Strategic Management

Is it possible to predict your financial future? Most business owners spend more time focused on the weather forecast than the status and forecast of their business. The truth is that the weather changes very quickly and is uncontrollable, but our business forecast is much more in our control. What if you could see into the future of your business? What if you had less stress, chaos, and uncertainty, and more influence over where you are going financially?

Gods of the Valley downs the businesses and big problems with Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple, examining upcoming market trends and potential disruptions that impact today’s tech giants and rating the businesses accordingly.

How do Michelin-ranked food stalls in Singapore and the decline of Swiss watches force all luxury brands to rethink their business models? What insights can the world's quietest place and a clothing dye produced by former tobacco farmers reveal about serving enlightened consumers? The answers to these questions may not be all that obvious. And that's exactly the point. For the past eight years, marketing expert and Georgetown University Professor Rohit Bhargava has curated his best-selling list of non-obvious trends.

In Crude Forecasts: Predictions, Pundits, and Profits in the Commodity Casino, Peter Sainsbury, economist, commodity investor and blogger at Materials Risk, shows how you can take back control.

In What's Your Moonshot? trend and innovation strategist John Sanei explains how to ask the bigger, bolder, more courageous questions that will help you thrive - rather than merely survive - in our exponentially changing times. With a future-focused victor mindset, Sanei decodes the mega-trends that are reshaping human behavior and the way we do business - not to mention, the way we live our lives.

For over 15 years, New York Times best-selling author Harry S. Dent, Jr. has been uncannily accurate in predicting the financial future. In his three previous works, Dent predicted the financial recession of the early 90s, the economic expansion of the mid-90s, and the financial free-for-all of 1998-2000.

Customization is coming in every industry, for every product. Embrace it or get left behind. Smart brands such as Chipotle, Zazzle, Nike, and Pandora are ditching the outdated 20th century model of a one-size-fits-all approach to providing products and services. From a Netflix movie night to a marriage courtesy of eHarmony, customization is changing every corner of American life and business.

The future is not what it used to be. In this volatile era, with the world changing rapidly, people are more curious than ever to know what lies ahead. Will relentless consumerism end up destroying our planet? Or can science and technology allow us to innovate our way out of trouble? Perhaps a greater social consciousness and community-based living will take over or, conversely, the competition for limited resources may result in everyone fighting for themselves.

Learn the 25 keys to a great business plan, including writing the company's mission, identifying marketing opportunities, calculating appropriate financial ratios, and projecting growth rates, that will help guide your company's expansion and attract necessary funding. Business Planning is part of The New York Times Pocket MBA Series.

The tumultuous changes of the past decade, including China's economic rise and the financial meltdown, were just the beginning. The next cataclysmic wave is surging relentlessly ahead, demanding leaders who can steer their companies through complexity and change. Leadership 2030 uncovers six megatrends that will dramatically impact organizations' markets, cultures, systems, and processes.

For years, marketers have held on to unwavering beliefs that have dictated how they market to their consumers. But the hard truth is that the changes we see in marketing and business are based on one undeniable factor - the size of the generations we are selling to. As each generation ages, what they buy and how much they buy will change.

The marketplace and allocation of internal resources are both increasingly competitive. Safety strategies of the future must align with evolving business goals. Will your company's safety efforts keep up with the demands of the future? Emerging trends are becoming increasing visible regarding how safety is viewed, thought of, strategically managed, and how progress is measured. Moreover, the cast of characters, the roles they play, and accountability for responsibilities are evolving, all for the better.

How bad will the current economy get? According to Eric Janszen, we could be facing an unemployment rate of over 10 percent; half of all retail stores boarded up; skeletons of unfinished buildings in our cities; and tax revenues down by 30 percent, leading to big cuts in government services. Sounds grim, but the good news is that this crisis will open the door to a saner economic future if we recognize the opportunity to correct decades of bad policy.

In Data Analytics: Using Big Data Analytics for Business to Increase Profits and Create Happy Customers, Matthew Adams reveals the reality of the big data analytics world, and outlines clear and actionable steps that will equip the listener with the tools needed for this next phase of human evolution. This book contains proven steps and strategies on how to use everyday data analytics for business to increase profitability and customer satisfaction.

Technology is advancing faster than ever - but for better or for worse? On the one hand, astonishing technological developments from personalized genomics to self-driving cars to drones to artificial intelligence could make our lives healthier, safer, and easier. On the other hand, these very same technologies could raise the specter of a frightening and alienating future - eugenics, a jobless economy, complete loss of privacy, and an ever-worsening spiral of economic inequality.

Globalization, long considered the best route to economic prosperity, is not inevitable. An approach built on the principles of free trade and, since the 1980s, open capital markets is beginning to fracture. With disappointing growth rates across the Western world, nations are no longer willing to sacrifice national interests for global growth, nor are their leaders able - or willing - to sell the idea of pursuing a global agenda of prosperity to their citizens.

With this guide, you can produce your own professional business plan without hiring a consultant. This is a fast, quick, and proven method of creating a business plan that will allow you to (i) approach potential investors, or (ii) show to stakeholders of the business - employees, banks, shareholders, etc.

As individuals, companies, and countries struggle to recover from the economic crisis, many are narrowly focused on forecasts for the next week, month, or quarter. Yet they should be asking what the global economy will look like in the years to come—where will the long-term risks and opportunities arise? These are the questions that Daniel Altman confronts in his provocative and indispensable book.

What enables great corporate leaders to detect signals that their industry, or perhaps the entire world, is about to change? How are they able to place their companies in a position to capitalize on that change? And how can you become one of those extraordinary people? It boils down to one word - vision. Leaders who lacked it have often guided their companies to obsolescence and failure. The rare leaders who cultivated a strong vision have disrupted industries, created new ones, and remade the world.

How do we stay safe? Should we? What if our attempts are exposing us even more to the very risks we are avoiding? Would acceptance of danger make us more secure? Is there such a thing as foolproof? In Foolproof, Greg Ip presents a macro theory of human nature and disaster that explains how we can keep ourselves safe in our increasingly dangerous world.