Business Strategy

Business Strategy
Author: The Economist
Publisher: The Economist
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2015-05-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1610394771

The effectiveness of a good strategy well implemented determines a business' future success or failure. Yet history is full of strategic decisions, big and small, that were ill-conceived, poorly organized and consequently disastrous. This updated guide looks at the whole process of strategic decision-making, from vision, forecasting, and resource allocation, through to implementation and innovation. Strategy is about understanding where you are now, where you are heading and how you will get there. There is no room for timidity or confusion. Although the CEO and the board decide a company's overall direction, it is the managers at all levels of the organization who will determine how the vision can be transformed into action. In short, everyone is involved in strategy. But getting it right involves difficult choices: which customers to target, what products to offer, and the best way to keep costs low and service high. And constantly changing business conditions inevitably bring risks. Even after business strategy has been developed, a company must remain nimble and alert to change, and view strategy as an ongoing and evolving process. The message of this guide is simple: strategy matters, and getting it right is fundamental to business success.

Structured Decision Making

Structured Decision Making
Author: Robin Gregory
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2012-03-19
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1444333410

This book outlines the creative process of making environmental management decisions using the approach called Structured Decision Making. It is a short introductory guide to this popular form of decision making and is aimed at environmental managers and scientists. This is a distinctly pragmatic label given to ways for helping individuals and groups think through tough multidimensional choices characterized by uncertain science, diverse stakeholders, and difficult tradeoffs. This is the everyday reality of environmental management, yet many important decisions currently are made on an ad hoc basis that lacks a solid value-based foundation, ignores key information, and results in selection of an inferior alternative. Making progress – in a way that is rigorous, inclusive, defensible and transparent – requires combining analytical methods drawn from the decision sciences and applied ecology with deliberative insights from cognitive psychology, facilitation and negotiation. The authors review key methods and discuss case-study examples based in their experiences in communities, boardrooms, and stakeholder meetings. The goal of this book is to lay out a compelling guide that will change how you think about making environmental decisions. Visit www.wiley.com/go/gregory/ to access the figures and tables from the book.

Risk Assessment and Decision Making in Business and Industry

Risk Assessment and Decision Making in Business and Industry
Author: Glenn Koller
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2005-03-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1420035053

Building upon the technical and organizational groundwork presented in the first edition, Risk Assessment and Decision Making in Business and Industry: A Practical Guide, Second Edition addresses the many aspects of risk/uncertainty (R/U) process implementation. This comprehensive volume covers four broad aspects of R/U: general concepts, i

Software Change and Configuration Management A Complete Guide - 2019 Edition

Software Change and Configuration Management A Complete Guide - 2019 Edition
Author: Blokdyk, Gerardus
Publisher: Emereo
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2019-05-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0655593772

When doing a DR drill, have you found the run book to be out of sync with the current configuration? How many man-hours can be recovered through effective configuration management? Do you need a new release, version or patch level of the software? Is the service usage appropriate to capacity? Defining, designing, creating, and implementing a process to solve a challenge or meet an objective is the most valuable role… In EVERY group, company, organization and department. Unless you are talking a one-time, single-use project, there should be a process. Whether that process is managed and implemented by humans, AI, or a combination of the two, it needs to be designed by someone with a complex enough perspective to ask the right questions. Someone capable of asking the right questions and step back and say, 'What are we really trying to accomplish here? And is there a different way to look at it?' This Self-Assessment empowers people to do just that - whether their title is entrepreneur, manager, consultant, (Vice-)President, CxO etc... - they are the people who rule the future. They are the person who asks the right questions to make Software Change and Configuration Management investments work better. This Software Change and Configuration Management All-Inclusive Self-Assessment enables You to be that person. All the tools you need to an in-depth Software Change and Configuration Management Self-Assessment. Featuring 965 new and updated case-based questions, organized into seven core areas of process design, this Self-Assessment will help you identify areas in which Software Change and Configuration Management improvements can be made. In using the questions you will be better able to: - diagnose Software Change and Configuration Management projects, initiatives, organizations, businesses and processes using accepted diagnostic standards and practices - implement evidence-based best practice strategies aligned with overall goals - integrate recent advances in Software Change and Configuration Management and process design strategies into practice according to best practice guidelines Using a Self-Assessment tool known as the Software Change and Configuration Management Scorecard, you will develop a clear picture of which Software Change and Configuration Management areas need attention. Your purchase includes access details to the Software Change and Configuration Management self-assessment dashboard download which gives you your dynamically prioritized projects-ready tool and shows your organization exactly what to do next. You will receive the following contents with New and Updated specific criteria: - The latest quick edition of the book in PDF - The latest complete edition of the book in PDF, which criteria correspond to the criteria in... - The Self-Assessment Excel Dashboard - Example pre-filled Self-Assessment Excel Dashboard to get familiar with results generation - In-depth and specific Software Change and Configuration Management Checklists - Project management checklists and templates to assist with implementation INCLUDES LIFETIME SELF ASSESSMENT UPDATES Every self assessment comes with Lifetime Updates and Lifetime Free Updated Books. Lifetime Updates is an industry-first feature which allows you to receive verified self assessment updates, ensuring you always have the most accurate information at your fingertips.

Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making

Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making
Author: Sam Kaner
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2011-03-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 111804701X

"The best book on collaboration ever written!" —Diane Flannery, founding CEO, Juma Ventures And now this classic book is even better—much better. Completely revised and updated, the second edition is loaded with new tools and techniques. Two powerful new chapters on agenda design A full section devoted to reaching closure More than twice as many tools for handling difficult dynamics 70 brand-new pages and over 100 pages significantly improved

Amazing Decisions

Amazing Decisions
Author: Dan Ariely
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2019-07-23
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1466899549

Dan Ariely, the New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational, and illustrator Matt R. Trower present a playful graphic novel guide to better decision-making, based on the author’s groundbreaking research in behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychology. The internationally renowned author Dan Ariely is known for his incisive investigations into the messy business of decision-making. Now, in Amazing Decisions, his unique perspective—informed by behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychology—comes alive in the graphic form. The illustrator Matt R. Trower’s playful and expressive artwork captures the lessons of Ariely’s groundbreaking research as they explore the essential question: How can we make better decisions? Amazing Decisions follows the narrator, Adam, as he faces the daily barrage of choices and deliberations. He juggles two overlapping—and often contradictory—sets of norms: social norms and market norms. These norms inform our thinking in ways we often don’t notice, just as Adam is shadowed by the “market fairy” and the “social fairy,” each compelling him to act in certain ways. Good decision-making, Ariely argues, requires us to identify and evaluate the forces at play under different circumstances, leading to an optimal outcome. Amazing Decisions is a fascinating and entertaining guide to developing skills that will prove invaluable in personal and professional life.

Decision Management Systems

Decision Management Systems
Author: James Taylor
Publisher: Pearson Education
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2011-10-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0132884445

"A very rich book sprinkled with real-life examples as well as battle-tested advice.” —Pierre Haren, VP ILOG, IBM "James does a thorough job of explaining Decision Management Systems as enablers of a formidable business transformation.” —Deepak Advani, Vice President, Business Analytics Products and SPSS, IBM Build Systems That Work Actively to Help You Maximize Growth and Profits Most companies rely on operational systems that are largely passive. But what if you could make your systems active participants in optimizing your business? What if your systems could act intelligently on their own? Learn, not just report? Empower users to take action instead of simply escalating their problems? Evolve without massive IT investments? Decision Management Systems can do all that and more. In this book, the field’s leading expert demonstrates how to use them to drive unprecedented levels of business value. James Taylor shows how to integrate operational and analytic technologies to create systems that are more agile, more analytic, and more adaptive. Through actual case studies, you’ll learn how to combine technologies such as predictive analytics, optimization, and business rules—improving customer service, reducing fraud, managing risk, increasing agility, and driving growth. Both a practical how-to guide and a framework for planning, Decision Management Systems focuses on mainstream business challenges. Coverage includes Understanding how Decision Management Systems can transform your business Planning your systems “with the decision in mind” Identifying, modeling, and prioritizing the decisions you need to optimize Designing and implementing robust decision services Monitoring your ongoing decision-making and learning how to improve it Proven enablers of effective Decision Management Systems: people, process, and technology Identifying and overcoming obstacles that can derail your Decision Management Systems initiative

Guide for Making Acute Risk Decisions

Guide for Making Acute Risk Decisions
Author: CCPS (Center for Chemical Process Safety)
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1119669057

This book presents a guidance on a large range of decision aids for risk analysts and decision makers in industry so that vital decisions can be made in a more consistent, logical, and rigorous manner. It provide good industry practices on how risk decision making is conducted in the chemical industry from many risk information sources as well as all the elements that need to be addressed to ensure good decisions are being made. Topics Include: Identifying Risk Decisions, A Risk Decision Strategy for Process Safety, Case Studies in Risk Decision Making Failures, Guidance on Selecting Decision Aids, Templates for Decision Making in Risk-Based Process Safety, Understanding Process Hazards & Worst Possible Consequences, Management of Change as an Exercise in Risk Identification, Inherently Safer Design as an Exercise in Risk Tradeoff Analysis, Using LOPA and Risk Matrices in Risk Decisions, Using CPQRA and Safety Risk Criteria in Risk Decisions, Group Decision Making, Avoiding Decision Traps, Documentation of Process Safety Risk Decisions

Evidence-based Decision Making

Evidence-based Decision Making
Author: Jane L. Forrest
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009
Genre: Decision making
ISBN: 9780781765336

This concise, hands-on text provides dental hygiene and dentistry students and practitioners with a method for making evidence-based decisions in practice. The book presents a step-by-step approach to mastering the five essential skills of evidence-based decision making%formulating patient-centered questions, searching for the appropriate evidence, critically appraising the evidence, applying the evidence to practice, and evaluating the process. Five Case Scenarios are used throughout the book in coordination with these skills and cover the broad areas of therapy/prevention, diagnosis, etiology/harm/causation, and prognosis. Each chapter has objectives, suggested activities, a quiz, critical thinking questions, and exercises. A companion Website includes online tutorials, additional cases, and links to additional resources. http://thepoint.lww.com/product/isbn/9780781765336

Cost Accounting

Cost Accounting
Author: Steven M Bragg
Publisher: Accountingtools, Incorporated
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2019-02-21
Genre:
ISBN: 9781642210248

Cost accounting is one of the most essential tools used by managers to fine-tune operations and improve profitability. Cost Accounting is designed for the college student who needs in-depth coverage of all cost accounting concepts, incorporating practical advice regarding their real-world usage. The text goes well beyond the traditional cost accounting topics of inventory valuation and cost analysis to also cover inventory management, price setting, target costing, constraint analysis, and budgeting. The material is designed to give the student exposure to how these topics are dealt with in a business environment.