Business

In this first new and totally revised edition of the 150,000-copy underground bestseller, The E-Myth, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. He walks you through the steps in the life of a business from entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective, the guiding light of all businesses that succeed. He then shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business whether or not it is a franchise. Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. After you have read The E-Myth Revisited, you will truly be able to grow your business in a predictable and productive way.

"Adam Penenberg's lively book opens a window to all of our futures..."
--Ken Auletta, author of Googled: The End of the World as We Know It

"If you want to understand all things viral, this is the place to start. Penenberg's reporting gives us a ringside seat for some of the biggest viral success stories in history, from Tupperware to Ning."
--Dan Heath, co-author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die?

"One of the most astounding things about the Web age is how the best advertising is often no advertising at all. Penenberg masterfully explains how this works with case studies of products that were designed to spread. Every product can use a dose of this technique; this is the book to get to learn how."
--Chris Anderson, author of Free: The Future of a Radical Price

"In tight, engaging prose, Adam captures the essence of the ever-scaling power of the virus. It's not just for geeks anymore."

--Seth Godin, author of Tribes

"Penenberg discovers the perpetual motion machine for business and marketing... Buy this book. Catch a virus. Make a fortune."
--Jeff Jarvis

"Penenberg has unlocked the secret to the most successful digital businesses. An indispensable read."
--Robert Safian, Editor-in-Chief, Fast Company

"Instead of entrusting your business to a guru with an agenda and a ghostwriter, you should be turning to a pro journalist like Adam Penenberg, who understands the way media and money interact, has the critical faculty to engage with these phenomena in an unbiased fashion, and the technical facility to explain them to you in an entirely engaging, informative, and actionable way."
--Douglas Rushkoff, author of Media Virus and Life Inc: How the world became a corporation and how to take it back.

Here's something you may not know about today's Internet. Simply by designing your product the right way, you can build a flourishing business from scratch. No advertising or marketing budget, no need for a sales force, and venture capitalists will flock to throw money at you.

Many of the most successful Web 2.0 companies, including MySpace, YouTube, eBay, and rising stars like Twitter and Flickr, are prime examples of what journalist Adam L. Penenberg calls a "viral loop"--to use it, you have to spread it. After all, what's the sense of being on Facebook if none of your friends are The result: Never before has there been the potential to create wealth this fast, on this scale, and starting with so little.

In this game-changing must-read, Penenberg tells the fascinating story of the entrepreneurs who first harnessed the unprecedented potential of viral loops to create the successful online businesses--some worth billions of dollars--that we have all grown to rely on. The trick is that they created something people really want, so much so that their customers happily spread the word about their product for them.

All kinds of businesses--from the smallest start-ups to nonprofit organizations to the biggest multinational corporations--can use the paradigm-busting power of viral loops to enable their business through technology. Viral Loop is a must-read for any entrepreneur or business interested in uncorking viral loops to benefit their bottom line.

Two of the most innovative thinkers in the field present a work that represents the single best resource for understanding and implementing activity-based cost management. Kaplan and Cooper reveal that most companies don't know how to measure accurately, influence, or understand the fundamental cost drivers in their businesses. They then provide a detailed and comprehensive blueprint that will enable managers to make better decisions and to promote organizational learning and improvement. "Cost and Effect" takes the management, finance, and accounting fields to an entirely new level, as the authors demonstrate how the principles of activity-based costing and other advanced cost management techniques, such as target and kaizen costing, can drive business performance. Using lively examples from a variety of leading companies worldwide - including Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, the Swedish wire manufacturer Kanthal, Kirin Beer, and Procter & Gamble - they show how to create integrated, knowledge-based systems that provide meaningful information on current and past performance.The innovation systems described in "Cost and Effect" will help you: determine where improvements in quality, efficiency, and productivity will have the highest payoffs; assist front-line employees in their learning and improvement activities; make better product mix and capital investment decisions; negotiate more effectively on price, product features, quality, delivery, and service to promote win-win relationships with your customers; choose low-cost suppliers who are truly low cost, not just low price; design products and services that meet customers' expectations - and that can be produced and delivered at a profit; and, integrate your activity-based cost system into reporting and budgeting processes to reveal the sources of excess capacity. Everyone involved in running a business - from general managers and strategic planners to financial executives, IT professionals, and operations managers - must read this book to learn how innovative cost and performance measurement systems can enhance their organizational profitability and performance.

'International Political Risk Management, Volume 2: The Brave New World' is the latest in a series based on the MIGA-Georgetown University Symposium on International Political Risk Management. Volumes in this series offer leading-edge assessments of needs and capabilities in the international political risk insurance industry. These assessments come from 18 experts in the fields of international investment, finance, insurance, and academe. Contributors to this volume consider 'The Brave New World' of the political risk insurance industry in the wake of September 11, 2001, the Argentine economic crisis, and other upheavals. The book begins with the supply-side perspective of insurers and then turns to the concerns of investors and lenders, in particular those involved in large infrastructure projects in emerging markets. It concludes with in-depth assessments of new challenges to definitions and coverage of currency transfer, expropriation, breach of contract, and political force majeure. The diverse and detailed arguments collected here come together in a surprising consensus: recent changes, contractions, and even losses are fueling the search for creative solutions and will ultimately prove beneficial for participants in the industry. An in-depth analysis from the front lines of international political risk management, this book will be a valuable guide to those who are considering private sector investments and privatizations in the developing world, whether as equity sponsors, lenders, or insurers. It should also be of interest to independent analysts and scholars working in the field of political risk management.

Transition to a new world order with more diffuse distribution of economic power is under way. This first edition of a new World Bank flagship report, Global Development Horizons 2011, focuses on three major international economic trends: the shift in the balance of global growth from developed to emerging economies, the rise of emerging-market firms as a force in global business, and the evolution of the international monetary system toward a multicurrency regime.

Pursuit of growth opportunities on a global level has meant that the international presence of emerging-market firms in cross-border production, trade, and finance has been on the rise for some time. Emerging and developing counties accounted for 46 percent of international trade flows in 2010, up from 30 percent in 1995. Cross-border mergers and acquisitions originated by firms based in emerging markets represent nearly one-third of global M&A transactions. The risk of investing in emerging economies has declined dramatically, while emerging economies’ financial assets and wealth have expanded: emerging and developing countries now hold three-fourth of all official foreign exchange reserves.

Despite the large, rapidly growing size of emerging economies and the expanding international presence of emerging-market firms, the role of emerging economies in the international monetary system remains relatively insignificant. No emerging-market currency is used to a great extent in holding official reserves, invoicing goods and services, denominating international claims, or anchoring exchange rates. Virtually all developing countries are exposed to currency mismatch risk in their international trade, investment, and financing transactions. But it appears that this too will change in the coming years. Smoothing the transition to a multipolar monetary environment will be high on the agenda of policy makers, who will face major decisions about whether fundamental reform of the rules of the international monetary system is in order.

The question of how to treat commodity production and how to manage recurrent cycles of booms and busts has always been a challenge for policymakers in commodity-dependent countries, including many in the LAC region. These challenges have led to allegations of a “commodity curse’’ that retards development in these countries, but as of yet, there is no consensus as to whether such a curse exists, and if so, how can negative effects be minimized.

This book contributes to this debate. Much of the report is focused on an examination of specific channels through which commodity dependence may affect the economic and institutional development of countries. This includes broadly 4 sets of concerns: one set dealing with the direct economic effects of commodity dependence and the implications for long-term growth; one dealing with the interactions between commodity production and the rents it generates on the one hand, and a country’s institutions on the other; a third dealing with the macroeconomic challenges of managing the volatility of revenue flows, including the distributional implications at the household level posed by cyclicality of social spending; and a final set associated with potential negative environmental and social impacts.

The book finds that some commonly accepted negative effects of dependence on natural resources are largely myths, while some are realities. But all can be managed, and the book draws on the best available information in existing literature as well as original analysis to provide practical advice on how to do so. It also presents descriptive facts and analysis of the impacts in LAC of the recent commodity boom, helping the reader understand the implications for the region’s development and policies. It should be of great interest to policy-makers and analysts, as well as laypersons interested in the economics of commodity markets and their role in economic development.