Business Systems Books

This book is a very important book. Besides its solid theoretical foundations it is a very practical book. It will help managers to better understand their role in the complex world where companies and organizations in general have to operate. The role of managers in organizations is basically to design their organizations and to steer them so they are able to cope steadily with the complexity they have to face, in the outside environment as well as inside, in order to achieve their purposes. This means helping their organizations to be more "intelligent".

To show how to do this the author establishes an integrative Framework for the Design and Development of Intelligent Organizations containing five core components which are interrelated: Activities, Structure, Behavior, Basic Parameters (Identity, Ethos and Vision) and Time. Each of them is described in great detail and the implications of its adequate inclusion and design is thoroughly treated.

Three very important theories (The Model of Systemic Control-MSC), The Viable System Model-VSM and the Team Syntegrity model-TSM) are described and coherently incorporated into the framework.

Another very relevant aspect of this book is the great attention dedicated to the implications that three clearly identified necessary types of management (Operative, Strategic and particularly Normative) have on the companies and organizations' long term viability.

In summary I think that this book is a must for managers interested in knowing the very advanced concepts and tools which are today available and ready-to-use for helping them to steer their companies through the actual (and quite probably future) turbulent environments in which they operate.

It is hard to find in management literature books with the right mixture of theoretical rigor, empirical support, and practical advice. This book is one of such a kind. The book presents a novel integrative framework for management, using three well known academic models: The Model of Systemic Control - developed by the author -, the Viable System Model and the Team Sintegrity model. This schema allows to address the whole picture of several organizational issues that usually are treated separately: structure, behavior, functions, human/social conditions and time. What is known as the Systems Approach. As the author says in the first lines: "This is not a book about how to run a company. It is about how to look at the world differently". It is full with real-life examples and occasional exploration of other areas such as computer simulation and complexity theory which underpin the ideas in the book. And besides, the author's style guarantees a very pleasing reading.

This book has everything from basics to more complicated maths. It also comes with algorithms which then can help you implement the theory you just learned.

This book is a great textbook for students who are interested in the control engineering field. Due to the difficulty, it is more focused for graduate students. This book has won the 1999 harold chestnut prize awarded by the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). The topics are language and automata theory, supervisory control, Petri net theory, (max,+) algebra, Markov chains and queueing theory, discrete-event simulation, perturbation analysis, and concurrent estimation techniques. This book is used in many universities in the US but also in countries like Korea as well.

The practices outlined in this book are the foundation of IT operational service, availability and support. This book covers the key elements necessary for achieving a high level of IT operational excellence in great detail. I especially like the way production acceptance criteria is emphasized - this is an often overlooked topic that merits its own book - and the clear outline of how to implement change control (often talked about, but sadly missing in many organizations), and the clear distinction between problem management and the much narrower scope of help desk support operations.

Some of the issues raised by the previous reviewer regarding updating the core processes and procedures for contemporary operations in e-commerce and web-based environments are addressed in the newest book in this series titled "Web-Based Infrastructures: A 4-D Framework" by Sanmay Mukhopadhyay and Cooper Smith (ISBN 0130329894). Although that book does address the gaps noted, this book is still invaluable because it focuses strictly on the core elements while the newer book has a wider scope.

If you are a member of an IT operations management team or are involved with service level management this book will prove to be an invaluable resource, and is one that I highly recommend.

This book provides a coherent roadmap to "lights out" data center operations. It also provides a roadmap to developing a sound organization and processes to support data center operations regardless of whether they are "lights out", 24x7 or less demanding normal working hours support.

In fact, this book is misnamed because the real focus is on data center operations and the support requirements of running a data center in accordance with a set of best practices that the author has acquired over the years.

The roadmap that is used in this book appears to assume that operations will be outsourced. A good deal of the analysis and planning, and the roadmap milestones seems to lead to that objective. However, it will also support in-house operations after you align the people and process sides of the equation to the book's processes.

Real strengths of the author's approach are in the processes. He addresses the key process areas that need to be in place and the level of maturity needed to operate an effective and efficient data center. These same processes are the foundation of service delivery - which is the foundation of customer satisfaction. They are:

- Production Acceptance

- Problem Management

- Change Management

- Asset Management

- Disaster Recovery

Each of the above are essential processes. The author's approach validates my 24 years of mainframe experience. I especially like the production acceptance process that is conspicuously missing from most non-mainframe shops.

There are some potential problems with some of the processes that my current experience in distributed and e-commerce environments is uncovering.

Let's start with problem management. The author's approach is good for the here and now, but has a limited future. For example, the call center experts are rapidly integrating customer relationship management with internet technologies. External customers are benefiting from technologies and associated processes that we IT experts are designing and implementing while our internal customers are limited to more traditional kinds. Another issue is there is no clear linkage between problem management and disaster recovery. At what point does a problem trigger either business continuity or disaster recovery processes? This, as far as I can tell, has been adroitly sidestepped in every book and white paper addressing problem management, so the author cannot be faulted here. However, it is something you should consider as you read this section of the book.

The change management process is sound and works well in mainframe and traditional operational settings. However, the realities that we are faced with today are going to make the traditional approach to change management obsolete. It is not responsive enough to today's dynamic environments that are characterized by competitive pressures and the sheer complexity of data center environments. There has to be a streamlined approach, and the one proposed by the author will probably be an anachronism in the next two years. Managing changes in the Internet environment needs to happen quickly to respond to pressures, but with controls to ensure that you do not affect half the world. Consider something as simple as a new DNS server - mistakes in the tables can get propagated that make it look like you are hijacking web site traffic (this really happened!) While this particular process is well developed and meets today's needs, I hope the author will revisit this in the next edition and come up with a process that provides the speed that marketing demands, and the controls that we practitioners need.

Overall, this book is a very valuable source of ideas and comes with ready-made processes that can be implemented and managed to provide a mature operational support environment. The shortcomings that I cited do not detract from this book - they only underscore the fact that the world is rapidly changing and what works well today is not going to work well tomorrow. As the co-developer of the Tarrani-Zarate Information Technology Management Model, I can attest that there are no clear answers or solutions to these shortcomings. I can only hope that the author addresses these gaps in the next edition. In the meantime, the processes and approach provided in the book will give you the tools and techniques with which to build a mature operational support organization that is based on true best practices.

Really excellent reference book. Im starting as an IT Manager and this book is my head reference.

As someone who has taken a circuitous route to the world of IT, the book, IT Manager's Handbook, Second Edition: Getting your new job done has helped me get a handle on all of the territory working in IT encompasses. When I first started working at my current IT position at a small company it seemed that my job's duties were coming at me from every direction. The authors, Bill Holtsnider and Brian D. Jaffe, do a great job addressing the variety of problems and solutions that come with managing IT. This book would best serve someone crossing the thresholds of working purely in technology or mainly in management.

At smaller businesses like where I work, it is fairly common to not have an "IT manager" or even an IT staffer. Instead often a manager, engineer, or administrative assistant will be pressed into IT service. The IT Manager's Handbook would be a valuable `read' for such an accidental IT manager.

This book is a great source of information and gives indication and confirms why the wealthy stay wealthy. They know how to keep their money by minimizing and calculating business writeoffs and this book will demonstrate how regular folk can do the same thing!!!

I'm currently a tax preparer and I found this book to be one of the best tax books on the market. It is very easy to read and understand. I recommend that every tax payer reads this book and start savings thousands of dollars on taxes.

thanks,
fmh

Kenneth and Sheryl Dawson have put together a very worthwhile book for those seeking employment. I agree with much of what they say, and I appreciate the emphasis on organization. Well done.

Wayne D. Ford, Ph.D., author of "The Accelerated Job Search" docwifford@msn.com

This is a no-nonsense, common sense approach to job hunting. There is no room for senseless babble here. The Total System, is a professional, uncomplicated and realistic bible for the "soon to be employed." It doesn't matter whether you are a top-ranked CEO, or an entry-level, college student, this book will basically hand you your next job.

Let me put it this way: this book helped me to land my first job out of college, successfully win a regional director's position within 2 years of employment with the same company and then launch my own consulting business. Whenever I hear my clients ask me about what to use as a refrence for their own job search or what to look for when hiring, this is the only book that I would sincerely recommend. (I even loaned my brother my personal copy for his own job search.)

Once I started reading I could not put it down! The combination of explanation through story telling, research into future (and emerging) technologies, and sound business advice and strategies makes this a must read for anyone. I believe that the target audience might be the "business" person but with such a clear explanation of how nano-technology, robotics, RFID and other future technologies will bring exponential changes to every field, every high school student in America should read it. Jack Uldrich's 50 strategies for change management will help lead the business person down a path to manage your business with an eye toward jumping the curve.

I'd also encourage every educator in America to read this book because exponential advances in technology will not simply change what our students need to learn, it will also transform the tools and methods teachers will need in order to convey this new knowledge to there students.

As Uldrich points out, knowledge itself is growing exponentially. Therefore, if educators want their students to prosper in this era of accelerating change it is no longer enough that they just stay ahead of the curve, they must learn to jump the curve. This books shows them how.

This is a brilliant book. The author gives many thought-provoking examples of how to anticipate and leverage exponentially changing technology in business and in life. It also examines previous advancements in a variety of fields and provides all of the tools necessary for anyone to innovate in literally any context. I especially enjoyed the discussion of how the greatest inventions draw on elements found in nature. Every groundbreaking concept in the book was supported by quotes or citations to great thinkers or books. Perhaps most importantly, the book is written in a way that is easy to understood and apply. This should be required reading for anyone looking to get ahead through (or stay ahead of) innovation.

If you are already mandated from higher ups in your organization with the exact CRM functionality needed or even to troubleshoot an existing CRM implementation, then this book is great for you: It does not waste any time and gets right to the issues of selecting and implementing CRM tools. In that sense, Ms. Tourniaire's "Just Enough CRM" could easily be re-titled "Just Enough to Select and Implement CRM Tools".

Whereas another book I am reviewing in parallel portrays CRM as a strictly marketing exercise and barely discusses information technology (IT) tools and issues, this book heavily views CRM from the IT point of view and, at times, one forgets that CRM deals with marketing at all. No harm done: This book is mostly about the technology part of CRM and it does cover it very well. That is not to say it is strictly intended for IT people. It is written in plain language and is readable by anyone on a CRM implementation team.

One of the greatest aspects of this book is that it advocates the use of various metrics to measure different aspects of a CRM project (an idea I wholeheartedly endorse for any type of operation). After all, if you do not measure your processes, how would you know if they are performing right? The book lists some very good tools such as a template and a method for checking and scoring different vendor features. The chapter about "Measuring Success" also hides some gold nuggets.

This book would be a great addition to a CRM library.

As I read this book I feel as though the Author (Francoise Tourniaire) is in the same room with me giving me calm reassuring and sensible advice. The writing style does not assume you're an idiot, nor does it assume you're a guru. I have not finished it yet, however it's the kind of book that will probably be a keeper.

I teach a survey course on Russia to graduate-level business students. I have used a variety of texts on Russia's economic transformation, always seeking one with the ideal combination of currency, readability, and insights and perspectives attuned to the businessperson rather than the typical academic. Brady's book is it. Brady's experience with BusinessWeek and her illustrative interviews with Russian citizens resonate particularly strongly with my students, who run the gamut from straight-from-undergrad-school/can't-find-Russia-on-a-map, to individuals who have done business in Russia (successfully or un- ) and want to know more about a unique (and uniquely frustrating) environment for operations and investment. I plan to continue requiring this text for my students and hope Brady provides updated editions as needed.

This is an fabulous book on how Russia turned from state socialism into a fragile, but market-based economy. Being a Business Week correspondent in Moscow the author could witness all stages of Russia's economic transformation -- starting from supply shortages and chaos of late 1991 to the formation of financial & industrial comglomerates in 1997. This book is an exciting reading because it is easy written and combines stories on both complicated economic issues and on lives of ordinary Russians, struggling to adapt to the changes.

Dick is a genius, and he and Bradford Ashton have pulled together a number of very fine contributions in this book. Still, they sum it up nicely in the concluding chapter: "The formal practice of developing technical intelligence in American business is only in its infancy." They have a nice appendix of sources on scientific and technical intelligence that is missing a few big obvious sources like the Canadian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) and the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) as well as the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) and several smaller sources. On balance, this technical intelligence community is, as Bradford notes, in its infancy. It is U.S. centric, does not yet understand operational security and counterintelligence, is weak of cost intelligence, relies too heavily on registered patents, and has too few practical successes stories. Especially troubling is the recent trend within DIA and the Air Force of cutting off all funding for open source exploitation of Chinese and other foreign S&T sources, combined with a dismantling by many corporations of their libraries and most basic market research functions. This book is an essential reference and I admire its authors greatly-sadly, they are part of a small minority that has not yet found its full voice.

This is among the most comprehensive, insightful and balanced books on CI that I have read. Although there is very little on the topic of CI in the scientic and technical communities, which the books editors accurately note, this book goes a long way to estabishing the basis for the field.

Among the things I like best in the book are: 1) the balance between the conceptual and the applied - both the theory and the management applications are covered, 2) The introduction to TI by the editors does a better-than-average job of setting up the field, and 3) the chapters by Herring on creating successful S&T Intelligence Programs, Tibbetts on technology scouting, and the future direction chapter by Ashton are among the best of their kind in the literature.

The things I liked less about the book (and there aren't many mate) include a bit too much introduction or overview material to basic CI in several of the chapters (the editors would have been helpful had they removed this overlap), and several of the chapters read far more like research studies and are too narrowly focussed to allow for much use(ex: Klavans chapter on research underlying TI, Penens' chapter on standards).

In sum, this book is clearly the best out there on technical intelligence for business. If this area is important to you, you will find value in many facets of this book. Being that the book was published in 1997, I hope that these authors will consider doing a follow-up so that we can see the field's development through the advances in the computer-mediated economy, globalization and evolving competition in S&T space.