Sony was dragged to the center stage, on the altar of vengeance to be slaughtered. With anger, they all pounced on him to massacre their ransom. Sony's blood was shed on the altar of vengeance, and all the jackals were appeased for avenging the death of their princess. They then began their feast to rejoice for the opportunity to avenge their enemies. At dawn, at the third crow of the roaster, there was an earthquake all over the land. There was lightening and thunders from the sky. Then a loud ROAR was heard from the center stage, right from the Altar of Vengeance at the Assembly Ground of the Jackals. The sound of the roar resonated high across lands, including the Kingdom of the Madas, Wolves, Hyenas, Goats, Sheep, and beyond. The slain lamb has been transformed into a giant lion. The shedding of the blood of Sony has brought about a strange and rare occurrence in the entire realm of the living. A gentle innocent lamb was transformed into a mighty lion!

A practical guide to the new economy that is transforming the way we live, work, and play. Uber. Airbnb. Amazon. Apple. PayPal. All of these companies disrupted their markets when they launched. Today they are industry leaders. What’s the secret to their success? These cutting-edge businesses are built on platforms: two-sided markets that are revolutionizing the way we do business. Written by three of the most sought-after experts on platform businesses, Platform Revolution is the first authoritative, fact-based book on platform models. Whether platforms are connecting sellers and buyers, hosts and visitors, or drivers with people who need a ride, Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul Choudary reveal the what, how, and why of this revolution and provide the first “owner’s manual” for creating a successful platform business. Platform Revolution teaches newcomers how to start and run a successful platform business, explaining ways to identify prime markets and monetize networks. Addressing current business leaders, the authors reveal strategies behind some of today’s up-and-coming platforms, such as Tinder and SkillShare, and explain how traditional companies can adapt in a changing marketplace. The authors also cover essential issues concerning security, regulation, and consumer trust, while examining markets that may be ripe for a platform revolution, including healthcare, education, and energy. As digital networks increase in ubiquity, businesses that do a better job of harnessing the power of the platform will win. An indispensable guide, Platform Revolution charts out the brilliant future of platforms and reveals how they will irrevocably alter the lives and careers of millions.

This book offers insightful analysis of cultural representation in Japanese cinema of the early 21st century. The impact of transnational production practices on films such as Dolls (2002), Sukiyaki Western Django (2007), Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009), and 13 Assassins (2010) is considered through textual and empirical analysis. The author discusses contradictory forms of cultural representation – cultural concealment and cultural performance – and their relationship to both changing practices in the Japanese film industry and the global film market. Case studies take into account popular genres such as J Horror and jidaigeki period films, as well as the work of renowned filmmakers Takeshi Kitano, Takashi Miike, Shinya Tsukamoto and Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

Learn how to develop the values proven to boost sales performance, to ensure customers choose you over the competition in today's crowded marketplace. For years, sales people have struggled with cliched views of how they sell, while at the same time customers have become more sophisticated and discerning, stopping off at different or unconventional places in the sales funnel. The result is that the technique of sales people controlling the sales conversation and learning how to influence the customer no longer works. Selling Transformed introduces the new world of selling, and addresses the reasons why sales people are so poorly perceived. Selling Transformed provides fresh, tangible ideas on how to develop better sales practices. Focusing as much on the customers as on the sellers, it explains key theories of selling effectively and introduces four proven strategies that are based on the values customers look for in sales people: authenticity, client-centricity, proactive creativity and being tactfully audacious. Explaining what customers look for in sales people, and advising on how to develop and deliver these values, this is a new type of sales manual guaranteed to improve sales performance.

As with many people-oriented initiatives, employee engagement remains an emerging science with as many advocates as detractors. In The Culture Builders Jane Sparrow shares the insight of her research and experience into how companies are creating an engaged workforce. Along the way she looks at the evidence, the case for engagement and how organizations are measuring and defining it. Having an engagement strategy is merely a first step and so the book explores how to enable the manager-as-engager. Alongside the practical models and the guidance, there are stories and examples from leaders and organizations allowing you to learn, amongst other things, about the strong sense of purpose felt in John Lewis Partnership; the importance Innocence places on values; how Sony has used visual metaphors to give context and strategic direction and how MGM Resorts targets engagement strategies to the needs of specific employee groups. The need for sustained employee performance has been put into sharp focus in recent years. The Culture Builders is a book that provides the theory and practice to connect employee engagement to long-term performance. Simply reading it won’t guarantee that performance. Reading it, learning and applying the lessons it offers, will dramatically improve your chances.

"Sony vs. Samsung is business history at its best! It explores the divergent fortunes of these two electronics giants in the last decade and identifies the true reasons behind Sony's decline and Samsung's rise. Contrary to popular belief, Chang shows that success (or failure) does not simply arise from different strategies. Rather, it emerges from major decisions that are deeply rooted in the companies' organizational processes and their executives' political behavior. This book is a must-read for any senior executive." —Constantinos Markides, Robert P. Bauman Professor of Strategic Leadership and Chairman, Strategy Department, London Business School "Sea-Jin Chang has produced that rarity in a business book--one that is as valuable to practicing managers as it is insightful to academic researchers. In this fascinating comparison of two modern global giants, he applies his high resolution research microscope to their changing fortunes by dissecting their contrasting strategies, and providing interesting insights into their divergent organizational processes and management practices. This is a very valuable contribution to the international business literature. It will end up in as many corporate boardrooms as faculty seminars." —Christopher A. Bartlett, Thomas D. Casserly Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School "Sea-Jin Chang has written a fascinating comparison of Sony and Samsung that will be valuable to anyone interested in strategy, organizations or international business. The interwoven and very detailed case studies of two very different companies in overlapping industries illuminate problems such as adaptation to technological change (analog to digital), organizational flexibility and globalization. His attempt to analyze both strategic development and implementation is successful and very useful. Both academics and practitioners will learn a lot from this book." —Stephen J. Kobrin, William Wurster Professor of Multinational Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania "Refreshingly original and entertaining, this book analyzes major strategic decisions of Samsung and Sony and highlights organizational processes and top management leadership that have shaped their performances. This is a must-read for all executives who want to understand the strengths and weaknesses of Asian competitors. It also provides penetrating insights to other Asian companies with global ambitions." —Myoung Woo Lee, President and CEO, iriver

Change processes in organizations are time consuming, expensive, and often don’t create the intended results. This book creates a new way for leaders to relate to change from a place of deeper understanding. Based on years of research, consulting, and teaching, the models and frameworks described in this book have been applied successfully in organizations such as Johnson & Johnson, AT&T, IBM, Facebook, Charles Schwab & Company, and Accenture. The book provides breakthrough thinking to leaders who find themselves in the chaos of multiple, high amplitude changes that cannot be managed from an autocratic or even a participative mindset. The successful transformation of a human system does not require that people change who they are so much as it requires they become more of who they are—more like themselves. Change does not require new step-by-step models offered by an outside expert. It requires teaching people how to become model builders. As a result of this deeper transformation of mindset, not only will people in the organization be able to manage the particular change crisis facing them in the moment, they will develop a new relationship to change so that strategic thinking and breakthrough business outcomes become part of the organizational norm. This book will primarily appeal to experienced leaders, senior managers, and change agents who have learned that the textbook recipes for initiating or responding to change don’t work. It is also useful supplementary reading for students of organizational studies and leadership.

In the 1980s the performance of Japan’s economy was an international success story, and led many economists to suggest that the 1990s would be a Japanese decade. Today, however, the dominant view is that Japan is inescapably on a downward slope. Rather than focusing on the evolution of the performance of Japanese capitalism, this book reflects on the changes that it has experienced over the past 30 years, and presents a comprehensive analysis of the great transformation of Japanese capitalism from the heights of the 1980s, through the lost decades of the 1990s, and well into the 21st century. This book posits an alternative analysis of the Japanese economic trajectory since the early 1980s, and argues that whereas policies inspired by neo-liberalism have been presented as a solution to the Japanese crisis, these policies have in fact been one of the causes of the problems that Japan has faced over the past 30 years. Crucially, this book seeks to understand the institutional and organisational changes that have characterised Japanese capitalism since the 1980s, and to highlight in comparative perspective, with reference to the ‘neo-liberal moment’, the nature of the transformation of Japanese capitalism. Indeed, the arguments presented in this book go well beyond Japan itself, and examine the diversity of capitalism, notably in continental Europe, which has experienced problems that in many ways are also comparable to those of Japan. The Great Transformation of Japanese Capitalism will appeal to students and scholars of both Japanese politics and economics, as well as those interested in comparative political economy.

Organizations, like people, get stuck! They get ensnared in routines and processes, and they fall back into old habits. This is the dangerous period of inertia, the period that precedes failure, when organizations show signs of sluggishness. In Transforming the Clunky Organization Samuel B. Bacharach specifies why organizations fall into patterns of inertia and details the critical pragmatic leadership skills leaders need to regain organizational momentum. From Alfred Sloan, to Lee Iacocca, to Lou Gerstner, to Indra Nooyi, to Steve Jobs, to Jeff Bezos, Bacharach argues that their pragmatic leadership skills assured that their organization did not get trapped by the doldrums of inertia. He employs case illustrations to identify clunky tendencies and inertia within organizations across a wide range of business sectors including technology, finance, banking, home entertainment, and retail. Illustrations are drawn from organizations such as Amazon, Apple, Borders, Merrill Lynch, Nintendo, Starbucks, and Unilever, among many others. Bacharach argues that in order to achieve their potential, organizations need to be perpetually involved in two activities. The first is discovery—organizational leaders need to continuously explore new opportunities and transfer new insights into new products, processes, and directions. The second is delivery—organizational leaders need to be able to mobilize support for ideas, sustain and drive these ideas forward, and achieve results. Successful discovery and delivery allows organizations to truly thrive and continuously meet their potential. Expanding on The Agenda Mover, the first book in the BLG Pragmatic Leadership Series, this book offers a roadmap for individual leaders at all levels to create the agility and synergy needed for the continuous organized flow of information and the movement of ideas. Clunky organizations need leaders that are explorers and innovators in the discovery phase and mobilizers and sustainers to deliver solutions. Transforming the Clunky Organization provides the keys for necessary behaviors that allow leaders to successfully break inertia and foster agility. This book will appeal to leaders at all levels within organizations, change-management consultants, and business-school professors.