Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose

– By Raj Sisodia, David B. Wolfe and Jag Sheth Read most books on management and they will all talk about the one key objective of companies – to maximise shareholders’ value. That objective is taken as gospel. However, there are now a growing group of companies that don’t follow the traditional stockholder-biased business model […]

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Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy

– By Joan Magretta There is absolutely no doubt that Michael Porter has been one of the most influential business thinkers and writers that we have known. His books include Competitive Strategy, Competitive Advantage, Competitive Advantage of Nations and On Competition. He has also written numerous articles that have been used and cited by many […]

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Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends On It

– By Al Ries It is very likely that many of us would have read books written by Al Ries (alone or with Jack Trout or with his daughter, Laura Ries). Ries and Trout wrote the seminal ‘Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind’ and followed that with a number of bestselling books. They parted company […]

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Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers

According to Geoffrey Moore, the US has been great in marketing traditional products; however, it has been on unsure ground when it comes to marketing high-tech products. Thus, the two questions that Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers aims to answer are: Why hasn’t the US been able to apply […]

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Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works

– By A. G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin G. Lafley was the former Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Procter & Gamble. Under his watch – during the noughties – P&G more than doubled its sales and quadrupled its profits. Also, P&G’s portfolio of billion-dollar brands grew from 10 to […]

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Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t

– By Jim Collins Good to Great was a monster best seller when it was released in 2001. It still retains its popularity and I am sure that many members of BlueBarn would have read the book. Collins’ exhaustive research for the book was initiated to find out how some companies transition from being ‘good’ […]

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Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant

– By W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne’s best-selling 2005 book, is a great read. It has a very appealing sub-line: ‘How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant.’ Now which one of us wouldn’t want to do that! In the book, Chan […]

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