Speed To Market

"Lean manufacturing is the single most effective way to increase sales, cut costs, improve margins, and secure the future of a business. The problem is that the principles and philosophies of lean manufacturing are geared strictly to mass production operations--and can be ineffective, even detrimental, for smaller job shops and make-to-order businesses. Now, Speed to Market delivers a proven approach for smaller suppliers who want to successfully cut their lead time and trigger profitable growth. Completely updated and expanded, the book explains how to: * Apply the principles of pull, flow, and the elimination of waste to every area of the company, at every stage from ""quotes to cash"" * Implement a continuous improvement process--while sidestepping the typical implementation pitfalls * Ease scheduling problems * Improve performance and profitability using the book's practical concepts, process analysis tools, and perspective-enhancing techniques--and much more."

Stephen Tallman has put together an excellent tome by high-quality emerging scholars that provides cutting edge knowledge on the field of international strategy. The coverage is thorough, including more traditional topics such as the outcomes of internationalization (e.g., performance, innovation, risk reduction) and market entry modes of cross-border M&As and alliances, while also exploring unique and important topics such as investment in global cities and the development of new organizational forms. It is a must read for graduate students and scholars interested in international strategy. Michael A. Hitt, Texas A&M University, US This book comprises eighteen cutting edge chapters by emerging scholars in international strategy, offering a variety of fresh perspectives on critical issues that the field will face in the near future. These young scholars have unique and innovative thoughts about international strategy, which are well ahead of the mainstream of international business academics. Various topics are addressed, including the rise of outsourcing and the global spread of research and development activities; structural innovations by multinational firms, with particular attention to organizing for the efficient transfer of knowledge resources within networks of alliances; and new ways of considering the effects of location, focusing on the relative importance of regional clusters and countries and the impact of geographical and cultural distance on international strategies. Stephen Tallman has geared the book to an academic audience, specifically faculty and graduate students in international business, international management, and global strategy. Sophisticated international business practitioners will also find it an interesting read.

Managing Innovation is a three-part series covering contemporary technology and innovation management research areas. Each volume comprises key articles from both the International Journal of Innovation Management and the International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, published by World Scientific, and provides an international, disciplinary approach across its broad coverage of topics.Relevant for both academics and practitioners, this volume answers how organisations can develop innovative approaches from a perspective that encompasses technological advances, changes in the market and individual entrepreneurs.

A new, evolutionary explanation of markets and investor behavior Half of all Americans have money in the stock market, yet economists can’t agree on whether investors and markets are rational and efficient, as modern financial theory assumes, or irrational and inefficient, as behavioral economists believe. The debate is one of the biggest in economics, and the value or futility of investment management and financial regulation hangs on the answer. In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Lo transforms the debate with a powerful new framework in which rationality and irrationality coexist—the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis. Drawing on psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and other fields, Adaptive Markets shows that the theory of market efficiency is incomplete. When markets are unstable, investors react instinctively, creating inefficiencies for others to exploit. Lo’s new paradigm explains how financial evolution shapes behavior and markets at the speed of thought—a fact revealed by swings between stability and crisis, profit and loss, and innovation and regulation. An ambitious new answer to fundamental questions about economics and investing, Adaptive Markets is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how markets really work.

Drawing from decades of research, teaching, and consulting in the fields of marketing and strategy, the author demystifies the forces of market chaos, including technological change, globalization, and consumer behavior, showing readers how to identify those forces that can be turned to their competitive advantage. Featuring dozens of illustrative examples, of both winners and losers, and concluding each chapter with a series of questions designed to help readers apply the book's principles in their own organizations, Samli demonstrates how to detect changes in market conditions early, uncover latent customer needs, create new products and services, and maintain a competitive edge. There is no doubt that the business environment has become increasingly unpredictable. Yesterday's market leaders become tomorrow's has-beens; upstarts take on established giants; customers flock to new technologies while demanding old-fashioned customer service; and, of course, the Internet and the forces of globalization are accelerating the pace of change. Learning how to survive—and thrive—in this environment is of utmost importance for any company that intends to stick around. Drawing from decades of research, teaching, and consulting in the fields of marketing and strategy, the author demystifies these chaotic forces, identifying the pressures on business that create uncertainty, but also the potential for innovation for those who recognize opportunities to strengthen their competitive position. Featuring dozens of illustrative examples of both winners and losers, Samli shows readers how to turn market chaos and uncertainty to their advantage. Concluding each chapter with a series of questions designed to help readers apply the book's principles in their own organizations, Samli demonstrates how to detect changes in market conditions early, uncover latent customer needs, create new products and services, and maintain a competitive edge.

A remarkable look at how the growth, technology, and politics of high-frequency trading have altered global financial markets In today’s financial markets, trading floors on which brokers buy and sell shares face-to-face have increasingly been replaced by lightning-fast electronic systems that use algorithms to execute astounding volumes of transactions. Trading at the Speed of Light tells the story of this epic transformation. Donald MacKenzie shows how in the 1990s, in what were then the disreputable margins of the US financial system, a new approach to trading—automated high-frequency trading or HFT—began and then spread throughout the world. HFT has brought new efficiency to global trading, but has also created an unrelenting race for speed, leading to a systematic, subterranean battle among HFT algorithms. In HFT, time is measured in nanoseconds (billionths of a second), and in a nanosecond the fastest possible signal—light in a vacuum—can travel only thirty centimeters, or roughly a foot. That makes HFT exquisitely sensitive to the length and transmission capacity of the cables connecting computer servers to the exchanges’ systems and to the location of the microwave towers that carry signals between computer datacenters. Drawing from more than 300 interviews with high-frequency traders, the people who supply them with technological and communication capabilities, exchange staff, regulators, and many others, MacKenzie reveals the extraordinary efforts expended to speed up every aspect of trading. He looks at how in some markets big banks have fought off the challenge from HFT firms, and how exchanges sometimes engineer technical systems to favor certain types of algorithms over others. Focusing on the material, political, and economic characteristics of high-frequency trading, Trading at the Speed of Light offers a unique glimpse into its influence on global finance and where it could lead us in the future.

Apparel Merchandising: The Line Starts Here analyzes the evolution and development of the merchandising function in branded apparel companies and retail private label apparel. It describes today's challenges for both apparel manufacturers and retailers in meeting the consumer's demands for the right products at the right prices - and at the right times. Approached from the perspective of the apparel product manager, Rosenau and Wilson cover men's and women's sportswear and activewear and children's wear in both domestic and international markets. The text follows the evolution of the merchandising function with emphasis on product development and production efficiency, highlighting the philosophies of industry executives and the effective integration of the merchandising, marketing, and manufacturing functions along the way. The third edition emphasizes the increased importance of retailer's private brands, explores how companies apply technology to all facets of product development and supply chain management, and addresses the impact of social media on both retailers and apparel manufacturers.