together the latest management thinking on the role of the environment in business, and offers a general management perspective that will help outline the critical environmental issues your organization may face. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Even a company that dramatically improves its efficiency and product quality can fail miserably. Peter G. W. Keen names this phenomenon the "process paradox," a modern industrial problem that he deconstructs and defeats in his book The Process Edge. The basis of business acumen is common sense, Keen reminds us, but it must be combined with a rigor that measures pure worth. Processes--not only in customer service and quality assurance, but in larger, abstract notions such as acquisition and cultural initiatives--need to be approached in this basic manner. Using a broad, multidisciplinary approach (Keen was an English literature major in college but has since taught management science at Stanford and MIT), he immerses the theory of business processes in an economic bath, refining previously overlooked processes and debunking "magical" ones. Methods that businesses institute, after proving advantageous, can still build in value, and then must be incorporated into the entire business strategy. Keen substantiates his points with real-life cases and examples, from Dell and IBM to Wal-Mart and Boeing. Managers who wish to examine their businesses holistically and within sound theory will appreciate The Process Edge, but it will prove most valuable to managers who need to enact change now. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

The Process Edge
Excellent overview and approach to project selection for business process improvement.Clear and original thinking on the matrix and balance sheet approach to process definition.Little detail however on what to do once the targeted areas are identified.Good companion to Good To Great by Collins (with similar levels of implementation detail).

"Keen" Insight into Process Improvement
Most improvement programs struggle with the project selection process.Mr Keen provides an interesting approach in identifying processes where improvement offers the greatest impact to the organization.There is also intriguing discussion contrasting benefits and value.This is a nice thought provoking book for folks tasked with identifying improvement opportunities in any organization.

Thought Provoking!
Keen excels at extending the definition of processes and providing a structured Salience/Worth matrix approach of thinking about them.An important read for developing an understanding of processes and their role.

Exceptional value! Replaces your TQM & Reengineering books.
The inability to understand the value of business processes is the pitfall of many reengineering projects especially in IT.Internalizing this book will certainly contribute to your future projects.A must in any businessmanagement library.

Poor follow through
The book raises some interesting issues (treating processes as capital, using EVA) but ultimately falls short somehow.The author points out that there are more processes than just the traditional workflow ones, but his examples are all of workflow processes.He never talks about succession planning processes or employee retention processes.The first few chapters were interesting but the rest was more or less useless. ... Read more

Book Description

Imagine thinking about your company's information technology inthe same way that you think about its investment portfolio: as a bundleof assets that--when managed right--will generate revenues and savings. Here's just such a framework for leveraging IT (technology, networks,data, and software)--one that enables business managers to make theimportant decisions about the potentially confounding mix ofhigh-technology that influences near- and long-term planning, affectsthe ability to support customers, and dictates the flow of dailyoperations.This hands-on resource, complete with benchmarks and casestudies, creates the common ground where both management and IT canmeet, communicate their goals, and agree upon the best plan for gettingthere.

Drawing upon their rigorous research with over 100 topmultinationals, the authors present a rich and varied range of examplesof IT investment strategies that have reaped rewards for firms such asCitibank, Honda, Johnson & Johnson, Ralston Purina, the DevelopmentBank of Singapore, and Telstra.They include proven guidelines, alongwith lists of essential questions that managers must ask themselves andtheir IT staff in order to compile a competitive IT portfolio as wellas measure the results.For senior managers seeking to link strategyto their IT investments, Leveraging the New Infrastructure provides thepower to make technology not just a tool, but an asset that generatesvalue. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

REQUISITE READING for Information Age strategists.
Information technology has made possible the Information Age. Today, organizations are wrestling with the monumentally complex decisions about how to invest in this ever-advancing technology-investment decisions that are shaping the competitive destiny of corporations. How such decisions are made and how they should be made is at the heart of this book.

The central theme is linking strategy with a firm's IT portfolio: its total investment in an IT infrastructure. The authors explore four approaches to such infrastructure investment decisions, ranging from none to an enabling view that positions the firm to optimize its IT core competence in a strategically flexible manner. The authors have synthesized the approach market leaders take to leveraging IT. This books reveals how IT creates business value, and how top performing firms use IT in alignment with their current and future needs and goals. The book's concluding section addresses how to manage the IT portfolio for optimum business results. The book includes, among many of its nuggests, a useful grouping of infrastructure services into 8 management clusters.

Reading this book is a delightful educational experience; it is also REQUISITE READING for all strategists. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and the Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

Strategically investing in IT to achieve the market edge.
Information technology has made possible the Information Age. Today, organizations are wrestling with the monumentally complex decisions about how to invest in this ever-advancing technology-investment decisions that are shaping the competitive destiny of corporations. How such decisions are made and how they should be made is at the heart of this book. The central theme is linking strategy with a firm's IT portfolio: its total investment in an IT infrastructure. The authors explore four approaches to such infrastructure investment decisions, ranging from none to an enabling view that positions the firm to optimize its IT core competence in a strategically flexible manner.

The authors have synthesized the approach market leaders take to leveraging IT. This books shows how IT creates business value and how top performing firms use IT in alignment with their current and future needs and goals. The book's concluding section addresses how to manage the IT portfolio for optimum business results. The work includes a useful grouping of infrastructure services into 8 management clusters. Reading this book is a delightful educational experience; it is also requisite reading for all strategists.

Thorough Survey
I found this book quite helpful for my team. It covers the current issues quickly and well. Although it is repetitive, the book presents a tapestry that steers thinking in IT toward strategic alignment. The book lays the foundation for the holistic integration of IT and business strategy, using techniques (though not explicitly) of portfolio management, continuous improvement, teambuilding, and enterprise architecture modeling.

I highly recommend this book. It should be paired with a more enterprise architecture centric book to provide a complete actionable background. That said, the book stands alone to plant the foundation for successful IT/Strategy convergence.

start with 20 pages
This book has a tendency to reiterate the same concepts over and over, but they are 'sensible' concepts. Managing the projects and having measurements for the use of infrastructure in todays businesses is critical. More important is the methods used to weigh the benefits of investing more into a global infrastructure vs. a LOB infrastructure. the second half of the book reads faster than the first, but 20-30 pages a day will get you through it in know time and allow you to consume the message.

A Two Hi-Liter Book
Super book! This book adds value to something most companies are yet to figure out they have or need--an IT infrastructure. The book makes a case that the infrastructure is the key to competitive edge. Sold! I believe it. Read this book and you'll also be convinced.

Regrettably, some of the readers won't "get it" hence the competitive edge. If you don't get, check your altitude. You may be flying too low. In my view, infrastructure only looks like infrastructure from on high. Think end to end. The secret is to gain enough altitude to see it. Believe me--whether you see it or not--it's there and costing you big bucks! So soar! Gain altitude until you see the infrastructure. Let this book be the wind beneath your wings.

Don't just take Weill and Broadbent's word for it. What is your favorite IT guru saying about this subject?

You will undoubtedly conclude that this book is on target and on the money! Read it. Let it soak in. Then start Leveraging the New Infrastructure. ... Read more

Amazon.com

What do the Atlanta Braves, Microsoft, 3M, Nike, and Intel all have in common? According to Shona Brown and Kathleen Eisenhardt, authors of Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos, each of these organizations are predictably unpredictable. They're leaders not because of their ability to predict the course of their markets; rather, these companies have learned to embrace the notion of change. They're successful because they've learned to find that edge between structure and chaos that allows them to be innovative and creative, while maintaining just enough discipline to focus on executing a plan.

The authors contend that competing on the edge is not an efficient or predictable way to do business. Instead, it's learning how to adapt and lead in a business environment that's in a constant state of flux. "The underlying insight behind competing on the edge is that strategy is the result of a firm's organizing to change constantly and letting a semicoherent strategic direction emerge from that organization. In other words, it is about combining the two parts of strategy by simultaneously addressing where you want to go and how you are going to get there."

Brown and Eisenhardt offer dozens of examples of companies that are successfully and not so successfully finding that balance between anarchy and order. If, on the one hand, you feel like your company is bogged down by rules and bureaucracy or if,on the other, it seems like no one in your company knows exactly what they're doing, you'll find that Competing on the Edge is a valuable handbook for change. The book is clearly written, full of insight, and belongs on every manager's bookshelf. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards ... Read more

Reviews (22)

Required reading for strategic managers.+
Andersen Consulting recently completed a study of the worldwide electronics systems industry. One of the key results reported in this study was that those companies that followed traditional approaches to strategy, collaboration, organization, and business processes (as currently taught in most MBA programs and espoused by some consultants), had decreased chances for success compared to those firms whose managers followed innovative approaches to strategic thinking and action. While some details of the innovative approaches were provided in the report, there was no unifying framework to aid managers and researchers in putting the findings in context-nor was there any basis for generalizing the findings to other industries. Competing on the Edge provides such a framework as well as the basis for extension to a wide variety of industries.

This book should be required reading for anyone who manages, does business with, invests in, or regulates--or plans to do so--firms in fast-moving environments.

The authors identify three key concepts to managing change on a continuous basis: managing on the edge of chaos, managing on the edge of time and time pacing. Each of these concepts is illustrated via the identification and explication of a series of "traps" that, should the managers fall in, result in their companies becoming non-competitors in their industries. The traps are, in turn, detailed by references to a set of disguised studies that form the underpinning for concepts, and brought to life by reference to reinterpreted information about a variety of organizations that have appeared in the business and popular press. One aspect of the book that managers, especially, should appreciate-for Brown and Eisenhardt strategic management does not mean strategy formulation alone; it also includes implementation

The book is eminently readable, with a scattering of side-bar boxes containing specific information on concepts raised in the text. The examples employed are nothing short of innovative--when is the last time you saw a management book that used the ecology of a prairie, caribou hunting and the Tour de France to illustrate points about strategy?

Competing on the Edge is an excellent way to acquaint practicing managers as well as students in MBA programs with the latest concepts for managing organizations in situations where rapid change is the norm. It will certainly be required reading for my graduate course on Strategic Analysis for High Technology Industries.

A great application of complexity theory to management.
This book is not about magic bullets. No slogans or easy fixes for managers in business. This is a book about the realities of business.

There are books out there that discuss complexity theory well but management poorly, and there are also books that discuss management well but complexity theory poorly. This book is an exception in the field because it does a very nice job of discussing both. It is the blend of these two topics that makes it a nice read and a change of pace from other management reading.

The book combines some very useful insights with examples that resonate with business people. It tries to explain how some disparate companies in different industries share some characteristics, and how those characteristics define their competitive success.

I do have to warn, though, it is not an altogether light read. Although it has light moments, such as decriptions of cool companies, the guts can be dense. The core of the book is based on extensive and serious academic research, and that is evident. This is a serious book for people who want to think about management problems where the solutions are not simple or obvious.

One of the authors is at Google's busines
Shona Brown is responsibile for Google's business operations from 2003 as new Vice President, following almost a decade consulting for McKinsey & Co. What strategy will she propose as a remedy to the bad behavior google-watch.org says her new employer is showing: "If we're NOT lucky, we will be uploading our websites to Google's servers soon, much like the bloggers do at blogger.com (which was bought by Google in 2003). It would mean the end of the web as we know it. On the other hand, if we're lucky, one of the other three search companies will soon offer some competition.

Why? Because it collects your IP address, the time and date, your search terms, your browser configuration, and the cookie ID for your every step (read: search) Google is a privacy time bomb with 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S. It is able to access all their users' information because Google has no user-data Retention policy, and when the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, Brin had no comment.

The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. (Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache).
The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."
By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their site.
There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.

Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.

Fresh View of Strategy
As a business school student I have covered a plethora of theories and frameworks regarding strategic analysis, planning, and development. Brown & Eisenhardt provide a fresh look at strategy. Competing on the Edge provides the latest thinking on emergent strategy and succeeding within high-velocity industries. Regardless if you are in industry or the classroom, this book is a must if you ever plan to drive strategy at the business level-no matter what the pace of change is in your industry. This book will teach you to think in new ways about how you create, manage and defend competitive advantage. This read will take you far beyond Porter, Mintzberg, and Barney.

A great leeson in creating a flow of competitive advantages
As a business school student I have covered a plethora of theories and frameworks regarding strategic analysis, planning, and development. Brown & Eisenhardt provide a fresh look at strategy. Competing on the Edge provides the latest thinking on emergent strategy and succeeding within high-velocity industries. Regardless if you are in industry or the classroom, this book is a must if you ever plan to drive strategy at the business level-no matter what the pace of change is in your industry. This book will teach you to think in new ways about how you create, manage and defend competitive advantage. This read will take you far beyond Porter, Mintzberg, and Barney. ... Read more

Book Description

The Astonishing Impact of the "Megaretailer" on Competition, Communities, and Consumers

Retail is a dynamic and often ruthless world that equally influences, and is influenced by, the consumers it exists to serve. New players constantly emerge to better satisfy consumer demands; consumer demands and desires shift with new offerings; and existing firms disappear when they can't adapt.

In Category Killers, veteran journalist Robert Spector explores the rise of retail's reigning disruptor: retailers who seek to dominate a distinct classification of merchandise and wipe out the competition. Based on decades of research and investigative reporting, Spector vividly recounts how "category killers" from Toys R Us and Home Depot to Wal-Mart and Costco have ingeniously rewritten the retail playbook and, in the process, profoundly altered cultural and economic factors from migration and traffic patterns to legislation and taxation to wages and jobs.

Spector explores the brilliant strategies that have enabled category killers to overpower department stores, regional chains, and mom-and-pop stores and to reshape the concept of shopping malls. He also identifies emerging trends and inevitable roadblocks that could dethrone today's powerhouses.

Absorbing and insightful, Category Killers is at once a vivid journey down the aisles of retailing history and an incisive analysis of modern retail's most influential players.

Robert Spector is a seasoned business journalist, retail expert, and international speaker on customer service and corporate culture. He is the author of four previous books including The Nordstrom Way and Amazon.com.

... Read more

Book Description

The Exclusive Story behind Intuit's Hard-Won Success

It's a modern-day David and Goliath story for the business world: a company dreamed up at a kitchen table, built on explosive PC growth, and forced to battle a giant in the race to revolutionize an industry. This is the story of Intuit, creator of renowned software products like Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax-the company that beat mighty Microsoft and changed the way 25 million people manage their finances.

Written by Intuit veteran Suzanne Taylor and seasoned business manager Kathy Schroeder-who were granted exclusive interviews with founder Scott Cook and other key figures- Inside Intuit tells this company's original and fascinating tale for the first time. The book vividly recounts each dramatic stage of Intuit's development: from initial conception to "bet the company" investments; from strokes of marketing genius to disastrous product launches; and from battles for survival to successive victories against arch-rival Microsoft-the company no one else could beat.

Evident throughout this account is the power of Intuit's relentless customer focus, which guided the company from tiny start-up to a 6,000-employee, $1.4 billion business. Instructive and inspiring, Inside Intuit chronicles an enduring company's extraordinary success against overwhelming odds.

"This important book doesn't take any shortcuts in analyzing the building blocks of success. Taylor and Schroeder have written a fascinating blow-by-blow account of the thousand and one decisions that have made Intuit what it is. Highly readable, thorough, and extremely well researched Inside Intuit is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand success in Silicon Valley."

-Emanuel Rosen, author, The Anatomy of Buzz

"Inside Intuit is more than the history of a start-up that grew to dominate a major software category. It is a blueprint of success for entrepreneurs and investors who want to build great businesses in difficult environments."

-Roger McNamee