How organizations can anticipate threats, spot opportunities, and act faster when the time is right; with rich examples including Adobe, MasterCard, and Amazon. When turbulence is the new normal, an organization's survival depends on vigilant leadership that can anticipate threats, spot opportunities, and act quickly when the time is right. In See Sooner, Act Faster, strategy experts George Day and Paul Schoemaker offer tools for thriving when digital advances intensify turbulence. Vigilant firms have greater foresight than their rivals, while vulnerable firms often miss early signals of external threats and organizational challenges. Charles Schwab, for example, was early to see and act on the promise of “robo-advisors”; Honeywell, on the other hand, stumbled when Nest Labs came out first with a “smart” thermostat. Day and Schoemaker show leaders how to assess their vigilance capabilities and cultivate insight and foresight throughout their organizations. They draw on a range of cases, including Adobe and Intuit's move to the cloud, Shell's investment in clean energy, and MasterCard's early recognition of digital challenges. Day and Schoemaker describe how to allocate the scarce resource of attention, how to detect weak signals and separate them from background noise, and how to respond strategically before competitors do. The challenge is not just to act faster but to act wisely, and the authors suggest ways to create dynamic portfolios of options. Finally, they offer an action agenda, with tips for fostering vigilance and agility throughout an organization. The rewards are stronger market positions, higher profits and growth, more motivated employees, and organization longevity.

How organizations can anticipate threats, spot opportunities, and act faster when the time is right; with rich examples including Adobe, MasterCard, and Amazon. When turbulence is the new normal, an organization's survival depends on vigilant leadership that can anticipate threats, spot opportunities, and act quickly when the time is right. In See Sooner, Act Faster, strategy experts George Day and Paul Schoemaker offer tools for thriving when digital advances intensify turbulence. Vigilant firms have greater foresight than their rivals, while vulnerable firms often miss early signals of external threats and organizational challenges. Charles Schwab, for example, was early to see and act on the promise of “robo-advisors”; Honeywell, on the other hand, stumbled when Nest Labs came out first with a “smart” thermostat. Day and Schoemaker show leaders how to assess their vigilance capabilities and cultivate insight and foresight throughout their organizations. They draw on a range of cases, including Adobe and Intuit's move to the cloud, Shell's investment in clean energy, and MasterCard's early recognition of digital challenges. Day and Schoemaker describe how to allocate the scarce resource of attention, how to detect weak signals and separate them from background noise, and how to respond strategically before competitors do. The challenge is not just to act faster but to act wisely, and the authors suggest ways to create dynamic portfolios of options. Finally, they offer an action agenda, with tips for fostering vigilance and agility throughout an organization. The rewards are stronger market positions, higher profits and growth, more motivated employees, and organization longevity.

Praise for Be Smart, Act Fast, Get Rich "Charles Payne's book is blunt, provocative, and right on the money. This book is a lot like Charles himself: insightful and to the point. If you have time to read only one book on how to make money . . . this is the book." --Dr. Bob Froehlich, Chairman, Investor Strategy Committee Deutsche Asset Management, and Vice Chairman, DWS Scudder "Be Smart, Act Fast, Get Rich is a book for all investors from first-time stock buyers to seasoned investors. 'Be Smart' suggests you understand the fundamentals of the company you are purchasing. 'Act Fast' suggests that action must be taken if you are going to increase your wealth in the stock market. All too often we find interesting ideas to invest in but never have the confidence to act, only to watch the stock's price rise while others reap the benefits. This book is an easy read, and a must-read for all investors." --Tom Dorsey, President, Dorsey Wright & Associates and author, Point & Figure Charting "You should buy this book just for the super job Charles does in explaining everything you need to know about charts, graphs, and the other 'voodoo' of technical analysis that he makes so simple to understand. Charles really gives you a street fighter's education in the markets . . . I wish his book was around twenty-five years ago . . . it would have saved me millions in market mistakes I've made." --Tobin Smith, founder and Chairman, ChangeWave Research

Practical advice from some of today's top early stage investors and entrepreneurs TechStars is a mentorship-driven startup accelerator with operations in three U.S. cities. Once a year in each city, it funds about ten Internet startups with a small amount of capital and surrounds them with around fifty top Internet entrepreneurs and investors. Historically, about seventy-five percent of the companies that go through TechStars raise a meaningful amount of angel or venture capital. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup is a collection of advice that comes from individuals who have passed through, or are part of, this proven program. Each vignette is an exploration of information often heard during the TechStars program and provides practical insights into early stage entrepreneurship. Contains seven sections, each focusing on a major theme within the TechStars program, including idea and vision, fundraising, legal and structure, and work/life balance Created by two highly regarded experts in the world of early stage investing Essays in each section come from the experienced author team as well as TechStar mentors, entrepreneurs, and founders of companies While you'll ultimately have to make your own decisions about what's right for your business, Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup can get your entrepreneurial endeavor headed in the right direction.

A straight-shooting Silicon Valley executive reveals insider career strategies to becoming a great leader, developing your network, succeeding without wasting time, and managing trade-offs between your work and life so your life works. Patty Azzarello became the youngest general manager at Hewlett-Packard at age thirty-three, ran a $1 billion software business at thirty-five, and became a CEO at thirty-eight-all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk. In Rise, Azzarello shares the insider secrets to advancing your career (while having a life) in three practical steps: Do Better: Set ruthless priorities, and work and lead more strategically to deal with frustrating obstacles. Look Better: Build your credibility with the people who can help (or blacklist) you. Connect Better: Develop your network without being political. Get on "the List" of people who get the best opportunities. Whether you are just starting up the corporate ladder, stuck midcareer, transitioning, or eyeing the corner office, Rise shows you the difference between getting ahead and just working hard.

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.

Praise for Fast Close: A Guide to Closing the Books Quickly "Steve captures the essence of the problems affecting the financial close process within corporations of all sizes; from the period close of subledgers and general ledger through financial reporting, and the relationship and interdependencies of governance, people and technology. A must-read for the corporate controller." —David Taylor, ACMA, MBA, VP Strategy, Trintech Inc. "Fast Close: A Guide to Closing the Books Quickly, Second Edition is a must-read for today's busy controllers. Steven Bragg points out everything that can be done outside the close that you just never realized didn't actually have to be part of the month-end close process! Very commonsensical approach!" —Kathleen Schneibel, mba, cpa, Controller/CFO for Hire, KMAS Consulting LLC "A well-executed 'fast close' can bring many valuable benefits to any company, from improving organizational performance to transforming accounting executives from financial historians to trusted advisors. In Fast Close, Second Edition, Steve systematically breaks down the steps required to achieve a fast close in both public and private companies, providing financial executives with tips, checklists, and a cost-effective road map to implement fast close procedures in virtually any company." —Matthew Posta, Esq., CPA, Vice President of Finance, Key Air, LLC FROM THE FIRST EDITION "This is an outstanding book in which Steve reveals his secrets to a fast close. Having personally experienced his (one-day) fast close for years and enjoyed the beneficial impact on my company, I highly recommend this book for all financial officers who desire to have a large, favorable impact on their company." —Richard V. Souders, President and CEO, Kaba Workforce Solutions

Make customer value a C-Suite priority for lasting profits and growth While the Great Recession ravaged the balance sheets of long-standing leaders in their respective industries, many companies have actually gained market share, grown revenuesand profits, and created more value for customers. These are not flash-in-the-pan companies—world-beatersone year and stragglers the next. They are companies like Johnson& Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Fidelity, Cisco, Philips, Walmart, and Amazon. The success of these organizations isn’t the result of a brilliant strategy for bad times; it’sthe outcome of a highly effective long-term strategy that manages thecompany from the outside in. In Strategy from the Outside In, George S. Day and Christine Moormanexplain that the key to such lasting and highly profitable successis the ability to compete on and profit from customer value. It meansoperating from the outside in. It means always building strategy onmarket insight, and ensuring that every part of the company puts customervalue first. Applying years of research, Day andMoorman illustrate that an outside-in view requires constant vigilance and focus on four customer value imperatives: Be a customer value leader Innovate new value for customers Capitalize on the customer as an asset Capitalize on the brand as an asset Day and Moorman take you from theory to practice, with an emphasison real world stories, practical models, and useable metrics sothat you can profit from customer value. From the outside in.

Why an organization's response to digital disruption should focus on people and processes and not necessarily on technology. Digital technologies are disrupting organizations of every size and shape, leaving managers scrambling to find a technology fix that will help their organizations compete. This book offers managers and business leaders a guide for surviving digital disruptions—but it is not a book about technology. It is about the organizational changes required to harness the power of technology. The authors argue that digital disruption is primarily about people and that effective digital transformation involves changes to organizational dynamics and how work gets done. A focus only on selecting and implementing the right digital technologies is not likely to lead to success. The best way to respond to digital disruption is by changing the company culture to be more agile, risk tolerant, and experimental. The authors draw on four years of research, conducted in partnership with MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte, surveying more than 16,000 people and conducting interviews with managers at such companies as Walmart, Google, and Salesforce. They introduce the concept of digital maturity—the ability to take advantage of opportunities offered by the new technology—and address the specifics of digital transformation, including cultivating a digital environment, enabling intentional collaboration, and fostering an experimental mindset. Every organization needs to understand its “digital DNA” in order to stop “doing digital” and start “being digital.” Digital disruption won't end anytime soon; the average worker will probably experience numerous waves of disruption during the course of a career. The insights offered by The Technology Fallacy will hold true through them all. A book in the Management on the Cutting Edge series, published in cooperation with MIT Sloan Management Review.

How legacy firms can combine their traditional strengths with the power of data and digital ecosystems to forge a new competitive strategy for the digital era. How can legacy firms remain relevant in the digital era? In The Future of Competitive Strategy, strategic management expert Mohan Subramaniam explains how firms can leverage both their traditional strengths and the modern-day power of data and digital ecosystems to forge a new competitive strategy. Drawing on the experiences of a range of companies, including Caterpillar, Sleep Number, and Whirlpool, he explains how firms can benefit from data’s enlarged role in modern business, develop digital ecosystems tailored to their unique business needs, and use new frameworks to harness the power of data for competitive advantage. Subramaniam presents digital ecosystems as a combination of production and consumption ecosystems, which can be used by legacy firms to unlock the value of data at various levels—from improving operational efficiencies to creating new data-driven services and transforming traditional products into digital platforms. He explores the ways sensors and the Internet of Things provide new kinds of customer data; presents the concept of digital competitors—other firms that have access to similar data; discusses the new digital capabilities that firms need to develop; and addresses privacy and security issues associated with data sharing. Who needs this book? Any firm that wants to revitalize traditional business models, offer a richer customer experience, and expand its competitive arena into new digital ecosystems.