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Featured Item:
WEALTH VIRTUES
A Guide to acquire more money than you spend and to save more
money than you owe
Rating:  -
Rupert Hart tells the reader how to thrive in a recession by summarizing straightforward, no-nonsense, practical steps. He is a master of summarization and the précis - condensing typical content for Business Strategy 101 and Marketing 101 courses into 127 pages. He gives five areas of focus (a) Business environment, (b) Existing customers, (c) Pricing, (d) New products, (e) New markets, concluding with a chapter on integrating ideas from these sections.
Each section is peppered with case studies, taken from Rupert's experience and classic business literature. Some of them may seem dated, describing companies that no longer exist, like People's Express, or that have merged, like Ciba-Geigy. Since when was John Young, CEO of HP? At least John Chambers, also quoted, is still CEO of Cisco. However, business is business and Rupert races through the essentials with keen metaphors, e.g. not having enough market share is like trying to take water from a stream with your fingers spread out.
In the Business Environment section I particularly liked the section on managing company politics, e.g. "People on the board with no experience will make decisions for you." Too often, company cultures are politically correct and common-sense observations, addressed by Rupert, are missed because of the company's state-of-denial.
In the Existing Customers section, Rupert gets under the skin of how a customer feels. He tells the reader how the customer will be motivated and what to do about it.
The Pricing section, is full of reminders as to what to do when setting prices. If the sales people are negotiating away margins, then this book has ammunition to push back at them.
In the New Products section, I particularly liked the part about substituting products for services and vice versa. Sometimes a company is narrow-minded, or it wants to keep its valuation high, so sticks with a product, when moving to a service would keep the cash flowing.
A pragmatic approach to New Markets is suggested. Its too easy to leap at the next big segment, but Rupert cautions you to look carefully. He cites the travel market for retired boomers, large but with too many players. Instead he suggests selling insurance for adventure holidays, a related segment that is more easily targeted.
The detailed table of contents makes this an easy reference book to have on the shelf when a crisis occurs. A bibliography is given, as the book draws heavily on classic business writings. I'd have liked specific references throughout the book, but maybe that would have impeded the fast pace of the writing. So you may want to check out the reading list, that includes Peter Drucker's 1993 classic, Innovation and Entrepreneurship - Rupert cites the later 2006 edition. In fact, the book can be viewed as a historical review of business cases and strategies.
Anyone thinking of going to business school, can read this book and get an idea of key business topics. Current MBA students can use it for revision. In fact, you'll read this book quicker if you are familiar with academic business terms. If you haven't been to business school and want to know what you are missing, it could be useful to whip through the book.
For marketing managers and product managers, there are a bunch of ideas that will help you make your case when confronted with opposition from colleagues.
Consultants can use this book as the basis for a series of workshops based on the five sections.
Board members and CEOs of small businesses, might use the book as a memory jogger or idea generator.
Rupert is the pilot and whether you are ship's captain or deckhand it is up to you to think which of the ideas, case studies or quotations is relevant for your situation. I'd like to see a subsequent volume more applicable to Web 2.0 companies with more recent case studies and quotations, although the iPhone does get a mention.
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Rupert Hart's, "Recession Storming" debunks the myths about recessions. It provides real world stategies of how to build wealth in a struggling economy.
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This book not only does an outstanding job of explaining to laypersons the economic principles by which any successful business must be governed but it gives a nuts and bolts blueprint for the managers and owners of any small business to keep their businesses afloat in the troubled waters of 2008. Mr. Hart uses ingenious examples and metaphors to make his book understandable, instructive and highly enjoyable. If users apply even a small fraction of the dozens of helpful suggestions that are set forth in this little jewell they can expect a rapid and dramatic improvement in the sucess of their enterprises.
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Here is your book that covers both angles - a mindset that you can adopt to grow in a downturn and tactics to use to increase the level of your business' success. In a short but high impact book, Hart starts by encouraging us to go pro-active in difficult times, and to take advantage of disruption. This is not news to corporate titans, but how often do we forget that going pro-active is what made our own business work? A recession is a measurement of an average. If you do not have an average company, are not an average manager, do you need to live and operate as average? If not, grab a copy of this and keep your business above average. You can't cut your way to growth, and here is a book with the external focus to help grow in a recession. Take advantage of it!
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The traditional response to recessionary economics is to do the same, just a bit less -- less cost, less hiring, less marketing. While appropriate, these steps have a finite application.
Hart maintains that recessionary times offers the opportunity to change the rules -- by finding new products, new customers, new markets. Most of the many suggestions presented in the book require little financial investment and can be implemented by creative thinking and low-cost recasting of existing products.
Every person who works in a company fearing the potential recessions owes it to himself or herself to read this book and pursue its recommendations.
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