Financial Times
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Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
‘Never has it been more important for managers to innovate the way they manage. As this book so powerfully shows – management innovation – advances in how we manage – is a secret weapon in the search for competitive advantage. With a fantastic compendium of the 50 most crucial management innovations – this book will surprise, inform and inspire any manager who believes that they need to innovate the way they manage.
Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice, London Business School
Author of Hot Spots; why some teams, workplaces and organisations buzz with energy – and other’s don’t.
"This book might be called 'Everything you wanted to know about management, but were afraid to ask'. It's an invaluable quick guide to the entire arsenal of techniques and models, and I recommend it to anyone who takes the job of management seriously. It is typcial of the authors work, in that it is clear, crisp, and useful."
Tim Brooks, Managing Director, Guardian News & Media Limited
INNOVATION IS AT THE HEART OF GREAT MANAGEMENT
How do you manage? What skills, ideas, tools and techniques do you use? Have you always used them? Think about it: how we manage organisations – and ourselves – is in a constant state of evolution. Nothing about the way you work today is forever. Managers are always trying new things, different approaches. There are management innovations underway all the time in large organisations. Many fail. Some work. A few make history. The most valuable ones are picked up and absorbed across entire industries and countries. These are the ones this book will tell you about.
Giant Steps in Managementpresents a thought provoking selection of the 50 most important management innovations of the last 150 years and describes the impact they have on management today. Some of the innovations will be familiar to you; others will be new, different, surprising. Together, they form a fascinating compendium of the ideas, techniques and practices that have rocked the world of management.
If you want to be on the right side of innovation, keep this book to hand.
Pekka Ala-Pietilä, President, Nokia
“By taking this book to heart, those involved in business creation can significantly enhancetheir chances of success and avoid costly mistakes. It provides a wealth of guidance on howto go about renewal in a flexible, measured manner.”
Erik Vollebregt, CEO, Shell Technology Ventures
“Offers a new perspective on the age-old problem of generating growth inside well-establishedcompanies. Through detailed examples, it provides a clear set of guidelines that companiescan follow if they want to manage their new business creation activities more effectively.”
Laura Tyson, Dean, London Business SchoolFormerly Chairman, President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors, 1993-1995
“The central message of this book is that to grow successfully, a company needs ultimatelyto create a culture and capability that supports the process of business creation.Inventuring provides a wealth of detail on how to do this.”
Sir Peter Davis, CEO, Sainsbury’s
“Rich with ideas and examples, Buckland, Hatcher and Birkinshaw have served up a practical,readable aid for managers.”
Andrew Campbell, Director, Ashridge Strategic Management Centre UK
“A useful tool for evaluating whether venturing will create value for your organizationand offers useful advice on how to get started.”
Heino von Prondzynski, Head of Roche DiagnosticsMember of the Executive Committee of F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd
“Experience has taught me that the best time to be investingin new business ventures is at the low-point of the market.Valuations are low, and the resources you need are in plentifulsupply. This book will tell you how to build your company'sventuring capability so that you are prepared for the next boom.”
John Taysom, Founding and Managing Partner, RVC Europe Ltd
What do Virgin Atlantic, Heathrow Express,the Ericsson mobile phone, Tesco.com andEgg, the online bank, all have in common?
They are all successful new businesses created withinexisting companies.
New business creation can be the most powerfulwealth-creating tool in the modern firm’s armoury.When used effectively, it can enable a company toreinvent its core business and extend its strategicassets. But it is difficult to get right. Companiesroutinely invest heavily in business creationinitiatives which subsequently fail to deliversignificant organic growth.
Following extensive research across Europe, NorthAmerica and the Far East, Buckland, Hatcher andBirkinshaw argue that the trick to successful businesscreation lies in a firm’s ability to:
Inventuring shows why business creation should beat the top of a company’s strategic agenda and howto organize and manage it alongside other businessdevelopment techniques. It demonstrates how to builda business creation capability from scratch and howto embed it within everyday practices so that itbecomes routine.
The book provides a step-by-step guide to generatingand turning ideas into commercially viable enterpriseswhile avoiding the many pitfalls. It will help you todetermine which ideas to run with, how to developand launch them, and how to extract the best valuefor corporate growth.