This is an interactive guide to every element of the business planning process. Are you an entrepreneur who wants to make it big? A manager grappling with logistics? A small business owner trying to map out a future in shaky economic times? Then look no further! Business Plans Kit For Dummies is a nuts-and-bolts guide to evaluating and invigorating your commercial strategy, no matter how big or small your business. Lay the foundations identify your long-term goals and brainstorm your business options. Develop the skills sketch out a working model, size up competitors and fire up your marketing machine. Make it personal scrutinise the ins and outs of your budget and diagnose what you need to take your ideas forward. Maximise your plan's potential take advantage of the latest online resources and e-technology to give your venture the edge. Fix faulty strategies recognise weak spots, build on strengths and make preparations to update your plan a year from now. Open the book and find: advice on stimulating business creativity; effective ways to research your start-up needs; how to get the most out of your industry; tips on sharpening your marketing drive and developing a customer profile; forecasting strategies for every kind of business; planning sheets, sample budgets and managerial forms; and, how to use libraries, directories and search engines to your advantage. The interactive companion CD-ROM is packed with templates, worksheets, assignments and checklists to help you kick-start the planning process, monitor progress and get your business on track.

This is the only official quantitative review for the GMAT from the creators of the test. Anyone preparing for the Graduate Management Admission Test[registered] (GMAT) knows it's important to study with the experts. With The Official Guide for the GMAT Quantitative Review, Second Edition, you'll get questions, answers, and explanations straight from the source. The only official quantitative review for the GMAT Exam, this book targets your study and helps you improve your quantitative skills by focusing on your ability to solve equations, interpret data, coordinate geometry, and determine probability with assurance and ease. Inside, you'll find: 300 actual questions from past GMAT tests, including 75 questions new to this edition; sections on Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Problem Solving, and Data Sufficiency; and, questions organized in order of difficulty to save study time. The Graduate Management Admission Council certifies all content so you can trust that you're getting expert guidance as you prepare for the GMAT Exam.

The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 12th Edition is the only book on the market written by the creators of the GMAT exam. Inside you'll find more than 800 actual GMAT questions from previous tests with answers and detailed explanations. There's also a grammar review, math review, actual essay topics, sample responses, and scoring information insights into the GMAT exam that debunk test-taking myths. Plus, use the diagnostic section to pinpoint your skill level and focus on the areas where you need the most help.

«How to use brands to gain and sustain competitive advantage Companies today face a dilemma in marketing. The tried-and-true formulas to create sales and market share behind brands are becoming irrelevant and losing traction with consumers. In this book, Gerzema and LeBar offer credible evidence--drawn from a detailed analysis of a decade's worth of brand and financial data using Y&R's Brand Asset Valuator (BAV), the largest database of brands in the world--that business is riding on yet another bubble that is ready to burst--a brand bubble. While most managers still see metrics like trust and awareness as the backbone of how brands are built, Gerzema asserts they're dead wrong--these metrics do not add to increased asset value. In fact, by following them, they actually hasten the declining value of their brands. Using a five-stage model, The Brand Bubble reveals how today's successful brands--and tomorrow's--have an insatiable appetite for creativity and change. These brands offer consumers a palpable sense of movement and direction thanks to a powerful «energized differentiation.» Gerzema reveals how brands with energized differentiation achieve better financial performance than traditional brands have. Plus, Gerzema helps readers develop energized differentiation in their own brands, creating consumer-centric and sustainable organizations.»

At last, a more inspired approach to business. Business Genius describes how to grow your business more effectively through intelligent strategy and imaginative leadership, radical innovation and sustained change. Combining the entrepreneurial passion of a start-up with the commercial rigour of large enterprises... this is for everyone who seeks the inspiration to think and act differently. Business Genius helps you drive more profitable, sustainable growth in today’s fast changing and connected markets. It explores the challenges of strategy and innovation, leadership and change as you grow your business, and yourself, in order to achieve high performance. From the craze for Crocs to the cool of Diesel, the secrets of Kikkoman and energy of Red Bull, the vision of Google and disruption of Current TV, the revolution of P&G and the phenomenon of Umpqua – the book captures the best insights from around the world, and a new agenda for today’s business. Seeing things differently is the foundation of genius. Connecting your left and right brain to think more holistically, exploring opportunities from the future back as well as now forward – then doing business from the outside in rather than the inside out, in order to turn radical ideas into practical action.

In The Little Book That Builds Wealth, author Pat Dorsey—the Director of Equity Research for leading independent investment research provider Morningstar, Inc.—reveals why competitive advantages, or economic moats, are such strong indicators of great long-term investments and examines four of their most common sources: intangible assets, cost advantages, customer-switching costs, and network economics. Along the way, he skillfully outlines this proven approach and reveals how you can effectively apply it to your own investment endeavors.

Innovation leaders promote and address the innovation agenda in their company. Through personal conviction or competitive necessity they are obsessed with providing superior value to customers through innovation. They know how to mobilize their staff behind concrete innovation initiatives and do not hesitate to personally coach innovation teams. For innovation to occur leadership has to be collective. To create a momentum for innovation in their company, leaders from different functions need to team up, to build innovation networks. Innovation leadership is not just an innate talent that can be selected at the hiring level. It can be developed within an appropriate company culture through careful leadership development, typically achieved through career management and coaching. Innovation leaders also need to stay on board and it is the responsibility of the top management team to create an attractive climate to develop and keep its innovation leaders. There are plenty of books that deal with innovation, or with new product development, or with leadership; this is different in its focus on the specifics of innovation leadership – that particular form of leadership that stimulates and sustains innovation. This book maps the broad territory of innovation leadership and contributes new thinking on the focus of the emerging leadership role of the CTO; distinction between ‘front end’ and ‘back end’ innovation leaders; the concept of aligning leadership styles with strategy; and the chain of leadership concept. Combining practice-based and empirical research-based observations with simple conceptual frameworks, illustrated by many company examples and case stories from a broad range of industries in the US and Europe, this is a systematic presentation of innovation drivers and their implications in terms of what leaders need to do to make it work.

If you’ve ever wondered how investors continue to see substantial market-beating investment returns with portfolios that just seem to grow and grow, The Little Book that Saves Your Assets: What the Rich Do to Stay Wealthy in Up and Down Markets will reveal some secrets. David Darst, also known as Mr. Asset Allocations, shows you how to use savvy asset allocation strategies that you can use to invest like the rich do. This dynamic and easy-to-understand book allows you to rethink your asset allocation strategies and make the leap from mediocre to stellar returns.

«Inside the Customer Universe reveals how an organization can become ahead of the game by focusing a its strategy on predicting customer needs rather than following them. This book provides a unique contribution to the field of customer management with a departure from current practice towards understanding customers as 'multi-individuals' and hence solving current confusions surrounding customer behaviour. Inside the Customer Universe's easy to implement tools, models and strategies provide the reader with the ability to create stable and sustainable customer understanding and, therefore, sustainable business growth. «CUBEical Thinking is a great concept for developing business and the concept of customer types is intriguing as it provides great insights into the drivers behind true customer loyalty». Niels Henrik Hansen, Director SAS Corporate Sales, Scandinavian Airlines, Denmark «CUBEical Thinking has given us the platform for developing an effective sales and key account management organization which has delivered significant top and bottom line results based on targeted up and cross sales». Henrik Hubner, Vice President Sales, Sanist? «CUBEical Thinking has provided us with great customer insights on which we are benefiting in our daily operations and it has helped our organization focus activities and resources». Carsten Hetling, Nordic Marketing Manager, Zyxel Communications»

«Profit from a powerful, proven investment strategy The Little Book That Makes You Rich is the latest book in the popular «Little Book, Big Profits» series. Written by Louis Navellier one of the most well-respected and successful growth investors of our day this book offers a fundamental understanding of how to get rich using the best in growth investing strategies. Navellier has made a living by picking top, actively traded stocks and capturing unparalleled profits from them in the process. Now, with The Little Book That Makes You Rich, he shows you how to find stocks that are poised for rapid price increases, regardless of overall stock market direction. Navellier also offers the statistical and quantitative measures needed to measure risk and reward along the path to profitable growth stock investing. Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, The Little Book That Makes You Rich gives individual investors specific tools for selecting stocks based on the factors that years of research have proven to lead to growth stock profits. These factors include analysts' moves, profit margins expansion, and rapid sales growth. In addition to offering you tips for not paying too much for growth, the author also addresses essential issues that every growth investor must be aware of, including which signs will tell you when it's time to get rid of a stock and how to monitor a portfolio in order to maintain its overall quality. Accessible and engaging, The Little Book That Makes You Rich outlines an effective approach to building true wealth in today's markets. Louis Navellier (Reno, NV) has one of the most exceptional long-term track records of any financial newsletter editor in America. As a financial analyst and editor of investment newsletters since 1980, Navellier's recommendations (published in Emerging Growth) have gained over 4,806 percent in the last 22 years, as confirmed by a leading independent newsletter rating service, The Hulbert Financial Digest. Emerging Growth is one of Navellier's four services, which also includes his Blue Chip Growth service for large-cap stock investors, his Quantum Growth service for active traders seeking shorter-term gains, and his Global Growth service for active traders focused on high growth global stocks.»

In this unique and groundbreaking book, business consultant and New York Times best-selling author Patrick Lencioni turns his sights on the most important organization in our lives—the family. As a husband and the father of four young boys, Lencioni realized the discrepancy between the time and energy his clients put into running their organizations and the reactive way most people run their personal lives. Having experienced the stress of a frantic family firsthand, he and his wife began applying some of the tools he uses with Fortune 500 companies at home, and with surprising results.

In yet another page-turner, New York Times best-selling author and acclaimed management expert Patrick Lencioni addresses the costly and maddening issue of silos, the barriers that create organizational politics. Silos devastate organizations, kill productivity, push good people out the door, and jeopardize the achievement of corporate goals. As with his other books, Lencioni writes Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars as a fictional—but eerily realistic—story. The story is about Jude Cousins, an eager young management consultant struggling to launch his practice by solving one of the more universal and frustrating problems faced by his clients. Through trial and error, he develops a simple yet ground-breaking approach for helping them transform confusion and infighting into clarity and alignment.

There are many ways to make money in today's market, but the one strategy that has truly proven itself over the years is value investing. Now, with The Little Book of Value Investing, Christopher Browne shows you how to use this wealth-building strategy to successfully buy bargain stocks around the world.

A bestselling author and business guru tells how to improve your job satisfaction and performance. In his sixth fable, bestselling author Patrick Lencioni takes on a topic that almost everyone can relate to: the causes of a miserable job.

In Bailout, John Waggoner answers the essential questions surrounding recent market catastrophes-from the failure of Bear Stearns to the credit crisis-and reveals how you can protect your portfolio during these turbulent times. Waggoner offers a wide range of strategies to help your portfolio weather this storm, including rebalancing and using foreign currencies, and discusses how Treasury bonds, gold, commodities, and real estate can solidify your financial standing. With the expert advice found here, you'll quickly discover what it takes to achieve safety and success in today's volatile market.

Ten simple steps and forty-six techniques to help business professionals, engineers, and scientists write more effectively and efficiently. Can Do Writing is the writing guide for the hundreds of millions of people who write documents as part of a job. A survey of 112 highly paid occupations shows that these professionals share one career-building skill: writing is essential. For twenty-plus years, Daniel and Judith Graham have trained more than 70,000 business and technical professionals to use this system. Every one of these professionals can benefit from the proven writing system described in this book because Can Do Writing gives them the skills they need to succeed. In ten steps and 46 writing techniques, the authors systematically lead business readers through analysis, composition, and editing. These steps and techniques work every time for every imaginable document, for every profession, for every subject and every client. Writing isn't easy, but Can Do Writing makes even the most complex writing project manageable. Daniel and Judith Graham (Fairfax, VA) are the founders and principals of Graham Associates, providing quality writing consulting and training for business professionals, engineers, and scientists for more than 20 years.

The Arts and Crafts movement in architecture, interior design, and decorative arts reached its peak between 1880 and 1910 in Britain and North America. The movement's emphasis on aesthetic quality and a high level of craftsmanship, promoted as an antidote to the ubiquity and uninspired appearance of machine-produced products, remains much admired today. Arts and Crafts enjoyed special resonance in Chicago, the home of Jane Addams' Hull House, where immigrants and women received training in handicraft skills not only to beautify domestic life but also to provide them with viable, honourable work. Apostles of Beauty presents outstanding examples by the movement's British originators, such as William Morris and Charles Robert Ashbee, as well as its greatest American practitioners, such as Gustav Stickley and Frank Lloyd Wright. The volume highlights a wide range of objects, including ceramics, furniture, metalwork, paintings, photographs, and textiles. It focuses on Chicago's absorption and interpretation of the movement, featuring works from the Art Institute, the University of Chicago, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Crab Tree Farm, and private collections. Contributors to the book explore the complex influences of the Arts and Crafts style and provide a thematic history of the movement, including a section on design and collecting in Chicago.

Covering the traditional database system concepts from a systems perspective, this book addresses the functionality that database systems provide as well as what algorithms and design decisions will best implement their functionality. It describes what Java tools and techniques will help developers build an application that uses a database system.

Need to brush up on your Spanish? Intermediate Spanish For Dummies is your key to success in building your writing skills and bolstering your confidence. It gives you the straight talk and nitty-gritty detail that will see you successfully through any major or minor roadblocks to communicating in Spanish. This friendly, hands-on workbook is loaded with practical examples and useful exercises so you can practice how native speakers use the language. From vocabulary and numbers to juggling tenses, you'll get a clear understanding of the nuances of Spanish style and usage that will have you writing like a native in no time. Plus, you'll find multiple charts that provide conjugations for all types of Spanish verbs. You'll get up to speed with Spanish grammar, master essential differences between Spanish and English language usage, and be able to communicate effectively when traveling or conducting business. Discover how to:* Use fundamental Spanish grammar, from nouns, adjectives, and adverbs to pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions* Select and conjugate Spanish verbs correctly* Understand the importance of grammatical gender in Spanish* Avoid the most common writing mistakes* Use numbers and express dates and times* Name countries and nationalities in Spanish* Expand your Spanish vocabulary exponentially* Get comfortable with the subjunctive* Combine verbs with confidence and competence Sharpen your Spanish-language skills the fun and easy way with Intermediate Spanish For Dummies.

Want to get an MBA? The Complete MBA For Dummies, 2nd Edition, is the practical, plain-English guide that covers all the basics of a top-notch MBA program, helping you to navigate today's most innovative business strategies. From management to entrepreneurship to strategic planning, you'll understand the hottest trends and get the latest techniques for motivating employees, building global partnerships, managing risk, and manufacturing. This fun, easy-to-access guide is full of useful information, tips, and checklists that will help you lead, manage, or participate in any business at a high level of competence. You'll find out how to use databases to your advantage, recognize and reward your employees, analyze financial statements, and understand the challenges of strategic planning in a global business environment. You'll also learn the basic principals of accounting, get a grip on the concepts behind stocks and bonds, and find out how technology has revolutionized everything from manufacturing to marketing. Discover how to:* Know and respond to your customers' needs* Handle budgets and forecasts* Recruit and retain top people* Establish and run employee teams* Use Sarbanes-Oxley to your company's advantage* Negotiate with the best of them* Build long-term relationships with clients* Avoid common managerial mistakes* Improve cash flow* Market your products and services* Make the most of your advertising dollar Once you know what an MBA knows, the sky's the limit. Read The Complete MBA For Dummies, 2nd Edition, and watch your career take off!