economics-supply-and-demand

As the subtitle correctly indicates, Chakravorti explains how to bring innovations to market in a connected world. His contributions in this book to our understanding of both the difficulties and opportunities to do so are substantial. Acknowledging his academic roots, he acknowledges that he "developed an appreciation for a first- principles approach to strategy and decisions...how first principles translate into the framing of trade-offs and lead to timely action." Over time, he learned that true insight "comes from connecting the dots across multiple landscapes [and that] such dots lurk in the unlikeliest corners." He allows his reader to recognize those "corners" and to accompany him as he carefully but rigorously explores the connected world.

I especially appreciate his dry but delightful wit, perhaps most evident in the final chapter whose head note is a quotation from Thelonious Monk: "You know what's the loudest noise in the world, man? The loudest noise in the world is silence." Without apparent effort, he invites his reader to consider the significance of the Galton-Gould evolutionary pool table, a metaphor which suggests that a market is the polyhedron-shaped ball." perhaps recalling John Nash's insight, he suggests that when innovation arrives on the scene (i.e. in a market), it creates disequilibrium. "It is in this situation of rest [i.e. when the "ball" has stopped] which may be viewed as gridlock by some and as a stable market by others -- that innovations in a connect must pry apart."

Given the process of inquiry and exploration which has been completed in the prior chapters, I was intrigued by how Chakravorti achieves at least a temporary synthesis of so many different (sometimes contradictory) factors which interact throughout the innovation cycle: "the eureka moment; the development of technology to give life to an idea; and the creation of an organization to produce and commercialize the innovation." As we all know, few innovative ideas ever reach their intended market and fewer yet survive thereafter. There is indeed a natural selection process during any campaign to bring an innovation into the connected world. Chakravorti suggests four aspects of that campaign:

1. "Qualifying the endgame and, in the process, choosing between several strategic options at the outset;

2. "Orchestrating the changes necessary across the network of players through a mechanism that propagates the innovator's selective interventions into the wider network;

3. "Actively managing with the critical agents that will pass on the innovation's influence; and

4. "Making appropriate choices on how to commit to strategies that lead to certain endgames in the face of uncertainty -- depending on the situation, one must choose between making a bet, reserving options, and seeking insurance."

Paraphrasing an ancient aphorism, Chakravorti suggests that market imperfection is the mother of innovation because it creates the need to innovate both in terms of a given product or service and in terms of the campaign by which to guide it to market. and then through natural selection to at least temporary security....that is, until another innovation (which accommodates the aforementioned four aspects) eliminates the need for it.

I agree completely with Chakravorti that the "slow pace of change is good news for the strategic innovator. In fact, it is essential news." Obviously, when any organization plans to take a new product or service to market, it faces formidable competition and all manner of challenges, only some of which are posed by competitors. (How many innovative products or services have never survived internal barriers which may include what Jim O'Toole has characterized as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom") In this brilliant book, Chakravorti suggests a number of specific strategies and tactics to help achieve market penetration and eventual success in a connected world. There is also an important lesson to be learned from one of Aesop's fable, "The Tortoise and the Hare": At least in some situations, only a "slow pace" can achieve "fast change."

I have never in my life read such an insightful book. It clearly lays out the structure of economics and helps diversify the playing field in terms of market infrastructure. Witty and well thought out, a deserved 5 star book.

This is one of the best written books I have read in a long time. The author must have pored over the crafting of every word. It is a serious book and yet it is quite a funny book. Overall it is clear he knows what he is talking about in terms of how real companies act and the game theory behind their actions. And it is about something that most people I know think a lot about. The book is on bringing innovations and new ideas to market. I read it as having much wider social and political consequences because it really does offer a way for us to understand how things work -- or don't -- in our super-connected world. With terrorism and SARS and globalization risks and the proliferation of the internet we are really connected in so many ways. I came away from the Slow Pace of Fast Change with, as the author puts it, a new "mindset" to understand and even strategize in this interconnected reality, where the network is both your best friend and your worst enemy. I know of Moore's law as the rule of the 90s--like everyone else I and everyone else I know lived and breathed it. Slow Pace...will I think give us a rule that may last even longer: Demi Moore's law. Cute, but really quite brilliant if you think about it.
Every chapter in the book helps develop a rich set of ideas interwoven with really well-told tales of strategic games among the best known companies in the world -- and even some that have since flamed out, for reasons the book helped make me understand. The tales of real world games among AT&T, the Chinese, WorldCom, Comcast, Microsoft read like a novel. Even though that particular chapter had the least new material in terms of concepts, the stories and strategic analyses alone made its presence more than worthwhile.
A deceptively easy read but it's deep stuff. I would read it again.

A. Robert Koch has presented an intelligible and thorough text to grasp basic economic principles. It is well designed for students who just have a cursory interest in understanding how economic principles can be applied to their daily lives.(p)

I found the text enjoyable and a good reinforcement of microeconomic theory, which I had learned years ago. Koch does an excellent job in maintaining the reader's interest by providing numerous real world examples to a subject which can become boring to those not having any genuine interest in learning economics principles. I highly recommend this text to lay people and other novices in the area of economics.

A. Robert Koch has presented an intelligible and thorough text to grasp basic economic principles. It is well designed for students who just have a cursory interest in understanding how economic principles can be applied to their daily lives.

I found the text enjoyable and a good reenforcement of microeconomic theory, which I had learned years ago. Koch does an excellent job in maintaining the reader's interest by providing numerous real world examples to a subject which can become boring to those not having any genuine interest in learning economics principles. I highly recommend this text to lay people and other novices in the area of economics.

Featuring a new introduction by its expert authors Michael D. Bordo (Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Monetary and Financial History, Rutgers University) and Lars Jonung (Research Adviser at ECFIN, European Commission, Brussels), Demand For Money: An Analysis Of The Long-Run Behavior Of The Velocity Of Circulation is an in-depth scrutiny of the "income velocity" of money -- an inverse measure of the demand for money balances that is the ratio of the money value of income to the average money stock that the public (excluding banks) holds in a given period. Examining data from several countries spanning the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, Demand For Money draws patterns and searches for causes in economic fluctuations as well as the key influences that interrelate with monetary policy. An expert-level dissertation written for advanced students and practitioners of economics, Demand For Money is a critically important contribution to Economic Theory, International Economics, and Economic Policy Studies supplemental reading lists and academic library collections.

In this article, Prof. Fisher creates a framework to point out the benefits of supply chain flexibility. Though the notion of flexibility is an old one, Fisher adds in substantial anecdotal stories on how exactly it could be done.

In the most important example in this paper, the authors focus on Sport Obermeyer and how delaying orders until the company has a glimpse of demand (a trade show) can help improve forecasting and thereby the profitability of the entire supply chain.

Though the example is focused on Obermeyer, there is enough information in this article to help a reader find for himself ideas on how to improve their own supply chain's flexibility and the benefits of implementing such solutions. This is definitely a very good, easy to read article that can help any supply chain manager convince others of the benefits of flexibility.

Everybody knows that the US economy is generating a lot of low-wage, dead-end service jobs. Now there's a book that knows what to do about it. This book is chock full of cheap, practical, useful ways of turning dead-end jobs into careers, linking jobs to training, facilitating employee organization. Should be part of the platform for Republicans and Democrats.

As indicated by the title, this book is about supply chain management in the consumer product goods and retail industry sectors. There are several chapters on the evolution of Quick Response in the 1980's to Supply Chain Management in the 1990's. The outstanding feature of the book is that the authors have included real case studies and based their findings on a decade of solid research into sourcing, forecasting and replenishment. There are many quantitative findings published from their research with retailers and manufacturers using simulation tools and quantitative analysis.

At first the exercises felt hokey, but after I sat down and got to work it helped me get started with the overwhelming task of getting my job search in gear. From start to finish you need to do the work, but if you are not sure where to start, or if what you are doing isn't generating results this is the book for you.

I am a huge huge fan of the whole Grinols ouvre. This book is a work of genius on par with and even exceeding the Bible. I would like to have children with this book. Seriously. I want to get married to this book and have children and live happily ever after. MMMmmm. Dan Grinols is my personal Lord and God.

This book is written for the employers, so if you don't own a business or are not in a high level management, your benefit of reading this book will not be substantial.

My dissatisfaction of this book has to do with high level of alarm this book raises based on speculation. The subtitle of this book is "Too many jobs too few people". Due to the demographics (which is impossible to alter in a short period), it is certain we will have too few people in the work force by 2010. The question is will there be too many jobs by 2010? Even the author concedes it is impossible to forecast the economy in the next 5 years, let alone the next 10. Hence, the author's conclusion of pending doom of massive skilled worker shortage by 2010 is speculative.

In fact, many prominent economists will argue that the economy will falter BADLY after 2010 because the consumer spending will drop like a rock due to the aging population (people over 55 spend considerably less). The actual scenario might be "too few jobs too many people".

Finally, the reliability of author's statistics are somewhat questionable (they are from the government after all). For example, according to the author, there are more than 3 million jobs right now than the number of people to fill them. In reality, however, the job market has been the toughest it has been in years, and many people are being laid off without work for over 6 months or more. When statistics conflict with reality, then ALWAYS trust the reality.

Herman, Olivo, and Gioia combine facts and figures with real-world examples to describe the next wave of workforce issues facing America. They go beyond the impending crisis and provide solutions. This team of workforce trend watchers and consultants has truly found the problem and offered practical solutions to address it.

Impending Crisis is written for business leaders and managers seeking solutions to look beyond the present and prepare for the future. This book is filled with research to backup the assertions and recommendations. More than 50 figures are used to support critical points. And, an extensive bibliography of valuable references is provided.

Reading Impending Crisis is not like reading many other business books. It is drawn from the research and experience of the authors who obviously know the subject and who care deeply about the issues facing the workforce and business.

I recommend this book to human resource professionals, business leaders, and students seeking to understand the workforce of tomorrow. Read it; discuss it; use it! The crisis is impending. So is the solution. Read the book; discover solutions!

Reviewed December 22, 2002 by John L. Bennett
...

It may seem hard to believe in today's stagnant job market, but by 2010 the U.S. Labor Dept. is predicting a labor shortage of ten million people. In Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs - Too Few People, Roger Herman and his colleagues explore the dimensions of the coming crisis in the first half of this book, and offer strategies and tactics for proactively managing it in the second.

Okay, this should not be revolutionary to anyone. Companies should concentrate on demand and customers? Uh, thanks. Try to differentiate your product to get higher returns. Uh, thanks again. Proper resource allocation is essential. No, really?

Kash makes some good suggestions on how companies should develop, market, research and produce in order to meet demand, instead of concentrating all efforts into the supply side. These suggestions, which are very sound, are just plain common sense. It's not revolutionary in any terms. He develops six principles on which to do this and devotes chapters to it, ranging from researching to resource allocation. I would provide the list here, but then that would mean Kash's book would be entirely useless.

What's more insulting than the "revolutionary" in the title are the complements on the back of the book. Such people as the head of McDonalds, EMC, and Gillete have gave great reviews for this book. Of course, if you read the book, you'll see that Kash has actually praised those executives countless times. If someone wrote a book about me, and praised me - heck, I'd consider it a literary masterpiece.

This book just basically is a list of principles wrapped around tons of success stories and a complete lack of humility. Avoid it.

The central argument Mr Kash makes is dead on: After decades of building businesses based on what a company can make, companies have to build their businesses on what consumers demand. A simple principle but, as the author makes clear, one that is hard to execute as it is so contrary to how most business people have been trained to plan. I've worked on a project once with the Cambridge Group, Mr Kash's firm, and this book summarizes the philosophy that has made this firm one of the best marketing strategy firms in the country: Get past the old thinking of selling what you think the consumer will buy. You have to do the hard work of analyzing the consumer market from understanding their true needs and then building your business to deliver on those needs.

A must read for every marketer who wants to lead their businesses overall strategy.

Here is a book that in only 233 pages, plus 10 more pages of helpful notes, turns a basic law of economics on its head--to the benefit of any business manager who wants what the book promises: "faster growth and higher profits."

The beauty of the book is that it is well-written, easy to grasp, and makes use of the most business-basic way to inform: the case history.

Author Rick Kash, founder and CEO of The Cambridge Group, the Chicago-based business consulting firm, makes use of case histories that are like nails that drive home the points in his persuasive arguments.

Best of all, Kash's case histories are given from an insider point of view, because his firm was the consultant for most of the companies cited.

They are a blue-chip roster of American business: Merrill Lynch, AT&T,Citibank, Levi Strauss & Co., R.R. Donnelly, McDonald's Corporation, PepsiCo, Inc., DuPont, Pharmacia Upjohn, the Quaker Oats Company, and Sears, Roebuck and Co.

The case histories are dazzling in their cumulative effect to document what Kash calls his "Six Principles" of demand strategy.

This is a business book that reads better than a "whodunit." It's a "howtheydidit," using the six principles Mr. Kash espouses. Well done, Mr. Kash.