The Business Continuity Planning book focuses on guiding the reader to a plan and, to the book’s credit, does not stray from this subject. The Planning Forms on CD-ROM are numerous and detailed. These forms can be of great assistance to the reader who is trying to develop a plan.

Business Continuity Planning is designed for use by entry-level professionals as well as by interested non-professionals. The book is very easily to read and is logically organized. The reader should know that there is an emphasis on the non-technical aspects of Information Technology / Disaster Recovery planning.

HIPAA has become the latest industry bugaboo……..so many vendors are advertising that “HIPAA requires this or that…” it is very confusing to understand what is for real and what is just vendor hype. This book provides an unbiased assesment of what the regulations are looking for, as well as “best practices” approaches to satisfying them.

The author, a former army colonel currently featured as a military analyst on MSNBC and NBC News, is convinced that corporate America can learn vital lessons from the U.S. military. Business executives, according to Allard (Command, Control and the Common Defense), today function in a chaotic atmosphere dominated by globalization and rapidly changing information technology. He argues that recent corporate scandals such as the collapse of Enron as well as the high salaries of CEOs are symptomatic of the lack of leadership in industry, a loss that seriously impedes business success. Drawing on myriad examples from the military, Allard provides a series of war plans that he believes can change the corporate environment. Included is a recommendation to emulate the training followed at West Point to build idealistic managers, to devise overall military-like strategies rather than marketing plans and to be aware of and responsible for security programs to combat electronic terrorism. While Allard’s proposals to improve business leadership have merit, many of the military analogies are repetitive and forced. Much of his advice is delivered in an off-putting, hectoring tone that sometimes borders on bragging, and his potshots at former president Clinton feel inappropriate for a business manual.

BUSINESS AND SOCIETY employs a stakeholder management framework. This framework emphasizes a business?s social, legal, political, and ethical responsibilities to both external and internal groups that have a stake, or interest, in that business. It is a fundamental goal of the course that students really get that responsible business decision makers strive to balance and protect the interests of various stakeholders?investors, employees, community, environment, etc. An emphasis is also placed on the fact that one needs to understand that business situations will continually arise that will truly test ones values and ethics. BUSINESS AND SOCIETY not only exposes students to diverse and important stakeholder and ethical frameworks for considering and protecting stakeholder interests, through its use of cases and other real-world applications, this text enhances the precision with which students think about and practice ethical decision making. Opportunities to apply stakeholder and ethical systems to specific business problems abound, and questions are provided with all cases and applications to focus student reasoning, ensuring excellent preparation for class
discussions.

Aerospace giant Rockwell Collins typified the old-fashioned corporate approach to organizational learning: lackluster offerings in bland classroom settings, with little connection to the needs of employees or the goals of the company. Enter Cliff Purington and Chris Butler, who in three years transformed Rockwell into a full-fledged learning organization. With a strategy-based and technology-driven learning approach, a 400 percent increase in offerings, 24/7 access for 17,000 worldwide employees, and cost savings of $23 million, Rockwell is lauded and emulated by organizations all over the world. For this vital book, Purington and Butler have organized their revolutionary approach into 10 clear steps that can similarly transform any company. Readers will learn new ways to build relationships, define core learning objectives, present a solid business case, and implement programs and assess their value. Each step offers detailed processes to follow, and explains what worked (and what didn’t), revealing the secrets behind Rockwell’s stunning transformation.

This definitive resource provides you with a start-to-finish methodology for building and implementing successful virtual teams in any organization. It describes today’s best practical tools in virtual team design, project management, and change management to give you a rich, hands-on understanding of virtual collaboration and the many benefits that build the case for virtual team initiatives. You get expert guidelines for evaluating today’s collaborative technologies and software applications, and selecting those that best meet an organization’s specific needs. The book systematically maps out every step of team implementation, from identifying ideal participants to measuring team performance, and its coverage of key success factors gives you a veritable checklist of critical issues to monitor. Throughout, you find expert guidance to overcome the challenges unique to virtual teams, such as the need for facilitation in the absence of face-to-face encounters. Examples and case studies offer you field-tested perspective that further ensures your effective transition from traditional teams to virtual teams in any setting.

This is the first book to focus on the people side of knowledge management–what it takes to get employees to contribute to a knowledge system. Robert Buckman explains how to orchestrate this culture change, drawing from the lessons learned by Buckman Laboratories–the leader and pioneer in knowledge management–in implementing award-winning knowledge systems. His book is a practical primer on how organizations can move from “hoarding” knowledge to “sharing” it, building a global strategy that allows them to respond faster than the competition to any customer’s need on a global basis. Buckman reveals how to: Combat the biggest problem with implementing knowledge management–creating the culture that supports it Increase the speed of innovation globally across an organization Resolve technical problems quickly Make immediate, informed decisions to help solve customer issues Create new products based on customer input and demand.

According to this turgid primer, service with a smile is no longer enough. With today’s glut of interchangeable commodities and cynical consumers, every aspect of customer service must reinforce the brand image promulgated by the marketing department. Thus, employees of Fabulous Freddie’s gas stations try to work the word “fabulous” into every conversation with customers, while Abercrombie and Fitch hires college-age salespeople who look like their catalogue models. CNBC commentator Barlow, author of A Complaint Is a Gift, and consulting colleague Stewart, regale readers with anecdotes about snippy, sullen, ignorant sales associates who undermine brand loyalty and, worse, waiters and customer service reps whose carefully scripted cheerfulness and solicitude leave customers with a sour aftertaste of inauthenticity. Their ideal, derived from complexity theory conceits about the self-organizing behavior of flocking birds, is to get the typical high-turnover, minimum-wage service worker so imbued with the brand’s essence that it emerges in spontaneous, emotionally real encounters in which “service representatives and customers dance together in brand space.” Their suggestions include lots of human resources exercises in which employees ponder and internalize the brand messages expressed in advertising, as well as acting lessons, penmanship instruction, “personal image and professional presence training,” humor classes, seminars in reading body language, and exhortations to “live the brand” at work and at home. A case study of a makeover of a Bahamas resort, in which employees were instructed to translate the hotel’s marketing themes into the local island patois and create their own posters, dances and songs about them, gives readers a good sense of the book’s softly totalitarian approach to customer service.

Zimmerman and Lehman have written an encouraging and practical guide sure to help diffuse the fear and loathing with which most nonprofit board members face in fund development. Straight talk about board responsibilities sets the stage. Short easy exercises suitable for board meetings demonstrate fundraising skills and techniques. “Boards That Love Fundraising” provides the script for board presidents and staff to share the practice and the joy of successful resource development within any nonprofit.

“Lewis clearly knows his subject, and you can’t fault the advice he gives. His book.. is well researched, thoroughly prepared, and clearly presented.” — Building