The last 20 years has seen one management fad after another come and go. At the behest of consultants and gurus, businesses have re-engineered, downsized, learnt excellence, developed competencies and created customer-focused strategies. But to what avail? Despite all these fads and improvements we still find bad management, unhappy customers and companies that are extolled as excellent one day and go bust the next. There is a huge gulf between the excellence industry that is touted by the gurus and the real world of business. “Hard-core Management” aims to bridge that gap. It exposes all the core assumptions made by managers and their gurus by stripping them of their fancy garb and forcing us to confront the stark, warts-and-all reality. More than 100 overdressed assumptions are presented for frank examination such as: we know our customers; we know our competition; we have a strategy; our leader knows the way; we have a vision; we are in control; and we can change.

A good business plan should impress potential financial backers by clarifying aims, providing a blueprint for the future of your company and a benchmark against which to measure growth.

How to Prepare a Business Plan explains the whole process clearly, and includes guidance on: producing cash flow forecasts and sample business plans; expanding a business; planning the borrowing; and monitoring business progress.

The author introduces several small businesses as case studies, analysing their business plans, monitoring their progress and discussing their problems. Whether you are looking to start up or expand, this practical advice will help you to prepare a plan that is tailored to the requirements of your business – one that will get you the financial backing you need.

Written in straightforward language, this useful guide offers tried and tested advice on constructing profitable marketing strategies for your business. Revealing how to revitalize your products and services using straightforward marketing know-how, How to Market Your Business covers everything from market research, advertising, promotion, selling techniques, product launches, and use of the internet – everything you need to ensure your product reaches your market successfully.

Now fully updated, this new sixth edition has been thoroughly rewritten to keep you up to date with all the new channels to market, in particular those offered by the internet. With a strong emphasis on practical advice this is an essential guide to good marketing on a tight budget for anyone, regardless of their level of marketing experience.

Properly managed no brand need decay and die – immortality is within the reach of all. If the right decisions, the right resources and the right imagination are brought to bear, brands can renew continuously and outlive their creators.

Brand Immortality is a practical health manual for brands of all types and ages that seek immortality. Drawing on the renowned IPA Effectiveness Awards case histories, and full of examples including Nokia, Sony, Nike, Apple and Virgin, it examines how the nature of brands has changed over time and continues to evolve, and the implications this has for marketing. It identifies the factors that are essential to a brand’s long term survival – especially those which defend and strengthen a brand’s place in the hearts and minds of consumers.

Marketing, as a function and a basis for business growth, continues to be an elusive factor in corporate success. Fast-moving marketplaces and shifts in technology mean that most well-known and admired marketing campaigns succeeded in a totally different society and culture. Setting appropriate budgets, choosing the right integrated marketing mix and measuring the return on investment of different marketing programmes remains a perennial problem for many Marketing Managers.

This is a practical approach to re-engineering the performance management process in order to ensure effectiveness. It deals with the use of performance management in the US and Europe, defines performance management and assesses how well it is doing. It also considers how organizations are changing and the implications of these changes on traditional approaches to performance management. Hartle goes on to outline the steps to be taken to re-engineer the traditional approach into a more effective performance management process. The book draws from case studies of work with cliets around the world. The author stresses that for performance management to be fully effective it has to be a collaborative exercise between managers and staff.

The third edition of Logistics and Retail Management has been substantially updated to take account of recent developments in retail logistics. Retailers have recognised the need to have more involvement in supply chains and noted that benefits can be achieved in both service levels and cost reduction. Notwithstanding the major strides made, numerous challenges remain, and new issues are constantly emerging. This book brings together well-known academics and practitioners, who share their research, ideas and experience of current thinking on supply chain management in retail.

What is the procedure if an employee calls in sick but is later spotted in the park playing with his children?

Employers may think they have grounds to serve a warning, but would they be within their rights to do so?

Harry Sherrard, a successful employment law solicitor, identified the need for HR professionals and line managers to understand the legal rules and procedures when dealing with workplace disputes and dilemmas. He and his colleagues created training workshops that offered more than the usual dry handling of the subject by encouraging delegates to share their experiences of workplace disputes or ‘headaches’, and participate in lively discussion to generate practical and legal resolutions

With the management consulting industry facing unprecedented challenges there is a need for a comprehensive resource which provides an accessible guide to the key issues faced by the industry and clients. With contributions from a range of experts, this book offers detailed insights into the evolution of the industry and future trends, the sources of best practice, how to become an excellent client, the nature of the client-consultant relationship and consultancy in developing countries. Given its scope, it is a uniquely authoritative resource. Timothy Clarke, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Durham Business School, University of Durham Now in its second edition, this unique and authoritative guide provides a description of the management consultancy profession worldwide, together with advice on how to choose and use its services effectively. With contributions from leading practitioners, the guide is essential reading for all purchasers of management consultancy services. Part One identifies the parameters and definitions of management consultancy.

Whatever the size or nature of the organization, its directors are constantly faced with a myriad of problems and dilemmas: whether it’s financial failure, fraud, succession issues, directors’ indiscretions, a personality clash, a hostile takeover or low staff morale. This work provides a glimpse behind the boardroom door to witness the wrangles and clashes. There are 40 real-life cases with conclusions for action.

Trivial issues can reach gigantic proportions if they are not handled skilfully. This practical self-study workbook is designed to help managers to develop their skills when faced with difficult problems and complaints from members of staff. Structured to allow managers to gain the confidence they need to face even the most daunting situations, the examples and sample dialogues show managers how to deal with a wide range of scenarios including: concerns about hazards in the workplace; excessive workloads; coping with delays; and retaining staff. There are exercises and examples, cases and sample scenarios.

We live in a world were people have become empowered. Consumers can contact companies directly and they can talk to each other with a powerful voice they never had before. Sticky Marketing takes into account these fundamental changes and provides a new set of rules for effective communications in a world transformed by new technology. It introduces a new model of customer engagement and asks ‘not what your marketing can do for you, but what your marketing can do for your customer’. Companies have to move away from the old marketing system of shouting messages at people to attracting them by providing value around their product or service – in other words by becoming ‘sticky’ or attractive. Grant Leboff argues that it is not ‘return on investment’ that matters but ‘return on engagement’, not your unique sales point (or USP), but your customer engagement point (your CEP), that will make the difference in today’s cluttered marketplace.

While it is becoming increasingly common for contracts to be awarded through formal procurement processes, smaller business are missing out. Without the training and confidence needed to write a successful bid or proposal valuable business can be lost.

Bid Management is an easy-to-read practical guide which will teach the reader how to think like a professional bid manager. It covers the basics of how to find opportunities, understanding the rules of the game and how to get to know your customer. It also gives essential advice on how to compete with other bidders, present a deliverable and profitable bid, project manage your bid, work out a pricing strategy, clinch the deal and learn from success as well as failure. With an insightful interview with the Director behind the London 2012 Olympic bid, Bid Management uncovers the myths of bidding and teaches all the skills needed to get noticed, retain existing clients and win new ones.

The only way forward for business success is to create a memorable brand and fix it in the consumer’s mind. Branding Your Business explains the whole branding process in easy-to-follow terms. Providing practical help instead of academic theories, it explains what a brand is and what it is not, how to conduct a ‘DIY’ brand audit and how to use marketing NLP and psychology principles to create a powerful brand for your business.

Based around the theory that a brand is the total perception a customer has about a company, its products or services, Branding Your Business will reveal what is needed to create and manage successful brands, increase profits and leave the competition standing.

This handbook provides a thorough understanding of key service marketing concepts, and how these can be applied to improve turnover, efficiency, and above all, profitability. Addressing the needs of all professional service users, from accountants to zoo keepers, the volume aims to provide the reader with the confidence to market a service to the right audience with the right approach.

Learning organizations, where staff are encouraged to learn and develop skills that may not be directly relevant to their particular job, are viewed by many as the model for the successful organization of the future. This manual combines thinking on positive workplace transformation with practical exercises and techniques for bringing about achievable change within organizations of all types. Beginning by offering a critical and comprehensive evaluation of the ‘learning organization’ and workplace learning, the author goes on to explore the basic concepts that enable an individual, team or organization to begin the process of workplace learning transformation. Detailed strategies for bringing about customised change are provided, while the final part of the book provides a toolkit of activities to help readers identify the needs of their organization and construct a workable action plan for creating a learning environment.

Network marketing is a method of selling directly to people in their homes by using distributors who recruit friends and other contacts to sell in turn. The operation is explained fully in this practical guide, which introduces the reader to a low-cost system of marketing.

This book is an authoritative and accessible guide to the pluralist movement threatening to revolutionise mainstream economics. Leading figures in the field explain why pluralism is a required virtue in economics, how it came to be blocked and what it means for the way we think about, research and teach economics.

The first part of the book looks at how neoclassical economics gained its stranglehold, particularly in the United States, and how the social and intellectual underpinnings of economics have enabled it to maintain this in the face of inconsistent evidence from the real world. This is then contrasted with different approaches to pluralism. Pluralist Economics then goes on to address the array of arguments for establishing pluralism, showing how economics came to function as a concealed ideology and not as a science, and how value-free economics is an illusion. Finally, it addresses the practical problems presented by this different way of doing economics.

Presenting applied theory alongside real-world examples, Fundamentals of Investment Management provides a survey of the important areas of investments: valuation, the marketplace, fixed income instruments and markets, equity instruments and markets, derivative instruments, and a cross-section of special topics, such as international markets and mutual funds. The text is user-friendly, but makes no concessions to the importance of covering the latest and most important material for the student of investments.