800-CEO-READ New Releases

Private Label Strategy

by Nirmalya Kumar, Jan-benedict E. m. Steenkamp

(Harvard Business School Press, 336 Pages)

As retailers have become more powerful and global, they have increasingly focused on their own brands at the expense of manufacturer brands. Rather than simply selling on price, retailers have transformed private labels into brands. Consequently, manufacturers such as Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, and Procter & Gamble now compete with their largest customers: major retail chains like Carrefour, CVS, Tesco, and Wal-Mart.

The growth in private labels has huge implications for managers on both sides. Yet, brand manufacturers still cling to their outdated assumptions about private labels.

In Private Labels: Competing With and Against Store Brands, Nirmalya Kumar and Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp describe the new strategies for private labels that retailers are using, and challenge brand manufacturers to develop an effective response. Most important, they lay out actionable strategies for competing against—or collaborating with—private label purveyors.

Packed with detailed international case studies, valuable visuals, and hands-on tools, Private Labels enables managers to navigate profitably in this radically altered landscape.

You, Inc.

by Harry Beckwith, Christine Clifford Beckwith

(Warner Books Inc, 0 Pages)

As founder of Beckwith Advertising and Marketing, Harry Beckwith learned early on in his career that no matter what product is being sold, the most important component of the sale is you. Here Beckwith teams up with his wife, motivational speaker and former sales executive Christine Clifford Beckwith, to provide tips, anecdotes, and insights based on their 30 years of selling experience. Written in a traditional homespun style, the Beckwiths offer doses of humor and practical knowledge to anyone who wants to learn how to seal the deal and thrive in business.

Miracle Medicines

by Robert Shook

(Penguin USA, 256 Pages)

It’s the business of saving lives.

Miracle Medicines goes behind the scenes of the pharmaceutical industry and into the high-security laboratories to tell the stories of the men and women---chemists, physiologists, medical and clinical researchers, engineers---who have chosen to toil for years in the lab in order to transform scientific theories into new lifesaving medicines.

You’ll witness the day-to-day labors, victories and defeats of the dedicated professionals who are waging a war against the diseases that still plague mankind. From the confines of their laboratories, these pharmaceutical adventurers explore unknown territories in health and science.

Miracle Medicines reveals what really happens during the long and uncertain journey that each new drug and its creators must endure from theory, to research, to testing and, finally, FDA approval and delivery to the public. It’s a very human story within the context of fascinating scientific innovation.

Through first hand interviews you’ll also meet the patients who benefit from these manmade miracles and learn how, within their bloodstreams, an ongoing battle is raging.

The drugs profiled are:

• Advair: GlaxoSmithKline’s revolutionary asthma medication, the first packaged as both a control and emergency drug.
• Gleevec: The Novartis’ chronic myeloid leukemia treatment born from decades of medical research in a field of study that was once considered hopeless.
• Humalog: Eli Lilly’s reinvention of insulin to control diabetes has been described as being better than nature
• Lipitor: Pfizer’s miracle antidote for high cholesterol that was nearly lost to the pharmaceutical vaults and has since become the world’s top-selling medicine.
• Norvir: Abbott’s contribution to the fight against HIV that nearly erases all traces of the disease from the bloodstream and prolongs the life of patients.
• Remicade: Created for the treatment of Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis and other Immune Mediated Inflammatory Diseases, Johnson & Johnson’s revolutionary biomedicine was developed from technology that once was only found in science fiction.
• Seroquel: AstraZeneca’s treatment for both schizophrenia and bipolar mania that has given millions of psychiatrics a new lease on life.

This compelling and truth-revealing book will forever change the way you view the medicines in your medicine cabinet, and the people who create them.

Punk Marketing

by Richard Laermer, Mark Simmons

(Harpercollins, 272 Pages)

The marketing revolution is here, so get on the right side of the barricade and become a part of it! Let's thank Mr. and Mrs. Consumer and their little Consumerlings who have seized power from the corporations and are now firmly in control.

In Punk Marketing, Laermer and Simmons take an irreverent, penetrating look at the seismic change in the relationship between the people who sell stuff—products, services, entertainment—and those who purchase it. They demonstrate that to survive in business, a revolutionary approach is needed—one they have branded “Punk Marketing�—and it's one we all need to understand, for the traditional divisions among commerce, content, and consumers are continuing to blur ever more rapidly.

Never dull, sometimes controversial, but always a helluva lot of fun, Punk Marketing presents a manifesto for any businessperson needing to engage consumers—or any consumer seeking to understand and employ their newfound power. And here's the good news: It's based on principles that have existed forever. In an age of digital video recorders, “branded� entertainment, cell-phone TV, multiplayer online games, and never-ending social networking, a coherent approach to marketing has never been more vital. With Punk Marketing, there's a built-in plan to equip you with tools to make all this change work out just fine, thanks.

Punk Marketing is the first shot—soon to be heard 'round the world—of a long-awaited and breathless uprising that businesses want, deserve, and desperately need.

Blind Spots

by Claudia M. Shelton

(John Wiley & Sons Inc, 235 Pages)

Do you know why you're not getting a promotion, taking on new leadership roles, managing a team with top-notch effectiveness, or reaching your full potential in the workplace and in your personal relationships?

Maybe it's what you don't see about yourself that's holding you back.

Now, executive coach Claudia Shelton reveals how her revolutionary approach to personal development can help you recognize your personal blind spots—and then take immediate action that will lead to unprecedented personal achievement. Blind Spots is a proven and realistic approach to professional development that offers a step-based system for gaining a new and clearer perspective on who you are and how you can achieve more.

Shelton sees blind spots not as faults or weaknesses, but as doors to possibilities that you couldn't previously imagine for yourself. With this positive outlook, you'll be able to easily modify your attitudes, habits, and behaviors to create new personal strengths. Blind Spots provides the tools you need to build a positive mindset and learn what it is you haven't been able to see about yourself. Once you have that perspective and start working to fulfill your ultimate potential, unlimited success will be right around the corner.

Shelton offers a complete system for identifying and adjusting personal behaviors and habits that hold you back. You'll learn the five most common blind spots, the five principles that open your thinking to new ways of doing things, and specific strategies that help you implement effective action. And you'll discover simple steps you can take to improve your performance—and your life—immediately.

No matter what you want to achieve in life, this one-of-a-kind guide will help you tear down the walls between you and what it is you want—whether that's a promotion, a new business, optimum performance, greater recognition, more social impact, a more balanced personal life, enhanced personal relationships, or any other goal.

Go Put Your Strengths to Work

by Marcus Buckingham

(Simon & Schuster, 320 Pages)

Beginning with the million-copy bestsellers First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham jump-started the strengths movement that is now sweeping the work world, from business to government to education. Now that the movement is in full swing, Buckingham's new book answers the ultimate question: How can you actually apply your strengths for maximum success at work?

Research data show that most people do not come close to making full use of their assets at work -- in fact, only 17 percent of the workforce believe they use all of their strengths on the job. Go Put Your Strengths to Work aims to change that through a six-step, six-week experience that will reveal the hidden dimensions of your strengths. Buckingham shows you how to seize control of your assets and rewrite your job description under the nose of your boss. You will learn:

• Why your strengths aren't "what you are good at" and your weaknesses aren't "what you are bad at."
• How to use the four telltale signs to identify your strengths.
• The simple steps you can take each week to push your time at work toward those activities that strengthen you and away from those that don't.
• How to talk to your boss and your colleagues about your strengths without sounding like you're bragging and about your weaknesses without sounding like you're whining.
• The fifteen-minute weekly ritual that will keep you on your strengths path your entire career.

With structured exercises that will become part of your regular workweek and proven tactics from people who have successfully applied the book's lessons, Go Put Your Strengths to Work will arm you with a radically different approach to your work life. As part of the book's program you'll take an online Strengths Engagement Track, a focused and powerful gauge that has proven to be the best way to measure the level of engagement of your strengths or your team's strengths. You can also download the first two segments of the renowned companion film series Trombone Player Wanted.

Go Put Your Strengths to Work will open up exciting uncharted territory for you and your organization. Join the strengths movement and thrive.

True North

by Bill George, Peter Sims

(Jossey-Bass, 280 Pages)

Book Description
Based on research and first-person interviews with 125 of the top leaders in business, Bill George--the highly respected former CEO of Medtronic and current Harvard Business School professor--and coauthor Peter Sims, describe how anyone can become an authentic leader. In this leadership tour de force, George presents many surprising conclusions as to what makes a great leader, some of which are actually contrary to previous research. The book presents a concrete and comprehensive program for leadership success, showing readers how to create their own Personal Leadership Development Plan centered on five key areas:

• Knowing your authentic self
• Orienting your moral compass
• Understanding your motivations
• Building your support team
• Staying grounded by integrating all aspects of your life

Personal, original, and illuminating stories from Warren Bennis, Sir Adrian Cadbury, George Schultz (former U.S. secretary of state), Charles Schwab, John Whitehead (Cochairman, Goldman Sachs), Anne Mulcahy (CEO, Xerox), Howard Shultz (CEO, Starbucks), Dan Vasella (CEO, Novartis), John Brennan (Chairman, Vanguard), Carol Tome (CFO, Home Depot), Donna Dubinsky (CEO/cofounder, Palm), Alan Horn (President, Warner Brothers), Ann Moore (CEO, Time, Inc.) and many others illustrate the transitions that shape the type of leaders who will thrive in the 21st century.

Bill George (Cambridge, MA) has spent over 30 years in executive leadership positions at Litton, Honeywell, and Medtronic. As CEO of Medtronic, he built the company into the world's leading medical technology company as its market capitalization increased from $1.1 billion to $60 billion. Since 2004, he has been a professor at the Harvard Business School. His 2004 book Authentic Leadership was a BusinessWeek bestseller. Peter Sims (San Francisco, CA) cofounded the London office of Summit Partners, a leading global investment firm, and led the establishment of Leadership Perspectives at the Stanford Graduate School of Business that is one of its most sought after courses.

Seduced by Success

by Robert J. Herbold

(McGraw-Hill, 288 Pages)

The former COO of Microsoft reveals the secrets to staying great

Success can be a serious business vulnerability! General Motors, IBM, Kodak, Rubbermaid-these are just a few examples of top companies that became complacent and bloated. To sustain their success, they should have been uncovering fresh approaches, improving their products and services, and staying lean and agile.

In Seduced by Success, Robert Herbold shows you and your company how to become successful and stay that way by avoiding the nine biggest success traps. The book features multiple examples of successful companies that succumbed to problems as well as examples of companies that overcame them. This provocative, thought-leading guide explains why “defending yesterday� is a prescription for failure. You'll learn how and why both you and your organization must constantly experiment with new ideas, processes, and business models to remain relevant.

Marketing That Works

by Howard Morgan, Len Lodish, Shellye Archambeau

(Pearson P T R, 256 Pages)

Focus your marketing on what really works—and make the most of every marketing investment!

Every dime you spend on marketing needs to work harder, smarter, faster. Every dime must differentiate your company based on your most valuable competencies. Every dime must protect you against competitors and commoditization. Every dime must drive higher profits this quarter, and help sustain profitability far into the future.

Are your marketing investments doing all that? If not, get Marketing That Works—and read it today.

You’ll learn how to substitute agility, flexibility, and great relationships for the resources you don’t have...and bring entrepreneurial savvy to everything from advertising and PR to distribution and sales management.

Above all, you’ll learn what really works, based on the experiences of hundreds of today’s most successful companies. No more guesswork: this book will help you set winning priorities, execute on them, and reap the rewards.

• Differentiate yourself more effectively, protect yourself against competition, and drive higher margins
• Bring entrepreneurial power to distribution, sales management, PR, promotion, advertising, and more
• For marketers in every kind of company, from startup to global enterprise

Down, but Not Out

by Barry Minkow

(Thomas Nelson Inc, 240 Pages)

Everyone's had a bad day, some of us have had a lot worse. But as Barry Minkow shows in this inspirational and empowering book, you can come back from anything. He started from jail-and millions in debt. You might be starting from a wrecked marriage. Or a business gone belly up. Whatever your failure, you can overcome and get beyond it starting today. In Down, But Not Out, Barry explains the 10 all-important steps you need to succeed in the process. You may not end up helping the FBI bust investment fraud like Barry does today, but you can turn your life around and get back on the road to success. Barry shows you how.

White Hat Leadership

by T. R. Warren

(Gibbs Smith, 160 Pages)

White Hat Leadership offers the skills to tap into the best of people, use every ounce they offer to the company, and to encourage them to communicate, collaborate, and innovate at all levels of the organization. Technology means business moves faster, and high-speed innovation must spring from anywhere in the organization at any time. Employees must feel empowered and engaged to innovate! White Hat Leadership shows how to create self-managed teams that accomplish more than single leader teams, foster environments that encourage independent thinking and action, and ultimately have higher levels of productivity. True leaders motivate others better, accomplish more, work to achieve the best outcome for all, and feel better about themselves and their successes.

Through years of observation and experience in his work with such organizations as MSN.com, the United Nations, American Airlines, and the U.S. Department of Education, Warren understands the practices that will motivate employees to work at the highest level of productivity and personal well-being. His principles include concrete strategies so that you can start implementing change and seeing results immediately. Your employees-and your bottom line-will thank you. T.R. Warren leads a consulting consortium under the name T.R. Warren Associates. He is Senior Consultant for Extreme Arts & Sciences, a consulting company with emphasis on financial institutions. Warren is regarded as an international expert on executive leadership principles, interpersonal and organizational communication, media relations, and crisis communication. Over the span of years, his client list has included Microsoft, the United Nations, and a myriad of financial institutions large and small. In high demand as a lecturer, he has spoken to groups in the states and seven foreign countries.

Ignited

by VinceThompson

(Financial Times Prentice Hall, 256 Pages)

Book Description
Ahh, the life of a manager. You're squeezed between the needs of your corporation, your team, your customers, and your colleagues. Too often, you're maligned, misunderstood, downsized, reengineered, reorganized, and even misled. Even in the best organizations, you face brutal competition, non-stop pressure, and relentless change. But, whatever your day-to-day realities, you can achieve far greater power, purpose, and success -- and Ignited will show you how. It outlines clear, realistic steps for leveraging your networks and resources to transform your vision into reality, and accomplish the powerful goals only you can achieve. This is not another diatribe on leadership or grand strategic vision written by those already at the top: the Jack Welches or Rudy Giulianis who can simply dictate their visions to the organization. Ignited is for those leading from the middle: managers who need real tools to make a real difference. If you're ready to take back your business, your career, and your life, Ignited is for you.

About the Author
Vince Thompson is principal at Middleshift Consulting, and works with Internet companies to design world-class online marketing solutions and build sales organizations. His clients include Napster, StarStyle.com and Break.com. Thompson has spent fifteen years as a middle manager leading teams in challenging industries: first in restaurants, then in television, and now in the Internet business. He spent seven years as Regional VP of Sales for America Online, designing its sales training organization, and managing teams in SF, LA, Chicago and Dulles, VA. He has spoken widely on online advertising, and contributed to the textbook Media Selling.

Leading for Growth

by Raymond P. Davis; Alan Shrader

(Jossey-Bass, 224 Pages)

Book Description
How any business leader can create an atmosphere of competitiveness for exceptional growth

When Ray Davis took over the local 40-person South Umpqua Bank in 1994, many people in the industry poked fun at his insistence that employees answer the phone with a cheery "World's Greatest Bank." Eleven years, $7 billion in assets, and 128 branches (or " bank stores" in Umpqua lingo) later, the moniker seems quite apt. Other banks scratched their heads when Davis sent his tellers to Ritz-Carlton to learn customer service and were intrigued when he hired a cutting-edge design firm to completely re-think retail layout. Now, with a top design award under their belt, a name change (there never was a North Umpqua bank), and a completely new definition of the banking business, Umpqua has become the darling of the entrepreneurial press and a growth powerhouse. The New York Times calls Umpqua "Starbucks with tellers."

Ray Davis (Portland, OR), named by U.S. Banker as one of the 25 most influential people in the financial industry in 2005, is President and CEO of Umpqua Holdings Corporation. Alan Shrader (Moraga, CA) is an experienced writer and editor of business books.

You're Addicted to You

by Noah Blumenthal

(Pub Group West, 200 Pages)

Why are so many of our attempts to change unsuccessful? It’s not a lack of willpower. The problem is that we try to adopt new, more positive behaviors without first breaking the hold that the old negative behaviors have on us. We can’t simply turn these negative behaviors off — in fact, their hold is so strong that, as Noah Blumenthal shows, they have become a part of us. In a very real sense, we’re addicted to ourselves. But self-addiction can be broken. In You’re Addicted to You, Blumenthal outlines his proven “Circles of Strength� approach, a three-stage strategy to help readers conquer damaging behaviors like anger, workaholism, risk aversion, negativity — any bad habit. He offers tools, techniques, and exercises for increasing our awareness of our self-addictions and controlling their impact on ourselves and others. He shows how to make personal and professional changes that actually last. Everyone knows what they want to change — Blumenthal shows readers exactly how to actually do it.

Values Sell

by Nadine A. Thompson, Angela E Soper

(Pub Group West, 120 Pages)

Sales and distribution are the lifeblood of any business — socially responsible businesses are no different. To make a difference in the world, a business has to make its product or service available and get the public to buy it. But how can one compete with businesses for which the bottom line is the only measure of success? You need to get creative! In this practical and inspiring guide, Nadine Thompson and Angela Soper draw on real-world examples to show how a values-driven business can establish a foundation from which innovative sales and distribution strategies naturally flow. They lay out concrete steps for communicating a powerful, motivating vision for the business, and for designing sales and distribution strategies that fit the needs, interests, and habits of the target customer. Values Sell will help any socially conscious entrepreneur develop competitive sales and distribution strategies while staying true to his or her distinctive mission.

Competing on Analytics

by Thomas H. Davenport, Jeanne G. Harris

(Harvard Business School Press, 240 Pages)

You have more information at hand about your business environment than ever before. But are you using it to "out-think" your rivals? If not, you may be missing out on a potent competitive tool.

In Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning , Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris argue that the frontier for using data to make decisions has shifted dramatically. Certain high-performing enterprises are now building their competitive strategies around data-driven insights that in turn generate impressive business results. Their secret weapon? Analytics: sophisticated quantitative and statistical analysis and predictive modeling.

Exemplars of analytics are using new tools to identify their most profitable customers and offer them the right price, to accelerate product innovation, to optimize supply chains, and to identify the true drivers of financial performance. A wealth of examples�from organizations as diverse as Amazon, Barclay�s, Capital One, Harrah�s, Procter & Gamble, Wachovia, and the Boston Red Sox�illuminate how to leverage the power of analytics.

The Last Link

by Gregg Crawford

(Greenleaf Book Group Llc, 198 Pages)

In The Last Link, Gregg Crawford, CEO of the multinational performance-improvement firm BayGroup International, exposes the money pit that impotent strategies create. For over twenty-five years, he has worked with major global companies to help them function better. He has found countless companies spending millions of dollars to develop and disseminate a strategy they believe will lead them to corporate growth, strong profits, and secure margins. Companies hope such plans will emphasize their competitive advantages and garner approval from Wall Street, but often they become expensive bookends, never used or looked at beyond the planning process. The Last Link offers hard-hitting practical advice and a watertight implementation process to move the numbers in the right direction by linking strategy with sales.

How Countries Compete

by Richard H. K. Vietor

(Client Distribution Services, 320 Pages)

Business and political leaders often talk about what their respective countries must do to compete in the world economy. But what does it really mean for a country to compete, and how do they do this successfully? As the world has globalized, countries develop strategies to compete for the markets, technologies, and skills that will raise their standards of living. These government strategies can make--or break--a nation's efforts to drive and sustain growth.

In How Countries Compete: Strategy, Structure and Government in the Global Economy, Richard Vietor shows how governments set direction and create the climate for a nation’s economic development and profitable private enterprise. Drawing on history, economic analysis, and interviews with executives and officials around the globe, Vietor provides rich and insightful examinations of different government approaches to growth and development--leading to both success and failure.

Individual chapters focus on the unique social, economic, cultural, and historical forces that shape governments’ approach to economic growth. Countries discussed include: China, India, Japan, Singapore, the United States Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa. Vietor challenges the widespread notion that, in market-driven economies such as the United States, a strong government can only hinder business success.

A provocative account and a rich resource, How Countries Compete offers potent insights into how the business environment has evolved in crucial nations—and what its trajectory might look like in the future.

Getting Unstuck

by Timothy Butler

(Client Distribution Services, 204 Pages)

Everyone feels stuck every now and again, paralyzed by the gnawing feeling that something must change – whether in one’s work or work environment, or in a life situation or way of living. But when is this feeling an indication of major psychological impasse? And when will this failure to get “unstuck” threaten not only your personal life and career, but even the healthy functioning of the rest of your team or organization? What are the steps to navigate out of this kind of rut and find a meaningful way forward?

In Getting Unstuck, psychologist Timothy Butler shares a proven model for moving from a state of career or life impasse to a new vision based on deeper knowledge of the work and life structures that will ultimately be most meaningful. Outlining a process that he has used with thousands of executives and MBA students, Butler explains how to recognize a state of psychological impasse and shows that this state is in fact the beginning of a necessary and predictable process of psychological development that is repeated many times throughout one’s life. Further, he shows how to turn impasse into a vision of meaning and purpose, first by awakening and deepening one’s imagination, then by recognizing patterns of meaning in one’s life, and finally, by taking action to turn one’s meaningful vision into a daily reality.

Supported by a wide range of stories of others who have accomplished similar life transitions, this book is written for anyone who feels stuck and is looking for practical and authoritative guidance for moving out of his or her own immediate impasse.

Your Gut Is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head

by Kevin Clancy

(John Wiley & Sons Inc, 304 Pages)

Book Description

How to make marketing scientific, accountable, and effective

Marketing has traditionally been gut-driven, undisciplined, and often unaccountable. Marketing executives rarely had to defend their expenditures and results. But those times are changing. In Your Gut Is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head, marketing consultants Clancy and Krieg explain how to implement disciplined, accountable marketing that achieves results. Similar to Six Sigma in its methodologies, disciplined, accountable marketing will revolutionize the industry as we know it. The authors explain what disciplined marketing looks like in every crucial type of marketing decision, from positioning to distribution, and provide case histories that clearly show how disciplined marketing beats gut-level thinking and planning every time.

Kevin Clancy (Boston, MA) is Chairman and CEO of Copernicus Marketing Consulting, a leading research and consulting organization with an international clientele. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Boston University. Peter Krieg (Boston, MA) is Executive Vice President of Copernicus.