Agility. Competing and Winning in a Tech-Savvy Marketplace

Getting Started in Currency Trading is both an introduction and reference tool for beginning and intermediate foreign exchange (Forex) traders. This information-packed resource opens with a description of the Forex market and a section of clearly defined Forex terms with examples. You'll learn how to open your own trading account by following step-by-step instructions and numerous screen shots that show you what expect inside a dealer's trading platform. You'll walk through the physical process of placing and liquidating currency orders. Later chapters introduce various trading strategies and tactics in detail, along with some fundamental and technical analysis that will help you win in the exploding foreign exchange trading market.

Competing in a Service Economy is a hands-on guide to creating services, with illustrative examples from service-oriented companies including Disney, Ericsson, IKEA, National Association of Convenience Stores, Ritz Carlton, Scandinavian Airline Systems, Sterling Pulp Chemicals, and Telia Mobile. This practical resource for executives, general managers, and managers in marketing, operations, and human resources reveals how to gain a competitive advantage by creating and implementing a strategic plan that will ultimately improve their organization's services. Written by the authors of the best-selling book Improving Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Profit, this important new book will help business professionals to think and plan strategically to dramatically improve services, service development, and service innovation within their organizations.

How to win market leadership in a fast-changing world In the past, companies could pick a strategy and stick with it, maintaining a competitive edge for years. But today, companies surge ahead, fall behind, or even disappear in mere months. If you and your company are going to thrive for the long run, you need to continuously evolve, change, and stay a step ahead of your competition. The ability to see and capitalize on new opportunities is the cornerstone of agility. Successful technology-based firms like Google, Tesla, and Amazon have all mastered agility within their core business practices, but companies in any sector can—and must—learn to spot new opportunities and make the right choices about what to invest in, what to change, and what to abandon. The Agility Advantage first shows how to identify those aspects of your business where agility is most crucial—where the business environment is changing fast—and which elements have the greatest impact on the customer’s decision to buy. Amanda Setili then shows how to master the three components of agility: Market agility: Gain ideas from your most demanding and forward-thinking customers and from outside your industry. Engage, observe, and mix with customers to identify the opportunities created by their changing demands. Decision agility: Anticipate the changes that may affect you and turn even troubling trends into opportunities. Design your strategy to maximize learning and to manage risk. Generate diverse alternatives and make fast, fact-based decisions about which to pursue. Execution agility: Build new capabilities, shed what doesn’t fit, and take the first steps in a new direction. Experiment, then reinforce and build on what works. Enlist and inspire your organization around a compelling purpose and grant employees the autonomy and resources to continuously adapt and adjust course. The future will present more opportunities but narrower windows to capture them. With a wealth of valuable information and practical strategies, The Agility Advantage is essential reading to help any organization adapt and thrive—both today and tomorrow.

The relentless pursuit of industrial efficiency no longer yields the profits it once did because it requires a level of business predictability that no longer exists. Instead, the Internet and global video and telecom systems provide a massive and continuous flow of data that causes the whole world to behave like a giant stock market, with all the volatility and uncertainty that goes along with such markets. Responsiveness now trumps efficiency. By being responsive to the evolving needs and desires of specific groups of customers, companies can wrap their products and services in a tailored blanket of value-added services to consistently earn an additional four percent or more gross margin than they would otherwise earn for the product or service alone. This customer and market specialization is the most promising and the most sustainable source of profits in our fluid, real-time economy. Part of the Microsoft Executive Leadership Series, Business Agility discusses the three fundamental process loops that drive an agile enterprise and how they work together to deliver the responsiveness that generates profits in a high-change economy. Providing strategies for innovative and pragmatic use of people, process, and technology to drive operations in an agile enterprise, this book reveals the principles of the agile enterprise, backed by real-world case studies from the author's own experience. Michael Hugos is a speaker, writer, and practitioner in IT and business agility, and agile system development methods. He writes a column for Computerworld and a blog titled «Doing Business in Real Time» for CIO magazine.

A behind-the-scenes look at the underlying roles of each player in a mergers and acquisitions transaction Mergers and Acquisitions Dealmaker explores the roles of the buyers and sellers involved in mergers and acquisitions as well as executive management, line management, and the corporate development team. Now in a second edition, this book provides readers with a «behind the scenes» look into the roles, approaches, and motivations of each key player in a strategic transaction, and provides strategies on building a successful team. Providing a unique insight into the various professionals that drive mergers and acquisitions, Mergers and Acquisitions Dealmakers is a valuable reference destined to become essential reading for anyone trying to understand how mergers and acquisitions actually work. Michael E.S. Frankel (Chicago, IL) is a seasoned corporate development executive with extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, corporate strategy, and business development transactions. He has led over 100 transactions and has worked on hundreds more. He has executed transactions as an attorney, investment banker, and corporate development officer for VeriSign, GE Capital, and IRI, where he currently heads corporate development.

NFL head coach Mike Smith lead one of the most remarkable turnarounds in NFL history. In the season prior to his arrival in 2008, the Atlanta Falcons had a 4–12 record and the franchise had never before achieved back-to-back winning seasons. Under Smith’s leadership, the Falcons earned an 11–5 record in his first season and would go on to become perennial playoff and Super Bowl contenders earning Smith AP Coach of year in 2008 and voted Coach of Year by his peers in 2008, 2010 and 2012. You Win in the Locker Room First draws on the extraordinary experiences of Coach Mike Smith and Jon Gordon—consultant to numerous college and professional teams—to explore the seven powerful principles that any business, school, organization, or sports team can adopt to revitalize their organization. Step by step, the authors outline a strategy for building a thriving organization and provide a practical framework that give leaders the tools they need to create a great culture, lead with the right mindset, create strong relationships, improve teamwork, execute at a higher level, and avoid the pitfalls that sabotage far too many leaders and organizations. In addition to sharing what went right with the Falcons, Smith also transparently shares what went wrong his last two seasons and provides invaluable lessons leaders can take away from his victories, success, failures and mistakes. Whether it’s an executive leadership team of a Fortune 500 company, a sports team, an emergency room team, military team, or a school team successful leaders coach their team and develop, mentor, encourage, and guide them. This not only improves the team, it improves the leaders and their relationships, connections, and organization. You Win in the Locker Room First offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at one of the most pressure packed leadership jobs on the planet and what leaders can learn from these experiences in order to build their own winning team.

The keys to having an outstanding career as a school leader. The American educational system is in crisis; trends of recent years have been extraordinarily hard on educators. An entire generation of school leaders is retiring, many of them early, and the number of candidates applying to replace them is plummeting. In many districts, applications have shrunk by nearly two-thirds. Seven Secrets of The Savvy School Leader hopes to counteract these glum statistics by giving both aspiring and experienced school leaders important survival tools, and encouraging long-term leaders to renew their faith in their own abilities. Describes the innate tensions inherent in leadership Explores the difference between dilemmas and problems Encourages leaders to make change by making meaning Offers guidance for being your best and bold self Written an expert on school leadership who has worked closely with thousands of schools over the years, the book will help anyone serving as or considering becoming a school administrator.

How engaging technology and relationships can help you stand out, attract business and achieve a more dynamic professional life The technological landscape has reshaped the way white collar workers cultivate and promote their businesses. The Transformation of Professional Services is an engaging look at how licensed experts are adapting to today's dynamic economic environment. From Ari Kaplan—a recognized advisor on business and career development— Reinventing Professional Services: Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplaceoffers insights on taking advantage of enterprising techniques to stand out and position one's self as an insightful chameleon rather than as an isolated purveyor of facts and figures. Details the importance of offering resources instead of simply selling Reveals strategies for increasing one's searchability and distinguishing one's self in an economic downturn or recovery Offers advice readers can immediately use to strengthen client relationships Written in a straightforward and accessible style, this book provides engaging guidance for anyone in the professional services field—from business consultants, financial advisers, and lawyers to accountants, real estate brokers, and appraisers.

What happens when politicians substitute their wisdom for the market’s? The result is usually a government subsidy that provides advantage to a special interest group only–but costs everyone and drains the economy. In Unwarranted Intrusions, well-known financial commentator Martin Fridson turns his sharp eye for uncovering opaque financial reporting practices to the U.S. government and examines the economic reality of some of the most popular yet financially draining subsidies. Fridson debunks programs that claim to provide jobs, encourage savings, provide affordable housing, and preserve family farms–among many others. Unwarranted Intrusions is a provocative and exhaustively researched challenge to prevailing political claims of programs that purport to protect the public good.

The definitive introduction to FOREX trading Getting Started in Currency Trading, Fourth Edition is both an introduction and a reference manual for beginning and intermediate traders. Starting with a description of the Foreign Exchange (FOREX) market and a brief history, the book includes an invaluable section made up of relevant FOREX terms clearly defined using examples. The FOREX market has grown substantially and evolved dramatically in recent years, and this new edition is designed to help the reader to adapt and take advantage of these changes. Including coverage of how to open a trading account, a step-by-step walk through the physical processes of placing and liquidating currency orders, and information on trading strategy and tactics complete with fundamental and technical analysis, the book has everything needed to assist the trader in the decision making process. New edition is revised and expanded to take into account all of the recent changes in the currency market Now includes a step-by-step introduction for the new trader and additional material on regulation FOREX arithmetic calculations are presented in a clear, easy to understand way Recommendations, guidelines, and caveats appear throughout the book This new edition of Getting Started in Currency Trading contains significant new information, including a chapter on computers and FOREX, managed FOREX, and new information about regulation, alongside the author's successful trading plan, designed to help the reader put it all together.