Books

Building an Import/Export Business, 3rd Edition

Average customer rating:

Very good book
A good book to understand what everybody else is doing
Baby steps
Great Technical manual on how to do Import/Export
A great primer...and that's about it: a primer

Building an Import/Export Business, 3rd Edition
Kenneth D. Weiss
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Import/Export: How to Get Started in International Trade
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ASIN: 0471202495

Book Description

"Essential reading for anyone concerned with importing and exporting."
—International Small Business Journal

Build your import /export business faster, stronger, and more profitably

Give your budding import/export business a big boost and keep it going strong with expert advice and proven solutions from one of the foremost authorities in the field. In Building an Import/Export Business, Third Edition, renowned entrepreneur, international trade consultant, and lecturer Kenneth Weiss brings you completely up-to-date guidance on every aspect of conceiving, launching, and operating a successful import/export business.

This easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide is packed with the very latest information on government regulations, tax laws, customs requirements, and shipping procedures. What's more, it features proven strategies for using the Internet to reduce costs, gain a marketing edge, establish sales and information resources, and develop a targeted customer base. You'll also learn how to:

Choose a winning product line
Target a profitable market
Prepare a powerful business plan
Cope with rising security concerns
Make foreign currency transactions with confidence
Take advantage of GATT, WTO, NAFTA, and other trade pacts

Customer Reviews:

Very good book.......2006-10-03

Excellent book. Well organized, and well written. Lots of pointers to other resources as well. Some web links are broken.

A good book to understand what everybody else is doing.......2006-10-01

Well, where do I start? This book is useful to understand what every small time operator is doing in this business. You don't want to follow the crowd so I suggest you purchase this book and John Weiley Spiers Book "How Small Business Trades Worldwide". If you follow the techniques outlined by Weiss you're wasting your time, taking on too much risk, and making very little profits. I'm not saying you can't do it, for example, using trade bulletins to find buyers but so is everybody else! This is not an easy business if you do it this way. No real mention of the internet is made to make it useful nor does he focus too much on the marketing aspects which is the most important. Again, there are ways, and very few of them, to make some big profits. In a strange way, I am recommending this book so you understand what everybody else is doing to get into this business, and hopefully you don't follow. If someone is starting off in their own business, I highly recommend you start out as a Manufacturers representative and branch out as an importer/exporter as part of the overall business. [...]

Baby steps.......2006-04-11

This book is fine for the very early entrepreneur. There is an entire chapter on choosing between forms of organization, buying office supplies and creating a logo. It's a good birds-eye-view of the import/export process, however, if you are a professional seeking insights and business solutions, you will not find many new ideas here.

Great Technical manual on how to do Import/Export.......2005-07-26

Found this one to be well done, but a little more technical than I prefer. This book does include just about every bit of info you will need, from forms to products to making the right overseas and domestic connections. Also look at Import/Export: How to Get Started in International Trade.

A great primer...and that's about it: a primer.......2005-06-16

This book is a good way to start learning about international trade. The information you read in this book will help you throughout your venture. Keep in mind, however, that this book is only a beginer's book. You will need to aquire a lot more knowledge before you will be ready to dive into the international trade pool.

Successful Proposal Strategies for Small Business: Using Knowledge Management to Win Government, Private-Sector, and International Contracts

Average customer rating:

Knowledge-Based Mentorship!
Fellow Small Business CEOs, Institutionalize this Material!!
Excellent Source of Proposal Management Information
An Indispensible Resource for Small Govenment Contractors

Successful Proposal Strategies for Small Business: Using Knowledge Management to Win Government, Private-Sector, and International Contracts
Robert S. Frey
Manufacturer: Artech House Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Federal Contracting Made Easy, Second Edition
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ASIN: 1580533329

Book Description

Expanded and revised again for its Third Edition, this popular book and its companion CD-ROM are highly accessible, self-contained desktop references developed to be informative, practical, and easy to use. They help small and mid-sized businesses as well as non-profit organizations and public-sector agencies to achieve effective, efficient, and disciplined business development, proposal development, and knowledge management (KM) processes. These, in turn, contribute to increased contract awards and enhanced levels of revenue. Using this book, any small company or organization with a viable product or service can learn how to gain and keep a client's attention, even when working only a few employees. Entrepreneurs can use this resource to assist in the establishment of best-of-breed business development, proposal development, knowledge management, and publications infrastructures and processes within their organizations. In many ways, a small company's future performance in the marketplace will be a direct result of how effectively it chooses to implement the disciplined business development, proposal development, and KM processes and methodologies as well as the modes of thinking presented in this work. All 18 chapters have been updated and expanded to provide you with the very latest guidance on effective proposaling—so essential to the growth and development of your organization.

CD-ROM Included! Features useful proposal templates in Adobe Acrobat, platform-independent format; HTML pointers to Small Business Web Sites; a comprehensive, fully searchable listing Proposal and Contract Acronyms; and a sample architecture for a knowledge base or proposal library.

Recent reviews of the Second Edition of this work have been published in Business Week (New York); Minorities and Women in Business (Washington, D.C.); Canada One Magazine; E-merging Business magazine (Pacific Palisades, California); Small Business Advisor (Los Angeles); and Women's Business of South Florida (Hollywood, Florida). Amazon.com, where it ranks in the top 1% of sellers, includes 10 exemplary reviews of the Second Edition of the book, as well.

Customer Reviews:

Knowledge-Based Mentorship!.......2003-02-19

The most comprehensive, single source, small business strategy guidebook I have read and applied.
The tactical processes Robert Frey recommends gets you focused early by crystallizing your business strategy, mentoring you step by step, establishing knowledge-based decision points and executing a successful proposal.
The CD is a great plus with schedules, proposal templates, and more to get you started for your next contract award!

Fellow Small Business CEOs, Institutionalize this Material!!.......2002-12-10

In this blue-ribbon edition, Robert Frey provides enough valuable proposal management detail to establish your proposal department, to write your proposal manager's job description, to outline your proposal team's functions, to produce topflight and winning proposals, and to measure the proposal team's success. And if that were not enough, Frey offers his bravura insights into knowledge management and how this wonderful concept can be realistically and incrementally applied to the proposal development process.

Frey mentors you to success with regard to every aspect of proposal management. Frey's style is not staid and wooden. To the contrary, his love for his audience and his desire for their proposal management success shines forth. I would pay twice as much for the book. My company's proposal win rate this year alone proves the worth of the material in these pages. Invest in it, do what it says, and prepare for the reward.

Excellent Source of Proposal Management Information.......2002-11-20

Bob Frey has again created a valuable source of information that should be on every Business Development professional's desk. It presents a clear and concise approach to properly managing the proposal business acquisition process, including creating a winning proposal. The use of Knowledge Management approach to leveraging intellectual property provides an excellent approach to crafting a winning strategy and incorporating it in the proposal. I highly recommend this book.

An Indispensible Resource for Small Govenment Contractors.......2002-05-21

The previous editions of Robert Frey's invaluable book "Successful Proposal Strategies for Small Businesses" have already established this title as a virtual bible of proposal development for small business government contractors, particularly in the support services. Now, with this third edition, some 20% longer and with extensive new material, Frey expands the utility of this important book by integrating his approach with the emerging discipline of Knowledge Management.

In addition to his complete yet concise discussion of nuts-and-bolts proposal issues such as organization of the proposal volumes, establishing the role of the proposal manager, and so on, Frey demonstrates how an effective organization of corporate intellectual capital can be a critical resource in the marketing proposal process. Importantly, he provides step-by-step procedures for creating such an added-value environment.

As in the previous two editions, Frey's approach is very highly application-oriented. He lays out theory when necessary, but his principal goal -- which he achieves admirably -- is to equip the reader with an exhaustively complete set of marketing and proposal development procedures and tools (all the way down to a template for phone lists!).

If I have any complaints at all, it is that the sequence of chapters could use some rearranging; a chapter on internatiohnal proposals seems to be placed unexpectedly, and there is one very brief chapter on private-sector solicitations that could be easily merged with another chapter or deleted altogether. But these are quibbles. This book has garnered a well-deserved reputation as arguably the premier reference work in this field. It is inadequate to state that it deserves a place in every small government contractor's library; it would be more accurate to say that such firms cannot afford *not* to have this book and pay close attention to it!

The Offshore Nation: Strategies for Success in Global Outsourcing and Offshoring
Average customer rating:

Highly informative and readable

Highly recommended

Make Sure You're Looking for Info on OFFSHORING - not OUTSOURCING

A must read even if you don't outsource or are not in the business of outsourcing

A Must Read for Managing Today And Leading Into The Future

The Offshore Nation: Strategies for Success in Global Outsourcing and Offshoring
Atul Vashistha , and Avinash Vashistha
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Offshoring Information Technology: Sourcing and Outsourcing to a Global Workforce

ASIN: 0071468129

Book Description

Widely practiced by many Fortune 500 companies, global outsourcing has become one of the key strategic imperatives for successful enterprises. Often referred to as offshore outsourcing, services globalization is the next step in the evolution of global trade and capitalism. Top organizations are performing, buying, selling, and transforming services at an incredibly quick pace.

Written by outsourcing and global services experts Atul and Avinash Vashistha, The Offshore Nation presents a comprehensive, balanced view of the rapid growth of outsourcing and its expanding role in corporate strategy, providing a roadmap for business leaders and upper-level managers to plan their own strategies. Drawing upon their vast experience as consultants to Fortune 1000, multinational corporations, the authors help you determine what role offshore services should play in your company, how to integrate the strategy into your overall corporate identity, and successfully manage the initiative on an enterprise-wide level.

This practical, strategy-packed guide outlines the "big picture" of outsourcing, breaking down its different components and examining its impact on world and local economies and employment shifts. Covering outsourcing in many different countries and a variety of services--from IT, telecom, and customer service to accounting--the authors reveal best practices and step-by-step, proven methods for:

Building a sound globalization strategy
Identifying the processes that are mature enough to send offshore
Choosing the right business model for globalizing IT, back office, and other services
Attracting and retaining customers
Effectively managing your suppliers

Chock-full of valuable insights and tactical advice, The Offshore Nation is the authoritative primer for global outsourcing, helping companies to minimize the risks and maximize their return on investment.

Customer Reviews:

Highly informative and readable.......2006-07-11

This book provides a great framework for analyzing and determining the why, what, how and where of offshoring. If your organization is considering a shift towards offshoring, then you should find this book very useful in helping you think through the business case. The book does not drown you in details, but still provides a comprehensive overview of the offshoring industry.

Highly recommended.......2006-05-18

"The Offshore Nation - The Rise of Services Globalization" is an excellent guide for companies putting together their offshore strategy, as well as for companies that have already done it but want better results. It beautifully captures the global trends and gives practical yet comprehensive guidelines on how to do offshoring right - things that come out straight from the authors' rich experience in the area. Highly recommended.

Make Sure You're Looking for Info on OFFSHORING - not OUTSOURCING.......2006-05-15

Offshoring and Outsourcing just got jumbled again in the American vocabulary. The Offshore Nation is written by experts on the Indian BPO marketplace. If thats what you're trying to understand, this book is very helpful. If your goal is limited to large corporation, call center projects or transaction processing, this book is very helpful.
For all other areas of Outsourcing, I highly recommend you read any one of the other books who don't confuse offshoring and outsourcing better than Lou Dobbs.

A must read even if you don't outsource or are not in the business of outsourcing.......2006-05-12

Atul's book `The Offshore Nation' offers a very insightful ring-side view of the macro-economic trend towards globalization of services and how organizations and business leaders can effectively leverage this in a global economy for competitive advantage. Atul through his organization, NeoIT, has played a lead role in shaping the sourcing strategies of global organizations and the book is both thought provoking as well as prescriptive. It is a must read even if you don't outsource or are not in the business of outsourcing, for sooner or later, you will be a part of this global economy where work moves to where it gets done best."

A Must Read for Managing Today And Leading Into The Future.......2006-05-08

Speaking as the CEO of Sourcing Interests Group, a major ongoing outsourcing forum, The Offshore Nation hits a homerun in providing practical, immediately useful insight into the many facets and considerations of offshore outsourcing. Clearly this is one of the most important books on outsourcing that has ever been written. I highly recommend it.

The 86 Percent Solution: How to Succeed in the Biggest Market Opportunity of the 21st Century

Average customer rating:

So, True
Tactical/Neighborhood Implementation for Ethical Profit from the Poor
Very unique look into the biggest market for years to come.
Expert Guidance to Almost Unlimited Opportunities
The markets are there, but the rules are vastly different...

The 86 Percent Solution: How to Succeed in the Biggest Market Opportunity of the 21st Century
Vijay Mahajan , and Kamini Banga
Manufacturer: Wharton School Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Strategy & Competition | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (The Wharton Press Paperback Series)
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The Mirage of Global Markets: How Globalizing Companies Can Succeed as Markets Localize

ASIN: 0131489070

Customer Reviews:

So, True.......2006-10-26

In the last couple of years several books have been published focusing on the huge, largely untapped, and unfocused upon, regional/local markets of people in LDC nations. Focusing on the needs, preferences, and wants of the people in these markets pave the way for mutual benefits and stronger symbiotic relationships. Authors Vijay Mahajan and Kimini Banga continue this relevant discourse with "The 86 Percent Solution." Their focus on the 'local and regional' instead of a national market is important for knowledge and understanding. Instead of focusing on national borders, businesspeople are focusing on Shanghai, Mumbai, town X, or city Y, or region Z. Not the "Indian Market, Chinese Market," or "Russian market." The crux likes back to this fact: eighty-six percent of the people on planet Earth earn less than $10,000 USD per year.

Many points in this book are common sense. If you're doing business in an area, then of course you have to learn about local area, and a neighborhood's conditions, wants, and needs. There is focus on marketing here, which seems to mean: dump products down people's throats and profit from it at the same time. (I understand the necessity for mutual benefits.) But at times this book sounds like "How to do business in LDC regions for dummies." To be fair, the information in this book is needed by many that come to foreign countries with very little insight into "how things really work" at the local and cultural level. This includes not only market needs, but how to behave, be culturally sensitive, and understand local, cultural etiquette. I frequently witness first-hand MBA grads and experienced western business people come to a foreign country with immense business, product knowledge, and marketing expertise. And they fall flat on their faces because they didn't have the proper information, training, and exposure to culturally deal with the local people. Oft-times these people didn't consider this knowledge or awareness to be important.

With globalization and increasing WTO-country membership, this book and others will be increasingly important to those doing business overseas and having business relationships with customers, employees, fellow managers, and even strangers. Cultural awareness is often equally just as important as "business knowledge." Sometimes, it's more important.

A note by the authors on English as the International Language:
The authors claim that English may not be the International Business Language in the future. This assertion is completely false and without merit. The authors state that "If you want to work with 86 percent of the world, you need to speak the languages of the 86 percent."

Yes, business people need to learn foreign languages. True, it's important for foreigners to study and attempt to learn the local language of a region if they are going to do business and/or live somewhere for a period of time. It leads to more cultural understanding and less instances of mis-communication. But the demand for English is skyrocketing in China and many other countries of the world. The demand for learning other non-English languages will increase - but the demand to learn and use English will not decrease. It will continue to grow, and much faster than other languages.

The contention that students and future business people from all over the world will learn Mandarin, Arabic, and Hindi because the *number* of people who speak these languages is greater, is oversimplified and unrealistic.

Just ask the Chinese: "Do you want foreigners to learn Mandarin?" Or, is it better for Chinese people to learn English?
The Chinese want to learn English. They also benefit tremendously from foreigners *not* learning Chinese. Ask a Vietnamese, Russian, Korean, Japanese, American, or German if they want to spend over 7+ years studying intensive Mandarin?

Chinese and Arabic speakers who learn English can communicate and do business all over the world in all continents. Mandarin speakers can do business only in certain parts of China. Big difference.
Non-native English speakers currently outnumber native English speaker by 4 to 1, and this gap is increasing.

Kudos to Mahajan and Banga for this book and their work in this field, which is finally getting more attention. Attention that is just, and far over due.

A related point:
The recent Nobel Prize awarded to Mohammed Yunus and his Grameen Bank for his micro-loans provided directly to poor people living in rural areas who are otherwise considered "not bankable." Most banks focus on large public projects and require collateral and credit. These large projects often involve corruption and embezzlement. The percentage of borrowers who repay their loans under Yunus's micro-lending program is very high. It works.

This is an informative and helpful book.

Tactical/Neighborhood Implementation for Ethical Profit from the Poor.......2006-03-16

This book is best appreciated if you have first read C.K. Prahalad's "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," William Grieder's "The Soul of Capitalism," and Stuart Hart's "Capitalism at the Crossroads." It is a tactical or foreign neighborhood (both in the Third World and in the immigrant sections of the First World) implementation manual for profiting from sales to the poor.

It makes many obvious points as well as many not so obvious points, and I will not list them here. This is a book that requires patience and careful reading. The author has brought forward a great deal of detail in a very easy to read way.

I will end with thought that the Wharton School's publishing arm has really catalyzed for me with these varied book. The five billion at the bottom of the pyramid are the last remaining super-power on this planet. The good news is that we can profit from enriching them. The bad news is that we still have morons in power that think we can keep them down by using guns. Newsflash: there are not enough guns on the planet to keep the five billion and their off-spring from over-running us. Capitalism, and the rapid nurturing of indigenous self-sustaining wealth that includes the rapid education of women (which leads to saner men, less disease, limited growth) is our only salvation.

This book is one of a handful that could be said to be truly revolutionary in terms of transforming the planet from one beset by poverty, to one inspired by entrepreneurship at the neighborhood level.

Very unique look into the biggest market for years to come........2006-01-17

The 86 Percent Solution : How to Succeed in the Biggest Market Opportunity of the Next 50 Years (Hardcover)
by Vijay Mahajan, Kamini Banga
ISBN: 0131489070
The authors provide a very unique look into the biggest market for years to come.
The book The 86 Percent Solution provides rich insights into the emerging markets where per capita incomes of individuals is as low as $300 but still provide tremendous scope for growth.
Developing markets offer the greatest potential for gains unheard of in the developed markets. To venture into these markets companies will have to (un)learn all that worked elsewhere. The things that worked in developed economies and the basic presumptions made will not work in most developing nations of today. The concept of consumer is king is a myth in these places, where in fact a consumer is a person with limited purchasing power, bargaining power and storage capacity.
What works for marketing Fast Moving Consumer Goods won't work for Consumer Durables or for Services. Even though developing markets seem risky as there is little or no credit risk monitoring at the dealer level besides the usual problems of lack of infrastructure there will always be a first mover advantage for companies willing to invest in infrastructure.
Products like water filtration systems for individual homes will find a ready market where potable drinking water is unheard of. In the rural markets even with the sweltering heat it is difficult to sell an air conditioner where uninterrupted power supply is neither available nor expected.
To sell in these markets region specific plans rather then country specific ones will need to be formulated and implemented, due to the fragmented nature of the markets having their own special needs.
Through various example the authors explain all that works and doesn't work and why.
This book is a must read for all those who wish to tap this market and also all those who always wondered why all their wining strategies which worked so well for them for so many years everywhere else, just don't work in these markets.
The coauthor Vijay Mahajan is a former dean of the Indian School of Business and holds the John P. Harbin Centennial Chair in Business at McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin.
The coauthor Kamini Banga is an independent marketing consultant and managing director of Dimensions Consultancy Pvt. Ltd.

Expert Guidance to Almost Unlimited Opportunities.......2006-01-05

With regard to the meaning and significance of the title, Mahajan and Banga explain that 86% of the world has a per capita gross national product (GNP) of less than $10,000 per year. So what? Not only do those markets represent the future of global commerce; "they also present rich opportunities for companies that have the imagination and creativity to envision [consumers within those markets]. But you won't recognize these opportunities through the lens of the developed world. You won't reach these consumers through the market strategies that work in the 14 percent markets. Developing markets have no smooth superhighways, no established consumer markets, no distribution networks, and, in many cases, no electricity. Developing markets are younger, behind in technology (but rapidly catching up), and inexperienced as consumers. These markets are very different. Yet with creative solutions tailored to their distinctive characteristics, ...you can realize the rich opportunities of these 86 percent markets."

Mahajan and Banga have carefully organized their material within eleven chapters which range from a rigorous analysis of "the lands of opportunity" to a "Conclusion" in which they explain why the markets in underdeveloping countries "not to be missed." More specifically, they discuss what they describe as a "complex tapestry" of convergent civilizations in which there really do seem to be almost unlimited opportunities to increase both the standard of living and quality of life for hundreds of millions of consumers. The challenge for those companies which attempt to market various goods and services in those markets is to understand their unique characteristics. To me, it seems at east as important to understand what they are not as it is to understand what they are...or can (and will) become.

Here are two brief excerpts and then a checklist which, I hope, indicate the scope and depth of Mahajan and Banga's analysis.

"There is no Chinese market. There is a market in Shanghai, or in a neighborhood in Shanghai. There is no Indian market. There is a market in Mumbai or Chennai, or in their local neighborhoods. Developing countries are a collection of fragmented local markets in a country that is gathered loosely under a single flag." (Page 77)

"Think English is the language to know for business? Maybe not for long. Consider that Mandarin Chinese has the largest number of speakers in the world -- a billion, including second-language speakers. This is followed by English, with about half as many speakers, and then Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Bengali, and Russian. If you want to work with 86 percent of the world, you need to speak the languages of the 86 percent." (page 83)

Which strategies will be most effective when "taking the market to the people"? Mahajan and Banga suggest seven:

1. Position for the paanwalla (i.e. small shop)

2. Create multiple levels of distribution (e.g. Hindustan Lever's "Project Shakti" based a direct-to-home model involving self-help groups, each comprised of 10-15 underprivileged women)

3. Use distribution bubbles (i.e. carnivals, market days, and vans which come and go) to find customers where they are

4. Take the bank out of the branch (e.g. Citibank's use of vans and a network of 9,000 direct-selling agents, called "Citi Friends," who visit homes)

5. Develop on-the-ground insights (i.e. understand and adapt to local aND even neighborhood regulations and conditions)

6. Create distribution systems from scratch (e.g. a new distribution system, based on grassroots networks, which built a supply chain for a camel's milk dairy in Mauritania)

7. Use existing networks creatively (e.g. the "dabbawala system" in Mumbai, India, probably the world's most efficient lunch delivery system which collects 175,000 home-cooked meals from workers' homes and delivers them to their offices)

Thoughtfully, Mahajan and Banga provide a section at the end of each of the first ten chapters, "The 86 Percent Solution," which summarizes key points and facilitates subsequent review of them. Before concluding their brilliant book, Mahajan and Banga share these thoughts when explaining why numbers are on the side of the developing world: Population Equals Profits. "The transformation is just beginning. There will be hiccups along the way and further surprises over the next two decades as the next `Chinas' and `Indias' emerge. The only certainty is the the 86 percent markets are here to stay. These markets are young and growing. Even though they won't become developed tomorrow,,, they are the future. And the companies that can develop the right solutions to meet their needs will find a rich source of growth."

Who will derive the greatest benefit from Mahajan and Banga's book? In my opinion, they are decision makers in two different categories of companies: Those which now market or are about to market in underdeveloping countries, and, other companies which now do business with -- or plan to do business with -- those in the first category. I also think this book will be of substantial interest and value to public officials who are now actively involved with helping to support global commerce.

Congratulations to Mahajan and Banga on a brilliant achievement!

The markets are there, but the rules are vastly different..........2005-12-16

Business is obviously always on the lookout for growth opportunities. In the book The 86% Solution - How To Succeed In the Biggest Market Opportunity of the 21st Century by Vijay Mahajan and Kamini Banga, the argument is made (and quite effectively) that the largest new markets are in the developing countries... 86% of the world. However, the rules are significantly different in those markets...

Contents: The Lands of Opportunity; Don't Build a Car When You Need a Bullock Cart; Aim for the Ricochet Economy; Connect Brands to the Market; Think Young; Grow Big by Thinking Small; Bring Your Own Infrastructure; Look for the Leapfrog; Take the Market to the People; Develop with the Market; An Opportunity Not to Be Missed; Index

Many companies that have tried to move into these developing countries did so by following the same rules that worked in the richest 14% of the world. They more often than not failed miserably. The economies are different, the purchasing power is different, and the market plays by different rules based on culture. The authors do an excellent job in showing how a different approach to these markets are necessary in order to succeed. For instance, in "Grow Big by Thinking Small", they explain that developing country consumers are using to buying what they need when they need it, and only the amount they immediately need. They often don't have either the space to store bulk quantities nor the extra income to stockpile. Trying to sell laundry detergent for 100 loads will fail. Selling enough soap for one load for a few pennies will work. The margins are thin, but the volume is huge. Your company needs to figure out how to make it all work. In "Take the Market to the People", you'll learn that the concept of going to the nearest Wal-Mart is completely unknown. Your "store" may be a stall at a weekly market bazaar or a person cycling your wares from village to village. You better understand that and package/price accordingly. And what do you do when you're marketing electrical items in a country where power is normally unavailable for hours each day? That's your new reality...

For any business or entrepreneur looking to tap into the vastly underserved global markets, this book is required reading. Even if you're just moderately interested in business and markets, the information here is fascinating. What we consider normal, really isn't...

Guanxi (The Art of Relationships): Microsoft, China, and Bill Gates's Plan to Win the Road Ahead

Average customer rating:

Where's the Guanxi?!
guanxi (the art of relationships)
Essential reading on China, Microsoft, and the future of innovation

Guanxi (The Art of Relationships): Microsoft, China, and Bill Gates's Plan to Win the Road Ahead
Robert Buderi , and Gregory T. Huang
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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China CEO: Voices of Experience from 20 International Business Leaders
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ASIN: 0743273222

Book Description

Half a world away from the calm beauty of Puget Sound, there's a lab where Bill Gates's software dreams come true. . . . So begins Guanxi, the compelling on-the-scenes tale of the allure of China today -- and of a unique partnership between the world's most famous capitalist and the world's largest communist nation that showcases what it takes to compete in the age of global innovation.

Guanxi (gwan-shee), the Chinese term for mutually beneficial relationships essential to success in the Middle Kingdom, tells the story of the juggernaut research lab that underpins Microsoft's relationship building in China. Unfurled through a gripping narrative that moves between Beijing and Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, it follows the lab's emergence as a mecca for Chinese computer-science talent -- a place where 10,000 résumés arrive in a month, written exams are farmed out to eleven cities to screen applicants, and interns sleep on cots next to their cubicles. So far, the company has invested well over $100 million and hired more than 400 of China's best and brightest to turn the outpost into an important window on the future of computing and a training ground to uplift the state of Chinese computer science -- creating dramatic payoffs for both Microsoft and its host country that are helping the company overcome many of the challenges of China.

Guanxi traces the arc of the lab's stunning success from a memo by erstwhile Microsoft visionary Nathan Myhrvold to its early days under maverick speech recognition guru Kai-Fu Lee (since plucked away by Google for some $10 million), and to its more recent tutelage under former child prodigies Ya-Qin Zhang and Harry Shum. The two China-born stars, who both attended college in their native country by the age of thirteen, have orchestrated the Beijing lab's recent emergence as an epicenter of Microsoft's intensifying battles against Google in the search wars, Nokia in the wireless arena, and Sony in graphics and entertainment.

As pundits rail about the "China threat" to U.S. competitiveness and offer often-hackneyed arguments against outsourcing, Guanxi explores the true ramifications of China's high-tech buildup -- and the means by which it can be turned to competitive advantage, in part by "insourcing" the untapped talent in the country's top universities. Sprinkled with telling observations, compelling characters, and lively anecdotes about the brilliant successes and sometimes painful stumbles of the world's most powerful software company, Guanxi is essential reading for business leaders, entrepreneurs, and technologists around the globe.

Customer Reviews:

Where's the Guanxi?!.......2006-10-22

Microsoft's PR Department couldn't have written thicker, more syrupy, praise for Microsoft. Guanxi is the chinese word for mutually beneficial relationships, it's a complex concept that involves respect, reciprocality, and a certain deference to the person with more authority. It is not covered in this book. Rather, this is a book that paints a super happy face on a long process and smooths out or ignores the rough edges. I recommend doing an Amazon search on Guanxi and reading some of the other books on business in China, like the China Dream, if you want a clearer picture of Guanxi. If you want the Disneyfied version of Microsoft's research lab, this is the book for you.

guanxi (the art of relationships).......2006-05-18

I met Buderi and Huang on their book tour, and couldn't wait to get my hands on this book. What a tale they tell, as they show how Microsoft early on, embraced the world of talent coming up through Chinese universities and turned it to the company's advantage. I especially like the stories of how young Chinese researchers just out of university found themselves in Redmond, presenting for Bill Gates.
China is hungry and rich in talent, not just markets, and this book shows why.

Essential reading on China, Microsoft, and the future of innovation.......2006-05-18

As someone keenly interested in China and the future of innovation, I gobbled up this book almost as soon as it was out. I was not disappointed. In a usually fast-moving narrative, peppered with funny stories and telling anecdotes, Buderi and Huang dive down into rich detail about the creation and evolution of Microsoft's incredibly successful Beijing research lab, and how despite several stumbles it has improved relations with Chinese government and academe. A revealing lawsuit with Google accentuates the end of the story, as Google hires away the original star behind the lab. Readers will come away with a much deeper understanding of what it takes to compete in emerging nations like China.

Successful Proposal Strategies For Small Businesses: Using Knowledge Management To Win Government, Private-Sector, And International Contracts (Artech ... Management and Professional Developm)

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The Rubber Meets the Road Guide to Successful Proposal Writing
A Must Read for Small Businesses That Want to Win!
Exceptional & Proven Resource for Small Business Entrepreneurs
Book Review
An essential resource for anyone preparing proposals

Successful Proposal Strategies For Small Businesses: Using Knowledge Management To Win Government, Private-Sector, And International Contracts (Artech ... Management and Professional Developm)
Robert S. Frey
Manufacturer: Artech House Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Federal Contracting Made Easy, Second Edition
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Win Government Contracts for Your Small Business (CCH Business Owner's Toolkit series)

ASIN: 1580539572

Book Description

Newly expanded and thoroughly revised to reflect and meet the demands of a high-velocity global business environment, the Fourth Edition of this popular book and its companion CD-ROM are highly accessible, self-contained desktop references developed to be informative, practical, and easy to use. They help small and mid-sized businesses as well as non-profit organizations and public-sector agencies to achieve effective, efficient, and disciplined business development, proposal development, and knowledge management (KM) processes.

Among an extensive array of updates and new material, the fourth edition…

· Introduces storytelling as a proposal art, along with solution development;

· Emphasizes the value of front-end proposal planning and storyboarding (including elevator speeches, annotated outlines, and pain tables);

· Underlines the importance of focusing on the customer mission in proposals;

· Significantly expands the discussion of performance-based acquisition (PBA) and the latest U.S. Government procurement reforms and what they mean for small businesses; and

· Discusses the development of successful grant proposals for the first time in this volume.

This edition contains one of the most complete, comprehensive, and fully integrated analyses of U.S. federal procurement reform from 1984 to 2004. In addition, you find numerous useful, up-to-the-minute resources for U.S. and overseas businesses that want to engage in international business and proposal development. Using this book, any small company or organization with a viable product or service can learn how to gain and keep a client's attention, even when working only a few employees. Entrepreneurs can use this valuable resource to assist in the establishment of best-of-breed business development, proposal development, knowledge management, and publications infrastructures and processes within their organizations. In many ways, a small company's future performance in the federal, private-sector, and international market space will be a direct result of how effectively it chooses to implement the disciplined business development, proposal development, and KM processes and methodologies as well as the modes of thinking presented in this work.

Customer Reviews:

The Rubber Meets the Road Guide to Successful Proposal Writing.......2006-01-02

This is THE book for small business wishing to grow and thrive in the Fed Gov market place. Robert Frey is the first author to capture the true essence of Business Development, Knowledge Management, Capture Management and Proposal Development for leveraging small, disadvantaged business such as Service Disabled Veteran Owned, 8(a), HUBZone and others into the Fed Gov, Private Sector and International market. It offers concrete, tangible, rubber-meets-the-road advice on how to succeed in these highly competitive arenas. Highly recommended reading for the company that truly desires to succeed.

A Must Read for Small Businesses That Want to Win! .......2005-12-29

The best book on successful proposal strategies for small businesses available today! The 4th edition again raises the bar, incorporating the latest lessons learned and the latest techniques to consistently produce winning proposals. This book is a must read for all business development, capture management, and proposal management professionals. It serves as a tutorial as well as a reference, and is widely regarded as the Bible for small business proposals. Whether your small business is 10, 100, or 1000 employees, the application of these successful proposal strategies will increase your win rate and take your small business to the next level. The 4th edition not only provides a roadmap on how to write compliant proposals, but also how to gather and incorporate marketing intelligence [e.g., customer hopes, fears and biases] to produce the winning proposal. I highly recommend this book to all my colleagues, as this reference is equally valid for businesses of all sizes.

Exceptional & Proven Resource for Small Business Entrepreneurs.......2005-12-03

Winning proposals in the federal market space is incredibly challenging for small businesses. The 4th Edition of Robert S. Frey's book, Successful Proposal Strategies for Small Businesses, provides small business owners and managers with real-world, in-depth insights, best practices, and lessons learned to increase their proposal win rate on a sustained basis. The book is filled with hundreds of practical and field-tested ideas, templates, techniques, and methods. Successful Proposal Strategies is required reading for my management at 1-Source. Why? Because it is the single best proposal development resource on the market, period.

Book Review.......2005-04-04

This book is a must read for all proposal and capture professionals:

1. It is now in its 4th edition - lots of tuning, process updates, lessons learned, and continuous industry syncronization. The first edition was great, each new edition builds on that success while continuing to add more value.

2. The book is based on extensive first-hand experience with what works, what does not, and why. Bob makes effective use of collaboration with other industry leaders and introduces processes that have withstood the test of winning.

3. Although aimed at small businesses, the information is equally valid for businesses of all sizes.

4. The focus is on winning, winning, winning.

An essential resource for anyone preparing proposals.......2005-03-03

Bob Frey has created both a tutorial as well as a reference book that will guide you through the entire business development process from identification of opportunity through the completion and follow on activities of the proposal. It will introduce the novice to all the intricacies of proposal development and provide the seasoned veteran with new insights as we constantly endeavor to provide true value added services to our companies or clients. It is easy to read as a tutorial. It also is easy to find the answer to a particular vexing problem. It is loaded with references to informative web sites. I highly recommend it to all my colleagues whether they work for the small businesses identified in the title or for large corporations. Every consultant should have this on their bookshelf.

Entry Strategies for International Markets

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Entry Strategies for International Markets
Franklin R. Root
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0787945714

Book Description

Sage Advice on Going Global

Root's perspective is extremely insightful, and clearly the work of one who knows his topics from personal experience. It encapsulates what some of us have taken decades to learn through trial and error.
--Larry D. Bouts, president, International Division, Toys-R-Us, Inc.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, the new European common market, and the opening of Eastern Europe--among other recent geopolitical developments--have created unprecedented opportunities for American companies seeking to enter foreign markets. This guide offers executives practical advice, recently updated and expanded, on deciding which markets to enter, choosing a product for international distribution, designing an entry strategy, and developing an effective international marketing plan.

International Marketing: Strategy Planning, Market Entry & Implementation

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International Marketing: Strategy Planning, Market Entry & Implementation
Roger Bennett , Jim Blythe , and Harry Alder
Manufacturer: Kogan Page
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Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

* Restructured and fully updated new edition

Mastering Global Markets: Strategies For Today's Trade Globalist

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Mastering Global Markets: Strategies For Today's Trade Globalist
Michael R. Czinkota , Illka A. Ronkainen , and Bob Donath
Manufacturer: South-Western Educational Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0538726652

Book Description

This book is designed for business professionals that are either thinking about taking their business globally or want to improve their global strategy. Beginning first with an overview of the global business environment, Mastering Global Markets: Strategies for Today's Trade Globalist covers all aspects of entering global markets from strategic planning to tactical implementation.

Average customer rating:

Outstanding single source to help establish export policy.
An essential tool to have when doing international business.

Export Savvy: From Basics to Strategy
Zak Karamally
Manufacturer: Haworth Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0789005778

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding single source to help establish export policy........1998-12-24

Exporting is potentially a complex subject. Export Savvy, keeps it simple, easy to understand and as an extra feature, this book is an excellent reference. For the executive, this is an outstanding single source "fast read"; a key aid to help establish export policies and strategy. For export, import, compliance and international business development managers, Export Strategy is a great refresher and reference. For the college professor involved in international management/marketing classes this could be an excellent text with obvious inherent opportunities to assign "let's look into this further" student research projects. This is a well done body of information presented in an inviting journalistic style.

An essential tool to have when doing international business........1998-11-30

If your company is in international trade, international business, or exports, this book will give you and your staff the tools and common language for developing strategy and running your operation. I would recommend giving each person on your team a copy of this book.

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