Not high-profile leaders with big personalities, but CEOs with a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will are required to lead companies from good to great 

“We were surprised, shocked really, to discover the type of leadership required for turning a good company into a great one. Compared to high-profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good-to-great leaders seem to have come from Mars. Self-effacing, quiet, reserved even shy – these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar. […] Some of the key concepts discerned in the study fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people."

              Jim Collins

A Decade ago Jim Collins made a name for himself with the book “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies”. That best-seller, written with Jerry Porras, looked deeply at companies that were outstanding at their founding and managed to sustain their greatness. But the companies he wrote about in that book were, for the most part, always great. They never had to turn themselves from good companies into great companies. They had parents like David Packard and George Merck, who shaped the character of greatness from early on. But what about the vast majority of companies that wake up partway through life and realize that they are good, but not great ? What about companies that are merely good, or even mediocre, and then achieve greatness ? That is the subject of Collins’ “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t”, the culmination of five years of work by Collins and a team of 20 researchers.

What this book makes unique and a must read for everybody interested in management is that it breaks with the common opinions about what the best leaders are or have to be. Collins and his team are proving that the best leaders are not the famous charismatic “super CEO” type of managers. Instead, they are making the case, that level 5 leaders, that is how they are calling them, are the ones who are able to lead their companies from good to great. Level 5 leaders are ambitious for the success of the company rather than for themselves. They also want to set up the company for success in the next generation, so it can be come even greater. In contrast, the level 4 leader is not interested in having the company continue on a great level after he’s gone. After all, it’s a testament to his greatness that his company can’t sustain its greatness without him.

Collins insists, that he was not looking specifically for Level 5 leader in his study. In fact he told his researchers to downplay the role of the top executive in order to avoid the “leadership is everything” line of thinking so common today. They identified out of 1,435 companies that appeared on the Fortune 500 companies that followed a pattern: 15 years of cumulative stock returns at or below the general stock market, then a transition point leading to cumulative returns of at least three times the market over the next 15 years. These are, according to Collins criteria, the companies that went from good or average to great. The researchers found 11 companies that met this criteria. They were hardly glamorous corporations: Kimberley-Clark, Abbott, Fannie Mae, Gillette, Pitney Bowes, Circuit city, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Walgreens and Wells Fargo. The team then compared these good-to-great companies with a group of “direct comparison companies” – those that were in the same industry as the good-to-great companies with the same opportunities and similar resources at the time of transition, but couldn’t make the leap, and another group of companies – named “unsustained comparisons”, which made a short term shift from good to great but failed to maintain the trajectory. Then they tried to identify what was inside the Black Box which represented the specific capability of the good-to-great companies compared with the others. They compared the 28 companies under investigation and were looking for everything from acquisitions to executive compensation, from business strategy to corporate culture, from layoffs to leadership style, from financial ratios to management turnover. Collins and his team were just as astonished at what they did not find as what they did. Here some examples:

-        Lager-than-life, celebrity leaders who ride in from the outside are negatively correlated with taking a company from good to great. Ten of eleven  good-to-great CEOs came from inside the company, whereas the comparison companies tried outside CEOs six times more often.

-        They found not systematic pattern linking specific forms of executive compensation to the process of going from good to great. The idea that the structure of executive compensation is a key driver in corporate performance is simply not supported by the data.

-        The good-to-great companies did not focus principally on what to do to become great; they focused equally on what not to do what to stop doing

-        Technology and technology-driven change has virtually nothing to do with igniting a transformation from good to great. Technology can accelerate a transformation, but technology cannot cause a transformation

-        The good-to-great companies paid scant attention to managing change, motivating people, or creating alignment. Under the right conditions, the problems of commitment, alignment, motivation, and change largely melt away.

-        The good-to-great companies had not name, tag line, launch event, or program to signify their transformations. Indeed, some reported being unaware of the magnitude of the transformation at the time; only later, in retrospect, did it become clear. They produced a truly revolutionary leap in results, but not by a revolutionary process.

-        The good-to-great companies were not, by and large, in great industries, and some were in terrible industries. So Collins concludes: greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice.

Colin’s and his researcher’s findings, in particular about leadership, may well influence the way companies go about choosing CEOs. Instead of seeking the brightest star in the firmament, boards may more readily look inside their own companies.

According to Collin’s, the boards in the good-to-great companies understood that they were trying to built share value; the boards in the comparison companies were trying to increase share price. The difference in Collin’s words is, that a CEO can affect share price in a two-year period in any number of ways without increasing underlying share value. Thinking about the price of a share in anything less than a five-year horizon, means to confuse the concepts of price and value. And that requires from the board to stay back and select a CEO that is focused on the fundamentals of the company not on hype and their own celebrity.

Collins cites several examples in his books that emphasize the difference between level 5 and level 4 leaders. As an example for a level 4 leader he names Stanley Gault at Rubbermaid. A man who knew what to do, when he joined, and who got good results, even great results, but when he walks away, the place implodes – he just left helpers, no one that could replace him. He lacked to transfer his capabilities into the organization – which is what level 5 leaders do, who prepare their companies for the days after them. Level 5 leaders are very comfortable being surrounded by outstanding people. They also try to create the excellence within the organization, within its structural capital instead to tie it to a person, to themselve, like level 4 leaders do.

Here the key findings of the study:

Collins concludes that average companies can indeed morph into great ones. Provided that the select disciplined people and apply disciplined thought and disciplined action. Among the conclusions about Good to Great companies:

1. Their leaders are less differentiated by charisma or brilliant vision and more by humility, unrelenting will and by focus on the fundamentals of the company

2. Their focus is first on WHO (i.e., getting the right people through the door and in the right position, and the wrong people out door), then WHAT (i.e., figuring out and building the strategy)-- not the other way around.

3. They confront the brutal facts and deal with them directly and decisively by "shining a light" on the key issues impacting the business and taking a "need to know" perspective at all times to reality as it really exists. At the same time, this pragmatism is counterbalanced by an unrelenting guttural belief that they will prevail in the end (called the Stockdale Paradox).

4. They build their strategy around three core circles (target markets they realistically believe they can dominate, ones with compelling economics, and ones they can be truly passionate about), and then come up with a crystallizing concept (called the Hedgehog) that flows from a deep understanding of the dynamics of the three circles.

5. The hedgehog concept's power is less a function of one big transformation and more a product of many incremental improvements, culminating in the breakout success (debunking the myth of the overnight success). Ironically, to those inside the company the magnitude of the transformation is often unclear at the time.

6. They depend on building a culture of self-disciplined team members around the three circles (disciplined people, practicing disciplined thought and translating that into disciplined action) to the point of avoiding any "once in a lifetime opportunities" that fall outside the hedgehog concept. Also, as a result, they are able to avoid bureaucratic corporate structures.

7. They embrace new technologies solely as accelerators of the three circles and not creators of them, and avoid investments that don't specifically feed the three circles.

8. There are no inconsistencies with reconciling short-term financial performance pressures and maintaining long-term adherence to working the flywheel of the hedgehog concept to create a virtuous cycle of growth and sustenance. In short, these companies embrace the paradox that managing for both short-term and long-term success simultaneously is challenging but part of the "problem" being solved by the business.

As I wrote earlier, we are today somehow at an inclination point in enterprise management which requires companies to conceive, implement and use new techniques in general management that will keep them in business in the future and enable them to manage for sustainable profitability and growth in an environment, that is totally different from the one, where most of our management techniques of today originated: from the industrial manufacturing enterprise. But succeed in the transformation is not only about management techniques and management systems. It’s at least equally important which people are running the companies, it’s also important to select the right top managers and CEO’s. Collin’s new book provides very valuable and surprising insights for the criteria boards have to imply in this selection process.

“GOOD TO GREAT” is one of those rare books that presents important research findings, and then explains in a clear, concise and compelling manner how to take that learning and directly apply it to effect a good-to-great transformation in any company.  

About the author:

Jim Collins is coauthor of “Built to Last”, a bestseller for over five years with a million copies in print. A student of enduring great companies, he serves as a teacher to leaders throughout the corporate and social sectors. Formerly a faculty member at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award, he now works from his management research laboratory in Boulder, Colaroda, USA. He can be reached at www.jimcollins.com

Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap…and others don’t 
by Jim Collins

Hardcover - 320 pages (October 2001)
HarperCollins; ISBN: 0066620996  

A new way to approach Corporate Governance: Shareholders have to become Shareowners

“The corporate governance movement has been more concerned with one of two important aspects of corporate governance: Accountability has predominantly been in focus while the other key aspects, the enhancement of business prosperity, has got much less attention.[…] The key reasons are the difficulties involved and the competence it takes to have an impact on value-creation as an owner. "

Rolf H. Carlsson

During the 20^th century business corporations evolved into major societal institutions in the developed countries. They became the main drivers and forces not only for economic wealth generation, but also for innovation and renewal in general. This was reflected in the fact, that more and more companies, which had been controlled since the end of the 19^th century first by their founders and later by their founder’s families, changed ownership and become publicly owned corporations. As a result, very often there was no dominant owner available anymore – only many minority shareholders. These shareholders had not been able, and probably not much interested as well, to control the company and especially top management.

Then, during the second half of the 20^th century, the portion of the non-privately owned shares of corporations, namely those held by insurance companies and pension funds – that is by institutional investors, grew larger and larger. Because these institutional investors where competing increasingly for customers over the performance of the funds they managed, they where seeking to enhance the control over the companies in which they had invested in order to “persuade” them to manage for value. These developments prepared the ground from which the corporate governance movement started off. But for the ignition of this movement, a more urgent motivation was required. And this motivation had been delivered by some American corporate executives, who misused their power to the disadvantage of their shareholders.

Since delivering business prosperity requires considerable freedom of action on the part of the board of directors and executive management as well, the risk grew larger and larger (together with the growing split of ownership, with many minority shareholders) that such power is misused and abused. This resulted in many ways of bad “corporate governance” practice, how it is called today. For example the executive board can, by favouring certain groups of shareholders, protect their own power position. Granting themselves over-generous remuneration packages is another example. They can promote their own personal business interests, employ their own, often unqualified, buddies, and such like.

These are the thoughts and the ground on which the corporate governance movement emerged mid of the 1980s in the USA, when the Texaco management paid un exorbitant price to buy back the company’s own shares to avoid a hostile takeover which has threatening its own power base. This huge price was at the end not paid by these managers, but with other people’s money, with the money of the existing shareholders. This was when CalPERS, (California Public Employees Retirement System), the largest intuitional investor worldwide, which was a Texaco shareholder, initiated the corporate governance movement and became one of its pioneers in executing its influence in that direction on the companies, of which it held shares.

Since mid of the 1990s the Corporate Governance movement grew into a major movement worldwide, spreading from the US, over the UK to the rest of the world. But the main focus until today was only the accountability aspect of Corporate Governance, that is: how can shareholders make sure, that they have some control of the company, in which they have invested, and that management is really accountable for its actions. This book from Rolf H. Carlssons is focusing on the other important aspect of corporate governance, which is the question, how to organize corporate governance in order to not just control management and the company, but to enhance business prosperity and drive value creation through a new ownership role of the shareholders.

“Ownership makes a difference” writes Carlsson is his groundbreaking book. His main message is, that the ownership function fulfils an indispensable role in the market economy. Its quality makes all the difference for sustainable value-creation. Globalisation and the New Economy with all its new technologies coming out currently are fabulous assets of our societies today. However, competent and diligent ownership has to be added if we are going to success in transforming such assets (and especially intangible assets) into sustainable value-creation, business prosperity. Competence, adequate owner competence will be required to perform a value-creating ownership role, a critical development challenge that still remains to be accepted by many shareholders if they should become shareowners.

So the mission of “Ownership and Value Creation – Strategic Corporate Governance in the New Economy” is, to approach the problem of corporate governance from a totally different angle, compared to how it is done actually in most public discussion, e.g. like in Germany today. The conclusion in reading this book is, that the main challenge of the corporate governance movement may not be to establish the rules and procedures to assure the accountability of management in front of the shareholders, but to convince shareholder, that they have also to take over more responsibility – the one of an owner. Carlsson’s strong message is, that there must exist a party – no matter if it is an institutional or private investor – which will take over such a true ownership role for corporations – otherwise sustainable growth and value creation will be at risk in today’s New Economy societies.

The book provides an excellent overview of the history and an analysis of the actual status of the corporate governance movement worldwide and the different ways how it is evolving in the largest economies (USA, UK, Germany, France, Japan). Taking the example of the Wallenberg sphere as a case to be studied for ownership best practice in Sweden, the author demonstrates, how corporate governance can be “lived” in a different way than just through formal accountability rules. The Wallenberg  family in Sweden, as a leading active owner has managed to develop, renew and sustain a considerable number of multinational corporations (like ABB, Astra Zeneca, Ericsson, Scania ..). In this book, Carlsson identifies and tries to make understand the core competence elements of such ownership taking the Wallenberg example.

Out if this, the author develops a conceptual framework, which addresses three fundamental sets of questions:

·  Why is ownership and the role of the owner crucial

·  What is ownership all about, and what distinguishes ownership from other roles in the process of value-creation ? What  competence and other prerequisites are required ?

·  How are value-creation contributions made, and how should ownership be exercised to be successful ?

Carlsson is addressing these questions from three different angles:

·  The overall nature of the market economy – the concept of the process of creative destruction and demands for incessant renewal

·  The fundamental rationale of the individual firm – the concept of the firm as a learning centre

·  Ownership and risk – the two parameters of risk.

The implications of these propositions are analysed. Concepts and analytical tools for the active owner to address key issues of value-creation, management of demands for renewal and various kinds of risk are developed. Conclusions and recommendations are presented for the enhancement of ownership competence, the ownership function as a whole as well as for the organisation and exercise of corporate governance.

This book is a must read for everyone interested in managing a corporation in the New Economy, no matter if you are coming from the corporate sphere, from consulting, investment and financial communities or even from the political arena.

If the 19th century was the age of the entrepreneur and the 20th century was the age of management, the 21st century will be the era of corporate governance and the way that power is exercised over all corporate entities in society around the world. Very little has been so far written about the value and wealth creation role of the owner and the ownership function. This book fills that gap, serving as an excellent reference tool for understanding the practicalities of corporate ownership and its implications in the 21st century.

About the author:

Rolf H. Carlsson is a senior advisor on issues of business strategy, value creation, organisation, and corporate governance. Since the early 1970s he has worked as an international management consultant for SIAR and SIAR Bossard, now part of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. Before that he worked in an investment/venture capital company and commercial bank. He has published several books on ownership in Swedish.

Ownership and Value Creation : Strategic Corporate Governance in the New Economy 
by Rolf H. Carlsson

Hardcover - 307 pages (January 2001)
John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471632198

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The first scientifically book on the Management and Reporting Challenge of the future:  on Intangible Assets

Whether perceived as old or new economy, an enterprise’s competitive survival will depend on smart deployment of intangible assets, leading to innovation and effective commercialisation. By

using the Value Chain Scoreboard, both managers and investors can attain a comprehensive portrayal of a firm’s innovation capabilities and success in creating economic Value."

              Baruch Lev

Wealth and growth in today's economy are primarily driven by intangible (intellectual) assets. With the arrival of the new information technologies, the structure of enterprises have changed dramatically within the last decade, and intangibles represent today often the major assets of these corporations. Physical and financial assets are rapidly becoming commodities, yielding at best an average return on investment. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that in recent years intangibles have captured interest by the academia, managers and the investors. Corporate success today is not based any more on production facilities, financial capital and ownership, but on invisible and untouchable” values - intangible assets -, such as relationships with business partners, brands, ideas, business processes, corporate culture, know-how and innovation force. But unfortunately traditional accounting is not able to capture, measure and report on intangible assets – forcing investors, but often also managers, to act in the dark. This book is the first comprehensive, scientifically based study of the nature and impact of intangibles with the focus is on improving external information communication.

"Intangibles: Management, Measurement, and Reporting” is a study of the nature and impact of intangible assets. The book evaluates the importance of intangibles to corporate performance, economic growth, and overall social welfare. Based on robust empirical studies, Baruch Lev establishes an economic framework for analysing managerial and investment issues concerning intangibles. His study surveys the effects of intangibles on corporate performance and market value, including managerial challenges in handling risk, protecting property rights, encouraging marketability, and monitoring the cost structure of intangibles. The book also addresses information deficiencies associated with intangibles and offers recommendations for improved financial disclosure and comparability. Most important, Lev sets forth a new and comprehensive information system, called the Value Chain Scoreboard- aimed at satisfying the needs of both managers and investors- to reflect the impact and value of intangibles within the context of enterprise performance.

Lev got interested in intangible assets a decade ago, when he was teaching at Berkley University and consulting about valuation issues that arose in the course of litigation. The New York University offered him to set up an accounting research institute, from which he sends out a fast-moving stream of research work – which was condensed now in this book. In "Intangibles: Management, Measurement, and Reporting” he is criticizing the actual accounting and disclosure practice related to intangibles. One of the major problems from his point of view with today’s accounting systems is, that they are still based on transactions, such as sales. But in the current, knowledge-based economy much of the value creation or destruction precedes, sometimes by years, the occurrence of transactions. The successful development of a drug, for example, creates considerable value, but actual transactions, such as sales, may take years to materialize. Until then, the accounting system does not register any value created in contrast to the investments made into R&D, which are fully expensed. This difference, between how the accounting system is handling, or better not handling, value created and is handling investments into value creation, is the major reason for the growing disconnect between market values and financial information.

Baruch Lev argues that this lack of public information contributes to a higher cost of capital and affords abnormally large gains to insiders at the expense of outside investors. To level the playing field, Lev proposes companies periodically release, in addition to the required income, balance sheet and cash flow statements, quantitative and standardized information most relevant to the company value chain or business model.

He specifically recommends that companies should report about their innovation process, because this is where economic value is created in today’s knowledge based businesses from nearly all industries. By innovation process, he means the fundamental economic process of innovation that starts with the discovery of ideas for new products or services or processes, proceeds through the development phase of these discoveries and the implementation stage and establishment of technological feasibility, and culminates in the commercialisation of the new products or services. And he also describes how a related reporting system should be conceived: the so called Value Chain Blueprint. Lev’s Value Chain Blueprint is a measure based information system for use in both internal decision making and disclosure to investors, that reports about every step of the innovation process.

He believes that the Value Chain Blueprint is a good starting point, but that is it not the end. In addition he is convinced, that improved recognition of intangible assets in the accounting system itself is required. He explains, that the broad denial of intangibles as assets detracts from the quality of information provided in the balances sheet. Even more serious is its adverse effect on the measurement of earnings. The matching of revenues with expenses is distorted by front-loading costs by the immediate expensing of intangibles and recording revenues in subsequent periods unencumbered by those costs. What is therefore required is a significant broadening of the recognition of assets in financial accounting and reporting. And the author also outlines some ideas and concepts for that.

This landmark book represents the most comprehensive and thorough scientifically based economic analysis of intangibles to date. Building on the author's high-impact research and first-hand experience working with executives, consultants, and regulators, the book offers a coherent framework for understanding the fundamental economics of intangible assets. Baruch Lev identifies attributes of intangibles that are different from tangible assets (property, plant, and equipment), by focusing on their distinctive role in value-creation. He highlights the most critical issue concerning intangibles: the need to make relevant information available to outsiders. Although the focus is on improving external information communication, its mission of reflecting the valuation-creation process of intangibles makes the system potentially useful for managers who want to monitor the performance of investment in intangibles.

This book is recommended not only to someone who has an MBA, but to anyone who is interested in the broader economic issues of today.

About the author:

Baruch Lev is professor of accounting and finance at New York University and the director of the Vincent C. Ross Project for Research on Intangibles. He is the award-winning author of several books and numerous research studies published in the leading accounting, finance, and economic journals. He can be reached at www.baruch-lev.com.

See also the interview with Baruch Lev and Juergen Daum.

Intangibles: Management, Measurement, and Reporting 
by Baruch Lev
Paperback - 150 pages (June 2001)
Brookings Institute; ISBN: 0815700946

The method Lev is proposing to value “knowledge assets” - intangible assets - of companies (called by him “Knowledge-Capital Earnings”), was described in my new New Economy Analyst report from July 26, 2001.

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Managing The Professional Service Firm: A model how to manage businesses that rely on individual experts in providing highly customized services

“The professional service firm is the

best model for tomorrow's organization

in any industry. When it comes to

understanding these firms,

David Maister has no peers."

              Tom Peters

In our knowledge based and increasingly service oriented economy of today, some characteristics that have been so far unique to professional service firms, will become more common to other industries. This includes for example the need to balance the constraints between human capital management (the most important resource of the firm), customer and business development, and profitability management, in order to be able to pursue a specific growth and market positioning strategy. So also for companies, that are not engaged in traditional professional services, but share some of their attributes, such as the increasing dependency on expert individuals and knowledge workers, it is of value to learn from this industry. In the book from David H. Maister the principles that rule professional service businesses are described in detail. 

While “Managing the Professional Service Firm” is on the market for now 8 years (reprint in 1997), it is still one of the best books, if not the best, about the art to manage a service business. Written by a former Harvard Professor who served as a consultant to professional service firms worldwide for many years, the book is of value not just for someone who is interested in managing and organizing a professional service firm, but for anyone, who wants to know more about how to manage a business based on the expertise of its people.

Two aspects of professional work create the special management challenges of the professional service firm. First, professional services involve a high degree of customisation in their work. Management principles and approaches from the industrial or mass-consumer sectors, as they are based on the standardization, supervision, and marketing of repetitive tasks and products, are not only inapplicable in the professional sector but may be dangerously wrong. Second, professional services are highly personalized, involving the skills of individuals. What a professional service firm sells is frequently less the service of the firm per se then the service of specific individuals.

Both of these characteristics demand that the firm attract and retain highly skilled individuals. A primary consequence of this is that the professional service firm must compete actively in two markets simultaneously: The ”output” market for its services, and the “input” market for this productive resources, the professional work force. It is the need to balance the often conflicting demands and constraints imposed by these two markets that creates the special challenge of managing the professional service firm.

This book has grown from David H. Maister’s consulting experience over ten years in working with professional service firms, across a broad array of professions, in more than twenty countries. In particular, he has worked closely with accountants, actuaries, architects, consultants, executive recruiters, lawyers, public relations counsellors, advertising agencies, engineering firms, money managers, investment banks, real estate firms, and others. David Maister explores issues ranging from marketing and business development to multinational strategies, human resources policies to profit improvement, strategic planning to effective leadership.

While these issues can be complex, Maister simplifies them by recognizing that "every professional service firm in the world, regardless of size, specific profession, or country of operation, has the same mission statement: outstanding service to clients, satisfying careers for its people, and financial success for its owners”. He explains for example why professional service firms have to balance their workforce (juniors up to partners) and why it is so vitally important to mix people on the right combination of projects (brains, grey hair and procedure projects) as this builds up the firm's human capital, and provides the means and profitability to continue to grow steadily. The book helps to resolve many problems in professional service firms, but, which is much more important, first it helps to identify and articulate these problems.

Very well written, this book presents the concepts that help one understand the structures of modern professional service firms. It is full of pramatic and inspirational insights of the common issues faced by professional services firms, from someone who understands their nature and causes and experienced in dealing with them. It provides an in-depth analysis of common management and strategic issues and suggests practicable and easy-to-understand solutions to deal with them.

About the author:

David H. Maister is widely acknowledged as the world's leading authority on the management of professional service firms. For two decades he has advised firms in a broad spectrum of professions leading authority on the management of professional service firms. He consults throughout the world for many prominent firms in a broad spectrum of professions. He can be reached over his website www.davidmaister.com

Managing The Professional Service Firm 
by David H. Maister
Paperback - 384 pages Reprint edition (June 1997)
Free Press; ISBN: 0684834316

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The Value Reporting Revolution: How companies get out of the never-ending earning game and eliminate stock price volatility through improved corporate reporting

When it comes to establishing stock prices, analysts, institutional and private investors, as well as capital markets at large, act in the dark. They simply do not have or can’t get the kind of information they need to value companies properly or accurately. The result ? Extreme volatility.

Traditional corporate reporting practices are inadequate and downright dangerous in the New Economy. They are inadequate because they don't capture the non-financial measures and intangible assets that now drive value. Many companies possess intangible assets today – like an outstanding work force, a commanding market share, or instant brand recognition – that provide value far in excess of their tangible assets. Certainly, the market recognizes these “soft” assets and factors them into projections of cash flow and then prices shares accordingly. But because the kind of information that companies regularly report simply do not serve today’s investors well in their valuation and cash flow estimations, these estimations are widely subject to speculations and assumptions without any fundament, resulting often in wild up and downs of share prices. The information vacuum is filled with gossip flowing around today at light speed through the Internet. In the best case of a unjustified share price move, it was due to a rumor or an accidentally false information. In the worst case it was a manipulation.

With “The Value Reporting Revolution”, a former Harvard Business School professor and three accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers, are calling for a new approach in corporate reporting. Traditional financial statements, designed to the requirements of the industrial age, have lagged far behind the evolution of the knowledge and intangibles based networked economy. In order to decide whether or not a company is a good investment, analysts and investment professionals need to know as much as possible about the company's tangible and intangible assets, as well as a variety of critical performance measures. The authors make the case, that a new type of “value reporting”, which provides outside parties like investors but also other important corporate stakeholders with more transparency about how a company is doing, will also help corporate executives to get out of the never-ending and highly dysfunctional earning game focused only on short-term earnings, which in reality says very little about future stock price performance. Until managers begin reporting performance on all the measures they use internally, they will continue to be forced to slightly beat quarterly earning expectations and carefully managing them prior to their announcements. 

The authors' remedy therefore is disclosure of more and better information. The Value Reporting approach calls on corporate executives to provide more, rather than less, of the kind of information they use to create value. It exhorts investors to demand that companies do this. It urges boards of directors to make sure it gets done. And it puts accounting firms and securities analysts on notice that they must become part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

The “Value Reporting Revolution” clearly explains why corporations must move toward greater transparency and, more importantly, it provides a comprehensive framework for achieving that goal. Among other important lessons, readers learn how to identify the gaps between how corporate managers perceive their disclosure practices versus how the markets see them, as well as how to leverage their organizations' electronic communications technology and tools to ensure easy access to vital information and more meaningful data analysis. By using internal performance measurement tools such as the Balanced Scorecard for external reporting, companies can focus more clearly on creating value rather than face a quarterly scramble to burnish their earnings picture.

This new model is presented in such detail that executives could use it as a blueprint in building new corporate reporting regimens. But you needn't be a corporate leader to appreciate the far-reaching implications of this book.
"The Value Reporting Revolution" gives a sound and comprehensive overview of what modern corporate information disclosure is or should be, addressing both finance professionals and the academic world. Having accomplished extensive research in the field of Value Reporting the authors are in a position to support their arguments with a variety of striking examples. It provides a comprehensive framework for achieving higher levels of corporate information disclosure and transparency.

The book, framed as a manifesto for change in the world of corporate reporting, is written in un-accountant-like language and is a must for everyone who is interested in the Value Management debate.

About the authors:

Robert G. Eccles is a founder and President of Advisory Capital Partners, Inc. and a Senior Fellow of PricewaterhouseCoopers. He was a tenured professor at the Harvard Business School.

Robert H. Herz is a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the firm’s North America Leader of Professional, Technical, Risk and Quality.

E. Mary Keeganis head of the global corporate reporting group of PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she specialized in international corporate governance and reporting. She is also the Chairman of the U.K. Accounting Standards Board.

David M.H. Philips is a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Assurance/Business Advisory Services practice in the U.K. and serves as the European Leader of ValueReporting.

The Value Reporting Revolution: Moving Beyond the Earnings Game
by Robert G. Eccles, Robert H. Herz, E. Mary Keegan, David M. H. Phillips
Hardcover - 384 pages (March 2001)
John Wiley & Sons; ISBN 0471398799

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The Mind of the C.E.O.: A journey into the innermost thoughts of the world’s most powerful corporate managers 

“Companies are an integral part of the societies in which they work”, said Sir John Browne in the fall of 1998, CEO of British Petroleum (now CEO of the merged BP Amoco companies). “We don’t make our profits and then go and live somewhere else. This is our society, too. The people who make up our company are also citizens. They have hopes and fears for themselves and for their families. Companies that want to keep operating successfully have to uphold their employees’ values, just like their customer’s values. We cannot isolate ourselves. We have to be engaged in public policy issues. We have to be constructive”. But “only a profitable corporation can think about being a social enterprise, too” – as Jürgen Schrempp, chairman of DaimlerChrylser put it.

Top executives of global companies lead organizations with enormous reach. They therefore have a crucial impact on economic growth, employment, technological development, and the environment. They can be a progressive force in building capitalism around the world or they can constitute a rearguard action against political  and economic change. Jeffrey E. Garten believes, that their influence will be at least as important as that of national governments and international institutions. There is a tension between the various jobs that chief executives have to perform as they scramble to lead their companies and as they come to grips with their changing positions in society. They need to enrich their shareholders with an ever-rising stock price, quarter after quarter, while paying increasing attention to “stakeholders” – customers, employees and suppliers on which the long-term value of the company depends. This tension will shape the third industrial revolution that we are all living through. How do the requirements of running a highly competitive and profitable company interact with other pressures on CEOs to build a better global society ? In the real world, CEOs – particularly the kind interviewed for this book – are required to play roles beyond the narrow scope of their businesses, if for no other reason than that their companies affect the live of so many people and communities around the world.

This means that CEOs will not only have to run profitable companies, but they will need to build great institutions that provide customers with superior products and services, create high-quality jobs, and in the process make life better for the population at large. They have to understand the economics of the knowledge and information based New Economy and they will also have to devote far more effort to helping to devise the rules under which twenty-first century trade, finance and communications systems will evolve, and to lending a hand to build the institutions that will be the global counterpart to the arrangements on which national economies rest.

Based on extensive and highly personal interviews with forty CEOs around the world – people such as GE’s Jack Welch, AOL’s Steven Case, Newscorp’s Rupert Mordoch, BP Amoco’s John Browne, Nokia’s Jorma Ollila, Toyota’s Hiroshi Okuda, and DaimlerChrysler’s Jürgen Schrempp, Jeffrey E. Garten takes you on a journey into the innermost thoughts of the world’s most powerful corporate managers. And the results are surprising:

-        Global CEOs are not nearly as powerful as many people think, nor do they see themselves that way. Many are overwhelmed by the complexity of what’s demanded from them.

-        The real Internet wars will not involve the dot-coms but will be fought among the traditional corporate titans.

-        Many global CEOs are complacent about their international strategies; they know less than they think they do.

-        Corporate success in the future will require much more than creating short-term value for shareholders. Most top executives will have to devote more attention to employees, customers, suppliers, and communities – but achieving the right balance is nearly an impossible task

-        With creative and expert workers more important that ever, keeping employees’ trust and articulating clear values are increasingly crucial. But in an era of restructuring and layoffs trust is increasingly hard for CEOs to win.

-     For CEOs to thrive, their visions must be increasingly bold, and execution increasingly flawless. But the bolder the vision, the more difficult the execution.

-        CEOs need to take a much stronger role than most now contemplate to create the framework of globalisation – to manage the environment, train workers, and design the rules and institutions for trade, finance and communications. Otherwise globalisation will end in chaos and anarchy     

Jeffrey Garten’s ideas are a challenge to those who are suspicious of corporate power, those who belive CEOs should focus only on enriching shareholders. They will be welcomed by anyone who is wrestling with how to make globalization work better, and those who genuinely seek ways for multinational corporations to exercise the citizenship responsibilities that come with vast economic power.

“The Mind of the CEO” is a must-read for anyone interested in the business world today, and not only for its elite either. Its not just for CEO aspirants. It gives a deep insight into what challenges a CEO faces in his daily life and how those challenges will change with the New Economy once everything settles.

Jeffrey E. Garten is the Dean of the Yale School of Management and monthly columnist for Business Week. He was previously Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade in the first Clinton administration, and before a managing director of two Wall Street investment banks.

The Mind of the C.E.O.
by Jeffrey E. Garten
Hardcover  - 224 pages (January 2001)
Perseus Press; ISBN 046502615X  

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The Innovator’s Dilemma: Great companies fail because of disruptive technologies that over time become a serious threat 

Although the original version of this book was published already in June 1997, the book’s topic is more actual than ever. In the New Economy success and the ability to create sustaining value for both shareholders and stakeholders is founded on three main ingredients: product/technology innovation, customer value (like a brand, a major customer base) and a unique organizational design. “The Innovator’s Dilemma” focuses on the success factor “product innovation” in a way how it was never done before.

The Long Boom: How a New Economy can provide the world with a long economic boom until 2020

The idea of a “New Economy”, the concept of a global world economy which – due to technological advances – will provide a unique economic opportunity for mankind in the years from 2000 – 2020 was expressed first by two of the book’s authors in a cover story of the July 1997 issue of Wired Magazine (see also Juergen Daum’s news from Oct 26, 2000: Is the New Economy / The Long Boom dead ?). With this book, the authors go now some steps further in analysing in depth past, actual and future trends which drive our world economy. Those who have already read “The Art of the Long View” from Peter Schwartz no doubt are familiar how the authors approach the analysis of the future using scenario planning techniques.

“The Long Boom” starts with the recognition that the world is faced with a historic opportunity. What the authors call the Long Boom – the years from 1980 to 2020 – is a period of remarkable global transformation. Since the 1980s, a new computer and telecommunications infrastructure has been built that significantly increases the productive capacity of the economy. Through the 1990s, Americans restructured their economy to take advantage of those technologies and to sustain high levels of economic growth. Corporations are reorganizing, essentially shifting from centralized hierarchies to flexible networks. And a veritable revolution has transformed the world of finance, bringing a hyper efficient use of capital. In addition, the end of the cold war stimulated increasing integration of what is becoming a truly global economy, as well as the emergence of many new democracies. These mega trends – technological change, economic innovation, global integration, and spreading democratisation – have picked up momentum since the early 1980s, particularly in the developed countries best positioned to take advantage of them.

The three authors believe – based on the positive experience in the United States and in parts of Europe - that this new kind of economy can work on a large scale. With the right choices and actions, this economic boom can take off on a global level, and we could be entering another couple of decades of vast economic expansion. They assume that major technological developments are coming in the next couple of decades in several major waves: after the computer and telecommunications technologies wave of today, biotechnology – that is the manipulation at the genetic and molecular level – will be the next driving technology. Then new energy technologies like the fuel cell will emerge, and finally nanotechnology, that is, manufacturing one atom at a time - will have equally profound consequences.

“The Long Boom” is a fascinating attempt to pin down the economic potential “the New Economy” holds by examining of where we've been headed for the last 20 years with a plausible forecast of where--with a bit of good fortune and tenacity--we might be going during the next 20 years. Written by Peter Schwartz, futurist and founder of the Global Business Network, a consulting firm and think tank; Peter Leyden, former managing editor of Wired magazine; and Joel Hyatt, cofounder of Hyatt Legal Services, who teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford, it is a easy-to-read and well-edited book that describes a economic opportunity before the world now. The book is highly recommended to anyone interested in economic topics and in “the New Economy” in particular.

The Long Boom: A vision for the coming age of prosperity
by Peter Schwartz, Peter Leyden and Joel Hyatt
Paperback  - 352 pages (October 2000)
Perseus Publishing; ISBN: 0738203645  

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Understanding one of the main drivers
of The New Economy: Globalization

One of the major driving forces for the New Economy is globalization. But few of us understand what exactly globalization means. Here is the best introductory book written on globalization:

The book makes the case that since the collapse of the Cold War, globalisation is the dominant system that colours world affairs. In simplest terms, the author defines globalization as the world integration of finance markets, nation states, and technologies within a free- market capitalism on a scale never before experienced. Driving it all is what he calls the Electronic Herd, the faceless buyers and sellers of stocks, bonds, and currencies, and multinational corporations investing wherever and whenever the best opportunity presents itself. It is a pitiless system richly rewarding winners, harshly punishing losers but contradictory as well. For nations and individuals willing to take the risk, globalization offers untold opportunity, yet in the process, as the Electronic Herd scavenges the world like locusts in the search for profit, globalization threatens to destroy both cultural heterogeneity and environmental diversity. The human drive for enrichment (the Lexus) confronts the human need for identity and community (the olive tree). The success of globalization, Friedman contends, depends on how well these goals can be satisfied at one and the same time. He believes they can be, but dangers abound. If nation states sacrifice too much of their identity to the dictates of the Electronic Herd, a backlash, a nihilistic rejection of globalization, can occur. If nation states ignore these dictates, they face impoverishment. The author is clarifying the complex with enlightening stories that simplify but are never simplistic.

“The Lexus and The Olive Tree” is a fascinating explanation of the forces which emerged after the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the 1980s - the pre-eminence of market capitalism, the information and telecommunications revolutions, the rise of an "Electronic Herd" of capital, and countries' adoption of "operating systems" to attract capital - that make up the system of globalization that is sweeping the globe. The author writes about how more and more countries have accepted what he calls a "Golden Straightjacket" of policy prescriptions - open markets, balanced budgets, deregulation and privatisation, free trade, elimination of corruption, subsidies and kickbacks, etc., - in order to be part of the developing global system. But any society--even one as free-market oriented as the USA's--can't leave tradition behind in the dust. Hence the tension between the "Lexus" (high-tech innovation) and the "olive tree" (tradition, pride, tribalism).

The book is extremely useful in helping people to understand the factors shaping today´s global economy. Not only does the book describes the new system masterfully, but also dares to make recommendations and tries to explain the trends of this new global system. The book´s conclussion is one of hope: We do not necessarily need an all encompassinng global government to police the world; the power given by the democratization of technology (internet and widespread information) can create all sorts of organizations that will find all sorts of solutions (and excert pressure) to end corruption, increase transparency and democracy, all of this with market base remedies.

Written by Thomas L. Friedman, it is probably the best introductory book on globalization. What makes Mr. Friedman such a unique voice on this topic is his career as a foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times. Over the past few years, Mr. Friedman has traveled the world many times over, collecting first-hand accounts of how globalization works, who benefits from it, and its multiple consequences. His understanding of this issue radiates through scores of personal narratives and anecdotes. Because the book was written by a journalist and not an economist, there are no tricky formulas, charts or graphs that need to be analysed and it could be understood by everyone.  

The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization
by Thomas L. Friedman
Paperback  - 490 pages (May 2000)
Anchor Books; ISBN: 0385499345 

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The new strategic management system:
Approach strategy as a process and make it everyone’s job
– the result: superior business performance

Kaplan and Norton introduced the “Balanced Scorecard” first in 1992 with an article in Harvard Business Review – presenting a management system  which does not rely only on financial information but also on non-financial key performance indicators (KPIs). The main innovation was a structured approach to KPI monitoring, providing orientation and guidance to managers reviewing their now extended reports which typically include – in addition to the 3-4 traditional financial KPIs – some additional 12-16 non-financial ones.

Kaplan’s and Norton’s system was based on extensive research on successfully managed companies. Their research revealed, that these companies had developed a systematic approach to manage customer satisfaction, internal processes, innovation and learning as well as financial performance at the same time in a balanced way. Therefore they proposed to structure KPIs into four so called “perspectives”: financial, customer/market, internal and innovation & learning. The concept of the “Balanced Scorecard” evolved in the following years into one of the most successful management concepts ever and attracted interest from nearly every senior executive worldwide. Some 50% of major US companies have either already implemented a Balanced Scorecard based management system or are just on the way to do this right now.

This unusual success and survival of a management concept over several years is not only based on the ability of the authors to identify and describe a sustaining management trend, but it is also based on their talent to sense new sub-trends and respond by adapting their concept and by developing it further. Since I started to work 2 years ago together with David Norton on the conception of a software application that supports this new concepts (SAP’s Strategic Enterprise Management solution – see also SAP’s White Paper written by David and me: “SAP Strategic Enterprise Management – The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action”) it was amazing for me to see, how the two authors have developed their concept further from conference to conference that I have attended with usually several months in between, taking into account new developments and incorporating these into it.

Now the two authors, who described the original approach from 1992 in more detail in their first book “The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into action”, which had been published in 1996, came up with the new version of The Balanced Scorecard concept in their recent book, extending The Balanced Scorecard from a pure performance monitoring system into a true strategic enterprise management system. They introduce a new approach that makes strategy a continuous process owned not just by top management, but by everyone. In The Strategy-Focused Organization, Robert Kaplan and David Norton share the results of ten years of learning and research into more than 200 companies that have implemented the Balanced Scorecard. Drawing from  more than twenty in-depth case studies – including Mobil, CIGNA, Nova Scotia Power, and AT&T Canada – Kaplan and Norton illustrate how Balanced Scorecard adopters have taken their ground-breaking tool to the next level. These organizations have used the scorecard to create an entirely new performance management framework that puts strategy and the centre of key management processes and systems.  In the book, Kaplan and Norton articulate the five key principles required for building Strategy-Focused Organizations: (1) translate the strategy to operational terms, (2) align the organization to the strategy, (3) make strategy everyone’s everyday job, (4) make strategy a continual process, and (5) mobilize change through strong, effective leadership. The authors provide a detailed account of how a range of organizations in the private, public, and non-profit sectors have deployed these principles to achieve breakthrough, sustainable performance improvements.

Written by Robert S. Kaplan, the Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at Harvard Business School, and by David P. Norton, Management Consultant and President of the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Inc. – the worldwide competence centre for the Balanced Scorecard concept – this book shows how today’s leaders can shape their own companies to meet the challenges and reap the rewards of a new competitive era. The book is highly recommended to any reader interested in new business performance and strategy management systems that enable organizations to react faster to changes in its environment with appropriate new strategies and to execute on this new strategies in a more reliable way – thus improving business performance to levels never experienced before.

The Strategy-Focused Organization
by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton
Hardcover - 416 pages (September 2000)
Harvard Business School Press; ISBN: 1578512506

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The business-to-business e-business revolution:
How next years will witness the single greatest change in global economic and business conditions ever

The period from 2000-2002 will witness the single greatest change in global economic and business conditions ever – the realignment form traditional corporate structure to Internet-leveraged styles of brand-owning, customer focused companies on the one hand, and extremely efficient “value-added communities”, networks of supplying companies, on the other hand. According to the very convincing estimation of the two authors (the equation is laid out in detail in the chapter about “the new economics”), this developments will lead to a worldwide capital market expansion from $20 trillion of today, to $200 trillion over the next 10 years.

This book explains how the business-to-business e-business revolution can stimulate economic growth and value creation through totally new technology backed forms how companies work together to better leverage both financial and human capital. It explains how "decapitalization" of traditional companies will enable them to leverage the dynamics of “Meta-Capitalism” - a term the authors use to describe this new phenomena -, it describes new business process models for B2B, built on these new corporate structures, and it makes the new economics of Meta-Capitalism transparent and provides answers for appropriate performance measurement techniques and for strategies to meet the challenge of organizational and change management.

Written by Grady E. Means, managing partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers and a top management consultant for thirty years, and by David M. Schneider, also managing partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers and former General Electric manager, “Meta-Capitalism: The e-Business Revolution and the Design of 21st-Century Companies and Markets” is an outstanding business book that both describes the big picture of the upcoming economic changes and provides in-depth analysis of the different aspects of the B2B e-business revolution and how managers can reformulate their companies for success..

Case histories and examples from major corporations like Cisco Systems and major industries like the automobile industry, reveal how market leaders today are already accelerating economic growth and value creation by capitalizing on global expansion and market access, on better leverage of capital, on significant advances in operating efficiency, on improvements in the efficiencies of capital markets and on dramatic unleashing of human potential and capital.

In this new era of outsourcing and diminishing physical capital base, how will companies be valued by the markets ? Can “brand-owning” companies- as opposed to manufacturers – maintain sufficient controls and systems to guarantee that their network partners are will integrated with each other and the marketplace ? How will “value-added communities” – both horizontal and vertical – support brand owners in dramatically reducing costs, increasing quality, and responding rapidly to customer demand and markets shifts ?

“Meta-Capitalism” by Grady E. Means and David M. Schneider is trying to answer successfully these questions and is highly recommended to any reader interested in business and economic developments.

Meta-Capitalism
by Grady Means and David Schneider
Hardcover - 208 pages (June 2000)
John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471393355

From Income to Wealth:
How individuals and corporations will handle intellectual capital in the future

Intangible assets, the portion of a corporation’s market value which can not be explained through it’s financial reports and do not appear in the firm’s balance sheet have grown in the US from 1982 from an average of 38% to 85% of total market value in 1998. So it is not surprising, that the topic of intangibles is gaining growing interest in the business communities worldwide.

“Future Wealth” is a business book which - unlike most business books which just describe something that has been going on for some time – takes existing trends and information and comes up with a new concept and approach to management of intangibles:

The two authors first provide a clear analysis of the fundamental difference of the risk management approach involved in real business transactions (producing and consuming goods - trying to avoid risk) and of the risk management approach tied to financial transactions (bearing, trading and managing risk). According to Davis and Meyer, wealth creation in the Information Age will be based more and more on conscious risk exposure by trading risks in intangibles financially through “securitization” for example of human capital, which will represent the wealth creation factor of the future.

Davis and Meyer offer a compelling vision of a world in the not-so-distant future in which we will trade everything of value – including human capital, talent, and other intangibles in efficient markets. Wealth accumulation is shifting from earned income (salaries) to unearned (investments) and control of wealth is shifting from institutions to individuals. Companies will begin to invest literally in their employees, not indirectly through training and development, and to treat business units as units of financial risk whose worth equals the quality of their intellectual capital. Individuals will think less about jobs and more about investing in their own human capital. As average citizens gain more knowledge about investments, they will begin to accept higher risk for the potential higher rewards, turning the concept of risk from threat to opportunity. But future wealth will depend not merely on a healthy appetite for risk, but also on stronger social safety nets designed to balance new individual freedoms with commensurate order.

Stan Davis is an independent author and speaker based in Brookline, Massachusetts / USA, and the Senior Research Fellow at the Ernst & Young Center for Business Innovation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Christopher Meyer is the Director of the Center for Business Innovation, a Partner in Ernst & Young, and President of Bios GP, a venture applying complexity theory to business. Future Wealth is seen as the companion volume to the author’s best-selling book “Blur”, with which they already started to describe the more intangible nature of today’s business in a connected economy.

‘Future Wealth’ by Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer is the most visionary but also convincing book about how companies and individuals will treat intangibles and the underlying opportunities and risks in the future – highly recommended!

Future Wealth
by Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer
Hardcover - 224 pages (March 2000)
Harvard Business School Press; ISBN: 1578511941

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Living and Working in an Interconnected World:
How e-business really works

You - a person who is familiar with business and with IT in general - have looked for a book which explains you in a comprehensive view the technical and commercial background of the e-revolution ?

Here it is: The E-Business (R)evolution is a complete handbook and briefing for every entrepreneur and executive making e-business plans. Start by understanding the six phases of e-business, from “Hello, I’m Online, Too” through “One World-One Computer”. Build the case for e-business, including e-commerce; then learn how to choose the right technologies, avoid legal (and other) pitfalls of e-business, create your marketing strategy on the Web and your e-business applications and learn about the near future of the Web.

The author – Daniel Amor – is an e-business consultant for Hewlett-Packard in Germany. He is currently involved in several large e-business projects throughout Europe.

The ebusiness (r)evolution by Daniel Amor is the most complete and even more important, most useful book on e-business I have found so far. You can clearly see that the author does actually possess real world experience in developing and implementing e-business strategies.
– highly recommended !

The E-business (R ) Evolution:
Living and Working in an Interconnected World
by Daniel Amor
Paperback - 636 pages (September 1999)
Prentice Hall; ISBN: 013085123X

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Funky Inc.

Organizations come and go. They rise and fall. They change shape constantly. They leave the nations and regions in which they were born. They re-organize, re-align, re-focus. Nothing stays the same. But fear not, Funky Inc. is already here. Funky Inc. isn’t like any other company. It is not a dull, old conglomerate. It is not a rigid bureaucracy. It is an organization that actually thrives on the changing circumstances and unpredictability of our time. Its difference – and its perpetual search for difference – is visible both in terms of its looks and how it operates.

The two authors – Jonas Ridderstrale and Kjell Nordstrom – are based at the Stockholm School of Economics and are consultants for various international companies. The cornerstone of their innovative business philosophy is, that the corporate world of the New Economy has to be a more interesting place to be. A place where people ca be creative risk-taking entrepreneurs; a place where talent wants to live. A place where ideas happen and exciting products happen faster. And then change. This is the world of Funky Business.

This book gives a fresh and “funky” perspective on the new world order of the New Economy – highly recommended !

Funky Business: Talent Makes Capital Dance
by Jonas Ridderstrale, Kjell Nordstrom,
Paperback – 256 pages (March 2000)
Financial Times Prentice Hall Publishing; ISBN: 0273645919

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