Business Systems Books

As a seasoned user of KiXtart, I was skeptical of purchasing a new book, but once I received the book and read through it, I was glad I did. All the entries and samples were clear, concise and very easy to read and implement. I'd recommend this book for both newcomers trying to learn the language, and oldtimers who think they know the language.

Can you believe a book on the famous KiXtart scripting language is finally available?!!!! I've waited for something like this for years and its now finally available. But, its not like any first-run book. This book is complete. Even if you've used KiXtart for a long time, you'll learn something from this book. Its extremely easy to understand and covers everything!

This book focuses on the methodology and analysis of state and local population projections. It describes the most commonly used data sources and application techniques within each of three classes of projection methods (cohort-component, trend extrapolation, and structural models) and covers the components of population growth, the formation of assumptions, the development of evaluation criteria, and the determinants of forecast accuracy. It considers the strengths and weaknesses of various projection methods, paying special attention to the unique problems of making projections for small areas, and closes with an examination of technological and methodological changes affecting the production of small-area population projections.
The authors provide practical guidance to demographers, planners, and other analysts called on to construct state and local population projections. They use many examples and illustrations and present suggestions for dealing with special populations, unique circumstances, and inadequate or unreliable data; they also describe techniques for controlling one set of projections to another and for interpolating between two projections. They discuss the role of judgment and the importance of the political context in which projections are made. They emphasize the "utility" of projections, or their usefulness for decision making in a world of competing demands and limited resources.
This comprehensive book will provide readers with an understanding not only of the mechanics of commonly used population projection methods, but also of the many complex issues affecting their construction, interpretation, evaluation, and use.

The new book by Smith, Tayman and Swanson is the first in many years to compile the major components of small-area population projections(data sources, methodology and evaluation) in one place.

The book is particularly good in describing the fundamentals of population analysis - which many other articles, chapters and books on projections neglect. Additionally, important advanced elements of population projections that are not commonly touched on, such as special adjustments, are addressed nicely here.

The book further instructs the reader how to use projections objectively. Too often, forecasts that are not 100% accurate are dismissed. In fact, as the book describes, imperfect forecasts still provide considerable utility in presenting alternatives, promoting agendas, sounding warnings and providing a base for other projections. To this end, the book provides a unique service in not only describing how to make small-area projections, but what to do with them.

In addition to the conventional techniques and concepts described, the authors present the latest developments in the field of projections, including structural models, GIS applications and innovative evaluative techniques.

I would strongly recommend this book as both a textbook - particularly for demography, planning, and economics students, as well as a resource for professional planners, administrators and scientists that rely on population projections.

This book is great! Through numerous real-world examples, it takes high-level ideas and makes them understandable. I highly recommend this book for anyone using SPC.

With dozens of cookie cutter SPC books out there, I was skeptical that Alwan's book would be much different. I was pleasantly surprised. The author spends a great deal of time impressing upon the reader that control charts are potentially useless when processes don't behave like textbook examples. So, there is a data analysis approach taken with time spent on dealing with issues of nonormality and autocorrelation and time patterns. This is pretty different and not found in other SPC books that I have run across.

The time-series analysis is on the elementary level, e.g., using OLS regression to fit an AR(1). The book doesn't go deep into ARIMA models.

There is an interesting discussion on p charts and c charts. Basically, the author is dealing with the issue of overdispersion though he does not say the term. This is not to my knowledge covered in other SPC books but it is clearly an issue in reality.

The chapter on CUSUMs is particularly done well and is quite comprehensive.

If there is one negative point, the book is a bit too wordy to my liking. I think he could have shorten up his prose a bit. But, for folks that are leary of statistics, the extra text might help get the point across.

Most folks will recognize Montgomery's Intro. to Stat. Quality Control as the main player in the field. Given its longer history, I don't think that will change but Alwan's book is definitely an add-on to any decent SPC collection of reference books.

I picked up the author's blog: Blogging in the saltmine, and was intrigued by his views. His book is an excellent primer for the uninitiated, and a refresher for those embroiled in the fray of competition. He covers no new ideas, as the field is incredibly broad, but he presents the basket of knowledge in a way to cause one to take a hard look at their actions. The author reminds us that the basics of "blocking and tackling" are important; the small businessperson should periodically step back and evaluate his position. It is a short read but chock full of perspective!

While statistics concerning the failure rate of small businesses are
often subject of debate, there are no doubt a great number of small businesses that encounter great difficulty within the first years of opening their doors. The difficulty surfaces once the business outgrows its current facilities, capital structure, or skill set of the owners who suddenly find themselves in over their heads. As business owners are starved for knowledge, Just Noodles serves up a healthy portion of business know-how, set off by a balance of entertaining anecdotes.

Targeted for the audience of small business owners ready to take their ideas to the next level, Just Noodles tackles questions often asked, but rarely answered in bite-sized portions. No matter your background, Just Noodles dishes up the opportunity to learn how the financial community evaluates a business; what to expect to hear from lenders; the appropriate time to bring in a consultant or business coach for an outside perspective, or how to correct small issues before they become big problems.

Whether you received a formal business education or learned it through the School of Hard Knocks, this book provides a strong collection of simple examples highlighting many important keys to understanding business. In short, Just Noodles reminds the reader that fundamentals will always
matter. From the flashback to economics texts with an entertaining discussion of Guns & Butter to understanding product life cycles and application of strategy for success, Just Noodles uses lighthearted,
yet accurate case studies for illustration. The author truly delivers a digestible collection sure to satisfy any small business reader's hunger.

R. Blake Hendrix draws upon years of experience in public accounting, banking, and small business consulting, delivering to the table a steaming plate of reality for business owners faced with difficult choices. Hendrix entertains while he educates. For example, he describes an amusing parallel of Southern fishing techniques with important and often less sexy ideas on dissecting a business in order to analyze the keys for continued success.

Reviewer, D. Scott Cooksey, is an author and speaker based in Tulsa, Oklahoma who has served countless business and individual clients in financial services for nearly 15 years. Cooksey offers workshops, training programs and personal appearances to address leadership.

I really appreciate this book in order that it gives concrete expression to "strategy" in terms of corporate activities instead of explaining long and old boring meanings of this buzzword. I hope that we can see its edition soon in Turkish.
Worth to read it.

What I especially liked, was the easy way this book addresses key questions every organisation faces, and often choses the wrong answers to.
Often used buzzwords like "growth", "internationalisation" or "focusing on the core" are demystified and a sound logic behind such decisions is presented in a convincing way.
Simple criteria help avoid decision-taking against the "strategic logic" and thus destroying value. The book also reveals the most common mistakes and illustrates them with up to date examples.

This is interesting... but Richard MacInness is my uncle soooooo i hope u enjoy the book and what he has to offer *blushes at how random post is*

"Strategic MRO is the first practical summary about the challenges facing organisations trying to improve their bottom line. Strategic MRO delivers a concise review of these challenges and the engineered processes that permanently reduce the costs associated with plant operations and MRO. This book should be required reading for all purchasing, plant maintenance, and engineering personnel."

Easy to read, work at your own pace, fill in the blank examples; that is what makes this book a great buy. This book was written in a workbook style manner, so you can take as long as you want filling in all of your information, making it seem as if you had hired your own personal strategic consultant for a fraction of the cost.
If your organization needs guidance and results, Strategic Planning Simplified is the way to start.

"becoming architects of the future, not defenders of the decline," completely sums up my feelings about this book. My company has been using the SWOT analysis for years; unfortunately, we've had a high turnover rate which has affected our productivity and our profit. We were desperately looking for a new approach to deal with our problems and I found this book while searching Amazon. The language is comprehensive and the examples and worksheets make it so much easier to customize your particular goals and solutions. We are still in the process of planning, but I can definitely say that our small business has a "clearer" picture of where we want to be and what we need to do to get there.

OUTSTANDING. Strategic Thinking for Leaders is an easy to read book, full of great tips, detailed models and great assessment tools I can use for myself and my organization. Whether you are already an experienced leader or working on becoming one, there is no better or more comprehensive book out there on the subject. This book will help anyone become a great strategic thinker. I definitely got more than I expected from this book.

Even those who were born to be leaders still need training here and there. This book gives you 50 of the best tips or qualifications any exceptional leader can possess. Very easy reading, simple examples and models. A great piece to add to anyone's "how to" collection.

Excerpt: This book, Strategies for Information Technology Governance, is aimed at improving the understanding of Information Technology (IT) Governance and its struc¬tures, processes and relational mechanisms. As will be defined in this book, IT Gover¬nance is the organisational capacity exercised by the Board, executive management and IT management to control the formulation and implementation of IT strategy and in this way ensure the fusion of business and IT. Theoretical models and practices regarding IT Governance will be discussed in the different chapters of this book and attention will be paid to its mechanisms, including IT steering committee structures, Balanced Scorecards, control objectives and management guidelines developed by ISACA, and relational mechanisms such as business/IT job rotation.
This book brings together 14 papers on IT Governance written by academics and practitioners from different countries including Belgium, Canada, Finland, Greece, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The authors of the different chapters have been included in the review process and have reviewed and critiqued the manuscripts of their colleague-authors. I wish to thank the contributors to this book for submitting their chapter(s) and for assisting me in the review process as well.
The overall structure of this book follows a logical sequence: introducing the IT Governance frameworks in Section I; reviewing performance management mechanisms in Section II; presenting other IT Governance mechanisms in Section III; and illustrat¬ing how IT Governance can work in practice in Section IV.
Section I: IT Governance Frameworks
This section introduces the IT Governance concepts and consists of three chap¬ters.
Chapter I: Structures, Processes and Relational Mechanisms for IT Governance by Wim Van Grembergen, Steven De Haes and Erik Guldentops respectively from the University of Antwerp, the University of Antwerp Management School (Belgium), and the IT Governance Institute (US), defines the IT Governance concepts and overviews the different IT Governance mechanisms. It records and interprets some important existing theories, models and practices on IT Governance. The chapter is based on relevant academic and professional publications and integrates also the main contribu¬tions of the other chapters in this book.
Chapter II: Integration Strategies and Tactics for Information Technology Gov¬ernance by Ryan Peterson from the Instituto de Empresa (Spain) has three objectives. First of all, to describe past developments and current challenges complex organisations are facing governing the IT portfolio of IT applications, IT development, IT operations and IT platforms. Secondly, to discuss how organisations can diagnose and design IT governance architecture for future performance improvement and sustained business growth. Finally, to provide a thorough understanding and holistic picture of effective IT governance practices, and to present a new organising logic for IT governance.
Chapter III: An Emerging Strategy for E-Business IT Governance by Nandish Patel from Brunel University (UK) develops a framework for global e-business IT gov¬ernance. This framework is based on fundamental re-directions in global e-business IT governance thinking and it applies to companies that seek to integrate Internet, intranet and World Wide Web technologies into their business activities in some form of an e-business model. The framework explains and elaborates e-business strategies for cop¬ing with emergent organisations and planned aspects of IT. The basic premise of the proposed framework is that organisation, especially virtual organisation, is both planned and emergent, diverging from the dominant premise of central control in IT governance.
Section II: Performance Management as IT Governance Mechanism
Section II: Performance Management as IT Governance Mechanism reviews IT governance mechanisms including Balanced Scorecards, business-IT alignment matu¬rity assessment models, ROI measurement and technical IT measurements. This part consists of six chapters.
Chapter IV: Assessing Business-IT Alignment Maturity by Jerry Luftman from
Stevens Institute of Technology (USA) discusses an approach for assessing the maturity of the business-IT alignment. The proposed strategic alignment maturity assessment approach provides a vehicle to evaluate where an organisation is and where it
needs to go to attain and sustain business-IT alignment. The careful assessment of a
firm's alignment maturity is an important step in identifying the specific actions necessary to ensure IT is being used to appropriately enable or drive the business strategy.
Chapter V: Linking the IT Balanced Scorecard to the Business Objectives at a Major Canadian Financial Group by Wim Van Grembergen, Ronald Saull and Steven De Haes respectively from the University of Antwerp (Belgium), Great-West Life, Londen
Life, Investors Group (Canada), and the University of Antwerp Management School (Belgium) illustrates how the Balanced Scorecard concepts can be used to support the business-IT fusion. The development and implementation of an IT Balanced Scorecard within this financial group is described and discussed. An IT Balanced Scorecard maturity model is developed and used to determine the maturity level of the scorecard under review. An important conclusion is that an IT Balanced Scorecard must go be¬yond the operational level and must be integrated across the enterprise in order to generate business value. This can be realised through establishing a linkage between the business Balanced Scorecard and different levels of IT scorecards.
Chapter VI: Measuring and Managing E-Business Initiatives through the Bal¬anced Scorecard by Wim Van Grembergen and Isabelle Amelinckx both from the Uni¬versity of Antwerp (Belgium), applies the Balanced Scorecard concepts to e-business projects. A generic e-business scorecard is developed and presented as a measuring and management instrument. The proposed e-business scorecard consists of four per¬spectives: the Customer Perspective representing the evaluation of the consumer and business clients, the Operational Perspective focusing on the business and IT processes, the Future Perspective showing the human and technology resources needed to deliver the e-business application, and the Contribution Perspective capturing the e-business benefits. It is argued that a monitoring instrument such as the proposed e-business scorecard is a must when building, implementing and maintaining an e-busi¬ness system because these initiatives are often too technically management and are often initiated without a clear business case.
Chapter VII: A View on Knowledge Management: Utilizing a Balanced Scorecard Methodology for Analyzing Knowledge Metrics by Alea Fairchild from Vesalius Col¬lege/Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) (Belgium) addresses the problem of developing measurement models for Knowledge Management metrics and discusses what current Knowledge Management metrics are in use, and examines their sustainability and sound¬ness in assessing knowledge utilisation and retention of generating revenue. The chapter also discusses the use of the Balanced Scorecard approach to determine a business-oriented relationship between strategic Knowledge Management usage and IT strat¬egy and implementation.
Chapter VIII: Measuring ROI in E-Commerce Applications: Analysis to Action by Manuel Mogollon and Mahesh Raisinghani respectively from Nortel Networks (US) and the University of Dallas (USA) focuses on measuring the Return on Investment (ROI) as a key element of the IT Governance process. The research in this chapter aims to provide an overview of how to calculate the ROI for e-commerce applications so that this information, and the attached ROI Calculator Tool Template, can be used by organisations to reduce time in preparing the ROI for a project
Chapter IX: Technical Issues Related to IT Governance Tactics: Product Metrics, Measurements and Process Control by Michalis Xenos from the Hellenic Open Univer¬sity (Greece) deals with some technical aspects of the strategies for IT Governance and aims at introducing the reader to software metrics that are used to provide knowledge about different elements of IT projects. Internal metrics are presented that can be applied prior to the release of IT products to provide indications relating to quality characteristics, and external metrics are introduced that can be applied after IT product delivery to give information about user perception of product quality. The chapter also analyzes the correlation between internal and external metrics and discusses how these metrics can be combined in a measurement program.
Section III: Other IT Governance Mechanisms
Section III: Other IT Governance Mechanisms describes other mechanisms in¬cluding roles and responsibilities within the IT organisation, the control objectives and management guidelines of COBIT, and the IT outsourcing solution. This part consists of three chapters.
Chapter X: Managing IT Functions by Petter Gottschalk from the Norwegian School of Management (Norway) discusses imperatives for IT functions, organisation of IT functions, roles of IT functions, roles of chief information officers (CIOs) and key issues in IT management. A survey conducted in Norway revealed that CIOs find the role of entrepreneur most important and the role of liaison least important. This survey also revealed that "Improving links between information systems strategy and busi¬ness strategy" was ranked as most important key issue in IT management in Norway.
Chapter XI: Governing Information Technology through COBIT by Erik Guldentops from the IT Governance Institute (USA) reviews the COBIT framework that incorporates material on IT Governance. COBIT presents an international and generally accepted IT control framework enabling organisations to implement an IT Governance structure throughout the enterprise. Its management guidelines component consists of maturity models, critical success factors, key goal indicators and key performance indi¬cators for 34 identified IT processes. This structure delivers a significantly improved framework responding for management's need for control and measurability of IT by providing means to assess and measure the organisation's IT environment against COBIT's IT processes.
Chapter XII: Governance in IT Outsourcing Partnerships by Erik Beulen from Tilburg University (The Netherlands) is based on 11 international IT outsourcing part¬nerships, five expert interviews and on literature. Three dimensions are described in a descriptive IT outsourcing partnership governance framework: the outsourcing organisation, the maintenance of the relationship, and the IT supplier. In this frame-work, 11 governance factors are defined including the existence of a clear IT strategy at the outsourcing organisation, a mutual trust between the outsourcing organisation and the IT supplier, and an adequate contract and account management. Furthermore, the chapter focuses on the IT outsourcing contract.
Section IV: IT Governance in Action
Section IV: IT Governance in Action describes the application of IT Governance structures in respectively an enterprise and in the health care industry. Section IV includes two chapters.
Chapter XIII: The Evolution of IT Governance at NB Power by Joanne Callahan, Cassio Bastos and Dwayne Keyes, from New Brunswick Power Corporation (Canada) describes the IT Governance framework that NB Power has implemented. Through IT Governance the organisation was able to address the results of a diagnostic study on their internal IT service provider who was attempting to respond to a seemingly end-less list of requests for IT support. Now, after four years, factors critical to the success of implementing an IT Governance framework are evident. The IT Governance frame-work is still evolving, but the organisation is now well positioned to take advantage of its IT investment.
Chapter XIV: Governance Structures for IT in the Health Care Industry by Reima Suomi and Jarmo Tähkäpää from the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration (Finland) discusses the role of IT in the health care industry and focuses on the question of which governance structures are best for managing IT within this industry. Two Finnish cases are described - a small health care federation of munici¬palities and a medium-sized health care unit - to illustrate internal and external gover¬nance structures. It is shown that internal governance structures such as developing a comprehensive business strategy are essential parts of IT Governance and that outsourcing activities suggest that there is a need for developing and managing exter¬nal governance structures.

The collection of essays that comprise this book cover the full spectrum of IT governance thought and practice. There is no single prescriptive approach to IT governance set forth in this book, but instead, approaches that address a single facet of governance, which can be used as a resource for ideas and practices.

There are fourteen essays grouped under the following topics areas:
- IT Governance Frameworks
- Performance Management as IT Governance Mechanism
- Other IT Governance Mechanisms
- IT Governance in Action

Among the most thought-provoking (in my opinion) essays are: Assessing Business-IT Alignment Maturity, Measuring and Managing E-Business Initiatives through the Balanced Scorecard, Technical Issues Related to IT Governance Tactics: Product Metrics, Measurements and Process, and Governance in IT Outsourcing Partnerships.

Major standards are also addressed (see the essay titled, "Governing Information Technology through COBIT"). My only disappointment is there was no contributions by Peter Weill or Jeanne Ross, both of whom have coauthored an excellent book on IT governance titled "IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results" ISBN 1591392535. Overall, this is an outstanding book for senior management who are crafting an IT governance strategy.

Hussey captures the essential elements of strategic management and planning into a concise and accessible text. The book provides a pragmatic approach to strategy development, which although not prescriptive, provides an good framework for managers and practitioners alike. It is also one of the few books that I've read which looks at the strategic planning process.

This is an enlightening and well written book on strategy. The author clearly and methodically discusses the strategic management and corporate planning process. From reading the book, I am now clear about the managerial processes involved in strategic management which includes forming a strategic vision and mission, setting objectives, crafting a strategy, implementing and executing the strategy, and then over time initiating whatever corrective adjustments in the vision, mission, objectives, strategy, and execution as deemed appropriate.

Students learning business studies particularly at MBA level as well as managers who have to formulate and implement strategies will find the book useful and handy.