Business Management ABCs

Review: Rework

Buy it now $22.00 $10.74

Most business books give you the same old advice: Write a business plan, study the competition, seek investors, yadda yadda. If you’re looking for a book like that, put this one back on the shelf.

Rework shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. Read it and you’ll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don’t need outside investors, and why you’re better off ignoring the competition. The truth is, you need less than you think. You don’t need to be a workaholic. You don’t need to staff up. You don’t need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don’t even need an office. Those are all just excuses. 

What you really need to do is stop talking and start working. This book shows you the way. You’ll learn how to be more productive, how to get exposure without breaking the bank, and tons more counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you.

With its straightforward language and easy-is-better approach, Rework is the perfect playbook for anyone who’s ever dreamed of doing it on their own. Hardcore entrepreneurs, small-business owners, people stuck in day jobs they hate, victims of “downsizing,” and artists who don’t want to starve anymore will all find valuable guidance in these pages.

Amazon Exclusive: Seth Godin Reviews Rework

Seth Godin is the author of Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip, Purple Cow, All Marketers Are Liars, and Permission Marketing, as well as other international bestsellers. He is consistently one of the 25 most widely read bloggers in the English language. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of Rework:

This book will make you uncomfortable.

Depending on what you do all day, it might make you extremely uncomfortable.

That’s a very good thing, because you deserve it. We all do.

Jason and David have broken all the rules and won. Again and again they’ve demonstrated that the regular way isn’t necessarily the right way. They just don’t say it, they do it. And they do it better than just about anyone has any right to expect.

This book is short, fast, sharp and ready to make a difference. It takes no prisoners, spares no quarter, and gives you no place to hide, all at the same time.

There, my review is almost as long as the first chapter of the book. I can’t imagine what possible excuse you can dream up for not buying this book for every single person you work with, right now.

Stop reading the review. Buy the book.–Seth Godin

No Comments »

Ranking Mutually Exclusive Projects

The net present value and internal rate of return methods yield the same accept or reject rule in case of independent conventional investments. However, in real business situations there are alternative ways of achieving an objective and, thus, accepting one alternative will mean excluding the other. Investment projects are said to be mutually exclusive when only one investment could be accepted and others would have to be excluded.

For example, in order to distribute its products a company may decide either to establish its own sales organization or engage outside distributors. The more profitable out of the two alternatives shall be selected. This type of exclusiveness may be referred to as technical exclusiveness. On the other hand, two independent projects may also be mutually exclusive if a financial constraint is imposed. If limited funds are available to accept either project X or project Y, this would be an example of financial exclusiveness or capital rationing. The net present value and internal rate of return methods can give conflicting ranking to mutually exclusive projects. In the case of independent projects ranking is not important since all profitable projects will be accepted. Ranking of projects, however, becomes crucial in the case of mutually exclusive projects. Since the net present value and internal rate of return rules can give conflicting ranking to projects, one cannot remain indifferent as to the choice of the rule.

Both of these rules will give conflicting ranking to the projects under the following conditions:

•The cash flow pattern of the projects may differ. That is, the cash flows of one project may increase over time, while those of others may decrease of vice verso.

•The cash outlays of the projects may differ.

•The projects may have different expected lives.

•Reinvestment Assumption and Modified internal rate of return

•The net present value and internal rate of return rules are sometimes assumed to rest on an underlying implicit assumption about reinvestment of the cash flows generated during the lifetime of the project. It is contented that the source of conflict between the two techniques lies in their different reinvestment rates.

•The internal rate of return method is assumed to imply that the cash flows generated by the project can be reinvestment at its internal rate of return, whereas the net present value method is thought to assume that the cash flows are reinvested at the opportunity cost of capital. Advocates of the reinvestment assumption calculate terminal values of project to prove their point.

•Net present value versus Profitability Index

The net present value and profitability yield same accept or reject rules, because profitability index can be grater than one only when the projects net present value is positive. In case of marginal projects, net present value will be zero and profitability index will be equal to one. But a conflict may arise between the methods if a choice between mutually exclusive projects has to be made.

http://professional-edu.blogspot.com/2010/02/140-ranking-of-mutually-exclusive.html

No Comments »

Review: The 48 Laws of Power

Buy it now $20.00

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills three thousand years of the history of power in to forty-eight well explicated laws. As attention–grabbing in its design as it is in its content, this bold volume outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun-tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and other great thinkers. Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), the virtue of stealth (“Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions”), and many demand the total absence of mercy (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”), but like it or not, all have applications in real life. Illustrated through the tactics of Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Kissinger, P. T. Barnum, and other famous figures who have wielded–or been victimized by–power, these laws will fascinate any reader interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control.

No Comments »