Visionary business book review.
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<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Visionary-Business-An-Entrepreneur-s-Guide-to-Success/dp/1577316622/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Visionary Business: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Success</a>

When I picked up this book, never did I ever believe that it would have the profound effect on me that it has. It has now become my bible for success and I use it without fail everyday. Check out my review of the book here [...]

Full of useful and insightful true events by Marc Allen. A man who not only walks the walk as a result but really can talk the talk. It really is unusual to read a positive mental attitude book and actually act or remember to act on the information. Read this book and you cannot fail to act. Written in easy to understand english and in no way patronising, it tells you how to find your purpose in life in order to create the life you dream of.
It is annoying sometimes that books never give you the full story and after you have read them you know that there is something missing. Not with this book, you get what it says on the cover.
2513426
Michael lays out the steps to Creating Your Business Vision in a simple, easy to understand way.  A half hour of reading can change the rest of your life if properly applied. The concepts in this book are essential for long term success not only in business, but also in our careers, teams, and personal lives. A lack of planning leads to mediocrity, and sometimes failure in the long term, but a well-developed and properly executed business vision leads to greatness. So its time to ask yourself if you want to stay on the path of mediocrity, or are ready to start down the path of greatness with a quality business vision. If you choose the latter, Michael is ready to show you the steps of Creating Your Business Vision.
2271832
Guy's foresight is impeccable. This book will be in high demand for years to come. Why? The new economy: we're in an age where self-publishing will become the preferred method. You will learn how to elminate the middleman; big corporations.
380292
It is a good book if you are interested in what are the best business books to read. Very well done and interesting.
1580383
Peter Diamandis provides a futuristic view. The book is filled with a number of ideas for growing in the Information Age.
4110278
Here is another very good book for entrepreneurs and individuals who wish to keep up with new thinking for todays business world.
4333991
The Elite Entrepreneur is one of the nice books. Some really nice tips including management ideas, it did really help grow and polish the  Entrepreneur in me.
3107790
Reading his every book, one can observe that Ram Charan is a very passionate advocate of organic growth of businesses through operational efficiency and healthy cash flow. Each one of his books takes up a specific management concept to explain how excelling in that area can lead to profitable growth. For example in "Execution" (Co-authored with Larry Bossidy & Charles Burck), Charan has very eloquently explained the role of flawless planning and execution of strategy in healthy business growth. In "The Leadership Pipeline" (Co-authored with Stephen Drotter, and James Noel), Charan spotlighted the role of leadership in making businesses profitable. Similarly, "Know-How" described how a business can make efficient use of knowledge to stay ahead of competition and witness faster and profitable expansion. Charan's book "The Game Changer" (Co-authored with A G Lafley) focuses on innovation as a core competency in the business world. Reading the book twice and hearing it a few times, I have optimistically mixed feelings about different aspects of this book.

"The Game Changer" is a well-written, well-narrated and well-organized book in describing the academic concepts of innovation and correlating them to the success cases from leading companies like 3M, Nokia, and Allied Signals. The most appealing phrase to me in the whole book had been the description of difference between performance review meeting and innovation review meeting; the former being "a review of past" while latter being "a review of future". If someone wants to promote and manage a cutting-edge innovation program in his / her organization, then this is the book to read, especially the second half. The authors explain every aspect of innovation management from risk & reward to sources of funding, to selling the idea to top management and at marketplace; it covers the whole gamut of innovation in a very articulate way. "The Game Changer" is a book worth reading (or listening).

On the miniscule downside of "The Game Changer"; the boundaries of innovative concepts have been stretched too far citing Proctor & Gamble cases. I had a few soliloquies listening to this book on "a dark desert highway" and asked myself several times if feature enhancement or repositioning a product to attract younger population could be considered innovation.

In a case of innovation at P&G, disinfectants were added to feminine hygiene products to protect against infections, but is it true innovation? If I were to judge this change by Akao's standards (Dr. Yoji Akao of Voice of Customer - VOC fame), it is simply fulfilling an unmet customer need. That reminds me of a very similar case from Toyota; when Toyota introduced ionic breezer in Toyota Camry's air-conditioning system in 2006 and touted it to be an innovation in automotive architecture; they were vehemently rebuked by Asahi Shimbun (leading Japanese Daily) on the grounds that use of a better air treatment system in a car could not be considered innovation.

In another case of innovation about a skincare product, the "Oil of Olay" or the "Oil of Old Lady" as the authors call it. P&G redefined Oil of Olay to appeal to younger women and enlarge the population of women using it. I wondered again if repositioning the product to appeal to more people could be called innovation. Ironically, a very similar example can be cited from Toyota again. Historically, Toyota Avalon is considered an AARP car and the median age of an Avalon buyer in US had been 62 years. In 2003, the Chief Engineer of Avalon program Shigeki Terashi was asked to add some flare to Avalon styling and bring the median age of Avalon buyer down to 46 years. When Toyota ran the ad about re-birth of 2005 Avalon through "innovation" they faced very harsh criticism from Yomiuri Shimbun (another respected Japanese Daily) for misusing the term "Innovation".

VERDICT - "The Game Changer" is worth buying and reading / listening book when you have time!
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Both reviews by  F. Tyler B. Brown (March 25, 2012) &  Mark P. McDonald (February 6, 2012) are correct in their assessment of this intriguing book on  how "Information is the core of the modern enterprise, and the use of information defines the activities of a firm...(showing) managers and employees better ways to leverage information by design and not by accident."

It gives a brief history of the importance of the use of information in business and provides a reasonable future projection.

I'll give it 3.5 stars

With over 40 ideas worth using for this review, I will provide a few here.

On its purpose & theme:  "...to describe, indeed highlight, the role of information in the modern corporation, with only a tip of the hat to information technologies.  People collect, analyze, and use information  to do their work, to gain insights, to make more informed  decisions, and even to share those roles and decision making capabilities with machines, some of which are computers and some of them have computers built into them.  The main then of this book is that information-rather than information technology--is the fundamental building material of the modern enterprise, and that its use now defines the activities of the firms far more than we might have imagined even 20 years ago.

Discusses the different business models of online firms and regardless of the variant chosen... "they all share one universal feature:  they are largely about collecting data, doing something with it, and causing themselves or their bricks and mortar business partners to respond--for example, to ship a product sold by an online intermediary, such as an online florist."

On p. 35 and p. 37, definitions of the supply chain and value chain is given.

On use of information:  "Data pour into the modern corporation from sensors and from multiple websites. A corporation cannot shape or control this information; it can only use it; and it must integrate the information in order to make sense of it."

On managerial challenges:  "...will depend on the degree to which their companies can integrate internal and external data in one location or a few locations (virtual and real), the extent to which customers can share and borrow data  with which to influence their relations with a company and affect and inform their own buying habits, and how management and expert employees can enrich data for analysis.'

On why paper documents will still be needed:  "...much information that once would have been on paper is now in electronic form, but there are three reasons why paper documents will not disappear:

1)Legal requirements in some countries that call for hard copies of contracts and other documents.

2)Old habits and old policies on retention of corporate records, in some of the world's most high-tech firms.

3)Human thinking practices...People often need to look at data in a physical way, such as on paper, 3X5 cards, a stack of paper receipts, even a box of objects rather than just as information on a flat screen."
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Professor Z. John Zhang and Professor Jagmohan S. Raju new book, Smart Pricing is the best business book I have read in 2010. I am an Internet entrepreneur, published business author/writer and travel business consultant.

I read the book on my MacBook using the Kindle app and I couldn't put the laptop down to sleep.  I read the book in one sitting, well lying down in bed from start to finish. This is one of those dream books for entrepreneurs. If you're launching new products and services, reviewing your current pricing strategy or looking for new ways to maximize profits through pricing, this is the book you want to read. One of my clients is an artist in Maine and she sells her art using the "Name your own price" pricing strategy as read in chapter 7. Her pricing model is very unorthodox in the art world yet she she is one of the most strategic artisans I have ever met and constantly turns over her inventory.

I liked that the book was not super long in length. Entrepreneurs and most business people would rather just read quality books that get to the meat of what they have to say, the Professors from the Wharton Business School have done just this.

As an entrepreneur I have grown to understand and more importantly appreciate and value the relationship such research oriented professors like Professor Z. John Zhang and Jagmohan S. Raju have to entrepreneurs and the business community at large.

If your entrepreneur you need to read this book. I plan on going back to the book more than once and I'll review my pricing utilizing this book for every product or service I ever launch in the future. I will also make this book a must read for all my consulting clients.

Well done guys!

Matt Zito
Travel Business Profits
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2871975
This was an interesting self help business book peppered with wide ranging insights.  The book, when internalized with your specific point of view, will help you see the path to success clearer.
4649950
An excellent book for anyone in business who wants to get a holistic picture, win the hearts of their customers and grow their sales.
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I enjoyed reading this CEOs empowering and personal success encounters in this world of perception and how it starts with your outer appearance. This is a MUST buy for ALL who are seeking career changes and business opportunities in a busy world where a glance at your exterior may determine (perception) your destiny. I commend this CEO for sharing his story that it may enlighten others on their life journey. Hurry and purchase your copy while the book is still available.
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Mitchell and Coles have done businesses a tremendous service in writing this excellent book. They have done so by providing a practical toolbox of ideas with which to stimulate entrepreneurs, business leaders and managers to enhance and improve their business prospects in today's very competitive marketplaces.

I must admit to having struggled with this book for a long time. Not because of difficulty in reading and understanding. To be sure this is a very lucid and comprehensible book and is accessible to all levels from a twelve year old bringing out his lemonade stall for the third year in a row and adding iced tea to his product range to the CEO of a major corporation.

My struggle was with trying to make overarching sense of what lessons the authors were trying to encourage readers to learn. It became clear to me after several periods of reflection upon completion of the text. The crucial significance of this book in a practical way lies in understanding how deep into national economic systems the process of globalisation has seeped. We see the reults in our everyday lives, how quickly new or improved products come into the marketplace. We see how quickly established businesses change or die, we see cheaper and better products come from remote parts of the world leaving us a greater part of our disposable income to spend on the things we would prefer to spend on them.

It is clear that in life and not just in business the process of change has quickened and that as individuals we must be more adaptable and more attune to the world around us to the opportunities that exist. It is as if we need to become our own business in ourselves.

Mitchell and Coles focus on but one part of this continuous change and that is on the business model. Their strong focus on this area has great strength but we must also learn the broader lesson from their well researched work. To survive in today's world we must not only accept change but we must embrace it as people, as workers, as entrepreneurs. It is as Schumpeter pointed out inherent in the nature of capitalism. But, to be sure it is inherent in the nature of all life, as Hayek observed. We must change or die.

I would heartily recommend this book to everyone, for there is much to be gained from within it's pages. Mitchell and Coles have produced an excellent book which far and away exceeds it's remit as a business book.
4042909
Hello everybody!

This book is good enough to grab your attention, since I am interested in a strategic approach for business growth I came across this book, a very good starting approach of getting the topics across. Only a little bit limited because of the brief/shallow views half way in the book I added my personal MBA Notes and summary of the Marketing Revolutions for free to cover all topics!! If you want more infor you can contact me ofcourse. product link [...]
Overal with my supplement you have a highly detailed approach which supports the author's goal.
A highly recommednd this combination, you cannot get these notes for this price anywhere else.
The MBA notes are from the Rotterdam University, and the Marketing Revolution is from the orginal Founders Club and Business Growth System 2.0 from Strategic Profits Highly recommended material!

Hope to inform you,

To your success!

Dan Otten
1742940
Wow, Marvelous book!!  I can't stop reading the book once I started and therefore I finished the book in 3 after-dinner evenings.  There are just too many new insights and information.  Need to read it more times later to review some of the key points.
In essence, the book talks about a simple theory of how things, ideas, products in this world being spread out and hit the "Tipping Point".  A lot of real life examples and a lot of reference information from sociology, psychology and marketing research are used.
The book will surprise you with a different perspective about how things happen in the world.  Good for the businessworld as well in marketing new products and ideas.
A must read, please !!
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Vision 2020 is a richly painted collection of interwoven stories that are part business case study, part futurist fiction, and ultimately scenarios that should stir the creative juices of entrepreneurs, policy makers, and India-watchers alike.  While presented as a series of vignettes drawing upon trends that are recognizable today, these start-up enterprises are sketched out on a bold scale to imagine "what-if":  what if the right resources could be brought together?  what if an entrepreneur had the benefit of deep strategic experience? and, what if existing ideas could be combined in new and innovative ways?  Vision 2020 succeeds in demonstrating the enormous possiblities of the entrepreneurial spirit because it reflects the deep personal story of Sramana Mitra herself - her childhood in India, her education in the U.S., her hands-on work across a large variety of start-ups, and her intense curiosity and passion on a wide range of social, cultural, and business issues.  Imagine what is possible if each entrepreneur were able to tap into his or her own story in the same way.