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开卷有益:供假期及以后阅读的书籍

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随着年末的临近,我们开始思考2012年的新开端,我们的最新图书报告为这样的深入思考提供了某些机会。在一次访谈中,吉姆·柯林斯(Jim Collins)和莫滕·汉森(Morten T. Hansen)和我们讨论了《选择卓越》(Great by Choice)一书,本书是根据的九年研究成果写成的,该研究探讨的是为什么某些公司在混乱的局面中繁荣兴旺,而有些则不然。马尔科姆·格拉德威尔(Malcolm Gladwell)探讨了“超凡智慧”(extraordinary wisdom)的议题,这样的智慧对他在系列畅销书中的思想产生了影响,此外,他还谈到了为什么学术研究人员应该更广泛地阅读的问题。

沃顿商学院的彼得·费德(Peter Fader)和理查德·兰伯特(Richard A. Lambert)两位教授讨论了他们的新书,这些由沃顿数字出版社(Wharton Digital Press)出版的书籍是“沃顿高层经理培训项目必读系列”(Wharton Executive Education Essentials Series)的一部分。费德敦促企业辨识最具价值的客户,以便确保长期增长和长期收益率,兰伯特则阐述了为什么说经理人采用有关人员给他们提供的财务数据做出更明智的商业决策是至关重要的问题。在对罗伯·马基(Rob Markey)——与弗雷德·瑞奇赫德(Fred Reichheld)合著《终极问题2.0》(The Ultimate Question 2.0)——进行的访谈中,作为采访者,费德将访谈的话题更多地转向了公司如何测评并提高客户的忠诚度等议题。

最后,来自埃里克·里斯(Eric Ries)的《精益创业》(Lean Startup)一书的摘录,则能让你思考将精益生产(lean manufacturing)理念应用于新企业的好处。我们希望,这个特别板块能为你从事的工作带来启发。



领导力与变革


“选择卓越”:吉姆·柯林斯和莫滕·汉森谈在不确定时期胜出一筹('Great by Choice': Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen on Excelling in Uncertain Times )

在一本新书中,吉姆·柯林斯和莫滕·汉森认为,即使在最混乱的商业环境中,我们依然可以通过选择而卓尔不群。在九年的时间里,畅销书作家柯林斯和汉森研究了胜出一筹的企业,并把它们和败北的企业进行了比较。正如他们有一次在接受沃顿知识在线和沃顿商学院管理学教授迈克·尤西姆(Michael Useem)的访谈中谈到的,他们了解到,最成功的企业领导者并不是简单的成功:在15年中,他们为企业带来的回报最低也是行业平均水平的10倍。在《选择卓越》一书中,柯林斯和汉森阐述了这些“10倍领先者”(10Xers)能给其他企业的领导者带来什么样的教益问题。

参见:http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.e ... Feature&id=2880



市场营销

(视频文稿)

彼得·费德谈为什么以客户为中心很重要(Peter Fader on Customer Centricity and Why It Matters )

星巴克咖啡(Starbucks)和苹果公司(Apple)的股票一直在屡创新高,但是,企业是否已经竭尽全力确保其长期增长了呢?沃顿商学院市场营销学教授、“沃顿消费者分析计划”(The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative)的联席主任彼得·费德认为,有太多的公司都是客户友好型企业,但并没有以客户为中心。换句话说,他们对每一位客户都一视同仁,从而,错失了发现对其最具价值的客户的机会。在“沃顿高层经理培训项目必读系列”之一、名为《以客户为中心》(Customer Centricity)的新书中,费德阐述了什么是以客户为中心,什么不是以客户为中心,并论述了为什么以客户为中心很重要等议题。

参见:http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.e ... Feature&id=2875



人力资源管理

(播客文稿)

与局外人马尔科姆·格拉德威尔的对话(A Conversation with Outlier Malcolm Gladwell )

虽然读过马尔科姆·格拉德威尔作品的人有数百万,不过他的思想在当今的商业领导人中间尤能产生共鸣。沃顿商学院管理学教授彼得·卡普利(Peter Cappelli)和格拉德威尔刚刚被《人力资源杂志》(HR Magazine)评为“2011年20位最具影响力的国际思想家”(Top 20 Most Influential International Thinkers of 2011)。就为什么格拉德威尔是位“学术界热捧的人物”,为什么让人不愿面对的真相会从学术研究领域扩散开去,以及如果我们利用大学的“超凡智慧”,便可以以不同的方式做出重要决策——诸如参加战争以及应对目前的经济问题等决策——等问题,卡普利对格拉德威尔进行了电话访谈。

参见:http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.e ... Feature&id=2877



金融和投资

(视频文稿)

其他人的“财务和会计”问题:与理查德·兰伯特的对话('Finance & Accounting' for the Rest of Us: A Conversation with Richard A. Lambert )

很多经理人不喜欢审阅财务和会计人员给他们提供的财务数据。然而,沃顿商学院会计学教授理查德·兰伯特认为,经理人是承受不起忽视财务报表揭示的信息的后果的,因为这些报表表明了一家公司的机会和风险所在。在作为“沃顿高层经理培训项目必读系列”之一的一本新书中,兰伯特揭去了财务报表的神秘面纱,并为经理人说明了如何使用这些数据制定和优化战略以及做出更佳长期商业决策的过程。

参见:http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.e ... Feature&id=2876



市场营销

(视频文稿)

“终极问题”:你的客户会推荐你吗?('The Ultimate Question': Would Your Customers Recommend You?


罗伯·马基与弗雷德·瑞奇赫德合著的《终极问题2.0》,是那部最先帮助企业理解“净推荐值”(Net Promoter Score,简称NPS)(净推荐值是一种计量某个客户将会向其他人推荐某个企业或服务可能性的管理工具,最早由贝恩咨询公司客户忠诚度业务的创始人弗雷德·瑞奇赫德于2003提出。——译者注)的畅销书的续篇。“你会把我们推荐给朋友吗?”这个问题为企业的业务提供了一个至关重要的标准,这个标准已被包括通用电气(GE)在内的众多组织广泛采用。沃顿商学院市场营销学教授彼得·费德与马基讨论了什么是净推荐值、公司如何增加那些向他人推荐自己的人员的数量,以及为什么说净推荐值现在已经成了一个系统而不只是一个数值等问题。

参见:http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.e ... Feature&id=2878



创新与企业家精神

埃里克·里斯谈“精益创业”(Eric Ries on 'The Lean Startup' )

现实是,每一位创业企业家和未来的创业企业家的头脑中都盘桓着这样一个问题:大部分初创企业都以失败告终。埃里克·里斯感同身受,因为他也曾亲身经历过。当他与人共同创建软件公司IMVU时,他和团队曾尝试过一种不同的策略,那就是在产品得到完善之前迅速开发和推出产品,之后,在一定程度上根据客户的反馈,不断更新、完善产品,并再度推出。这种方式取得了成功。在名为《精益创业》的新书的摘录中,里斯阐述了采用精益生产、并将其开发成管理一家初创企业的新方法的原因。

参见:http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.e ... Feature&id=2879

发布日期 : 2011.12.07
Giving advice at the right time has to involve a great deal of intelligence.

'Finance & Accounting' for the Rest of Us

=======http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2876
'Finance & Accounting' for the Rest of Us: A Conversation with Richard A. Lambert


Published: November 18, 2011 in Knowledge@Wharton
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Many managers are not comfortable reviewing the financial data that finance and accounting staffs provide to them. Yet according to Wharton accounting professor Richard A. Lambert, financial statements -- like cash flow statements, balance sheets and income statements -- reveal information that managers cannot afford to ignore because of what they show about a company's opportunities and risks. In his new book in the Wharton Executive Education Essentials Series, Finance & Accounting, Lambert demystifies financial statements and shows managers how to use the data to make better business decisions for long-term profit. Stephen J. Kobrin, a Wharton management professor and executive director of Wharton Digital Press, talked with Lambert about how managers can use financial statements to create and refine strategy, stay on top of expenses, establish proper benchmarks for gauging performance and more.

An edited transcript of the interview follows:

Stephen J. Kobrin: Does every manager really need to understand financial data? Don't they have finance and accounting staffs to handle that?

Richard A. Lambert: They often do have finance and accounting staffs to handle some of it, but managers have a different job than they do. The job of the finance and accounting staff is to produce the information; the job of a manager is to use it. To use it well, you have to understand what is in the numbers, what is not in the numbers and what the terms mean.

Kobrin: What's the biggest mistake that managers make when they try to use finance and accounting data?

Lambert: There are two extremes. One is, I don't know what this is, so I'm not going to pay any attention to it. The other is the exact opposite: They fixate on the bottom line so much that anything that makes the bottom line higher must be good and anything that makes the bottom line lower must be bad. Both of those are mistakes.

Kobrin: In your book, you talk a lot about the ambiguity and subjectivity of financial data. But aren't numbers objective? How can numbers be subjective and ambiguous?

Lambert: Numbers are objective. What the number is supposed to represent, however, is subjective. Accounting and finance involves making predictions about the future. We have to put financial statements together while a lot of activities -- and their future consequences -- are still playing out. We may have made sales, but we haven't collected them all. We may have made investments that are going to last for a long time, so what are they going to be worth later? We may have estimates for what pension expenses are going to be. Almost every number in a financial statement is actually based on somebody's estimate of what things are going to be in the future.

That leads to ambiguity and subjectivity because nobody has a crystal ball to know what the future is going to be. It's your best guess. Because there is subjectivity, it opens up the door for manipulation, too.

Kobrin: In your book, you talk a lot about benchmarks. What do you mean by benchmarks? Can you give us some examples?

Lambert: A benchmark is something to compare a number to. If profits were $50, is that good? Well, is it good compared to what? One benchmark might be to compare to how much you invested to make the $50. Another benchmark might be to look at what you made last year so that you could look for improvement. A third benchmark might be, what are other divisions -- or our competitors -- doing? All of these help gauge if your performance is really good or not.

Kobrin: In your book, you caution managers against using numbers developed for external reports -- for example, stockholders statements -- to actually run the business. Aren't those solid numbers?

Lambert: There are really two reasons. One is the level of aggregation. The numbers that are reported to the stockholders are for the firm as a whole. To be a good manager, you need to know how the parts of the firm are working. It could be a good year for the firm, but that doesn't mean that every part of the firm did well. You want to know where you did well and where you didn't do well, so that you can go in and change your strategy. But the other reason is that the rules you are required to follow to put together the financial statements to send to shareholders often aren't really the best gauge of how your business is doing. A good example of this is that there are many things that are investments from an economic perspective, like research and development or investment in training or those kinds of things. Doing those things is good for the company, but they will actually make your profits lower in the year that you do them. So, you don't want to just focus solely on that number to make good, long-term decisions.

Kobrin: You also argue that managers need to get into the footnotes of financial statements, which seem dense and difficult. Why?

Lambert: The footnotes are dense and difficult, and that's actually why they are valuable. The footnotes tell you how the numbers were calculated. If you see the profits are $50, it is important to know how that $50 was calculated because it could be good or it might not be good. The accounting methods that were to be used to calculate that $50 number will be explained in the footnotes. It's a really good source of information to figure out what the numbers really mean.

Kobrin: Rick, why did you write the book?

Lambert: I wanted to reach a broader audience than we teach with our usual communication mechanisms, such as the MBA program and executive education classes. I wanted to write a book that was readable and relevant to managers, with a lot of real-world examples, so you could see how to apply the information that the accounting and the finance people provide you.

Kobrin: Rick, what can managers do to make sure they stay on top of costs? I think of the problems that the automobile companies had -- GM in particular -- with healthcare. Is there a way that managers can look forward, stay on top of costs and avoid surprises?

Lambert: There are a couple of ways. One is to make sure you know what the costs are. Having reports available that indicate what your costs are and what the breakdown of the costs are is important. Another thing is to recognize that not all costs are incurred in the form of cash right now. Healthcare and pension benefits are a good example of that. Many of them represent cash outlays that you are not going to pay into the future. If you are running your business on a cash basis, you might not count those expenses because you are not writing the checks today. Nevertheless, you have to be aware that you have incurred the obligation to pay this in the future and take that into consideration in making your operating decisions.
Giving advice at the right time has to involve a great deal of intelligence.

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