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Customer Fraud and Business Responses: Let the Marketer Beware
Kelly Tian , and
Bill Keep
Manufacturer: Quorum Books
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ASIN: 1567203876 |
Book Description
From remarkably frank and credible responses to their comprehensive research questionnaire, Tian and Keep provide a unique, wide ranging catalogue of frauds that customers perpetrate on businesses--and what marketers can do to combat it. They were able to receive and analyze more than 250 written descriptions--a 71% response rate!--of the acts that customers committed and the methods they used. Instead of merely a checklist, Tian and Keep obtained their data in the customers' own words, resulting in highly detailed and reliable insights into why customers did what they did. They find that customer fraud has emerged as a form of guerilla warfare against companies, that it is adapted to specific situations, and that underlying customers' motivation is a need to "get even." Ethics has little do with it. In fact, some respondents even asserted that they had an obligation to commit fraud: they did it to retaliate against what they perceived as unethical acts that businesses committed against them. The result is a rare documentation of the specifics of fraud, how it threatens not only business but entire economies, and the actions--bold and subtle--that marketers can take in self-protective response. Not only will corporate management, particularly in marketing, get detailed descriptions of their customers' fraud strategies and tactics, but they will also receive insights into where they are vulnerable and why. Tian and Keep show that fraud has become so socially acceptable among middle class customers that they are willing to share their tactics, strategies, and secrets with their friends. With this as their foundation, the authors give practitioners an arsenal of detection and deterrence methods. Equally important, they provide ways to implement them without alienating their other, blameless customers. They also show marketers what they can do to reestablish trust in their marketing exchanges with customers, and improve relationships in ways that will diminish (if not fully eliminate) the incidence of fraud. For management generally as well as marketers in companies of all sizes and type, Tian's and Keep's book is essential, engrossing, and useful reading.
Customer Reviews:
Good Book.......2005-04-26
A fascinating survey of techniques used by consumers to defraud business; a reverse of most fraud books. Frauds identified range from acts that are unethical (e.g. is it really fraud to lie to a used car salesman? Negotiate price based on dealer financing, then switch to cash ......) to the undoubtedly criminal (e.g. false insurance claims).
It's surprising the authors received such candid responses and justifications. I learnt alot by reading this book.
Book Description
Are you a CEO, company president, or front-line financial manager recently involved in a merger or acquisition? After the Merger, long hailed as the indispensable reference source for anyone entering the M&A marketplace, is your bible for keeping costly post-merger surprises to a minimum. This classic text, first published in the heady days of 1985 and now revised to reflect new realities in today's rapidly-changing business world, is packed with fascinating case histories and examples involving TWA, Wells Fargo, and others. After the Merger shows you how to roll up your sleeves and combine two separate, highly distinct companies into one solid organization. Look here for details on ways to defuse the cultural time bombs that threaten to destroy international mergers; the 6 errors that managers make again and again, and how you can avoid them; best practices for handling the 4 major categories of merger, everything from "rescue" to "raid"; and time-saving checklists for executives on both sides of the acquisition. Whether you are in the middle of a merger or acquisition or just considering the possibility — no matter what your side — you need the completely updated and revised After the Merger to guarantee long-lasting, post-merger success.
Customer Reviews:
Highly Reccomended!.......2001-02-17
Despite the breathless headlines about the latest billion-dollar merger, most mergers don't work. In fact, more than half of all mergers fail, derailed by a common set of pitfalls. Companies merge without considering how they'll integrate after the deal; they don't communicate properly with their employees, and executives don't make decisions quickly enough to placate frightened workers. The executives who navigate mergers effectively are those who communicate well, deal with ambiguity and make decisions in times of instability. Author Price Pritchett offers an easily digested primer on the hazards of mergers, and lists hints for avoiding common problems. The authors provide plenty of concrete examples showing how such companies as Sony, Wells Fargo and the Chicago Sun-Times suffered from the dilemmas that accompany mergers. We ... recommend this comprehensive guide for managers on both sides of a business marriage. Caution: Read After the Merger before you merge.
Good Starting Place.......2000-11-14
As a project manager who picked up integrating a merger as one of his projects, I found this book to be very helpful. Mergers bring out confusion, tension and stress to all sides. This book focused on how to bridge these gaps through effective communication and project management.
Particularly, I found chapter 10 (General Guidelines for Merger/Acquisition Management) insightful and I used the checklists in this chapter in portions of our integration effort. What I felt this book missed were templates designed to immediately pick up and use in my everyday life.
I found the book is a quick read-I read it on one airplane trip. Many of the comments are very simple and fall into the category of common sense. However, in much of this common sense many of the problems of integrating two companies exist.
"The Authoritative Guide"? Give me a break!.......1999-12-30
This book should have been an short magazine article. The authors basically dissect one concept over and over and over: change is disruptive. There is very little useful information in this book. It points out all of the obvious and frequently-stated problems that come with change - productivity suffers, commitment is lost, etc., etc., etc., but gives no insight in how to fix the problems (unless you count these golden nuggets- "Keep your eye on the ball" and "Provide direction"). The one chapter that I hoped would shed some light on tactics - "Integration Project Management" - was pure fluff. It offered such pearls of wisdom as "It is helpful to look at the integration process as a logical sequence of steps designed to help bring the two organizations together." Not only is this a "Duh" statement, but it shows up in chapter 8! I would expect to read something like that in the introduction. And chapters 5 and 6 state that you should evaluate key talent in the aquired firm - but no where in these chapters does it tell you how to do it! I guess you have call up Pritchett & Associates (and fork over big $$) for the details. My only guess is that the authors kept the book generic on purpose so that companies would call and ask about their consulting services. My advice: save your money for a real book, and just call up Pritchett & Associates for their marketing literature.
Book Description
Deciding to merge is the first step in a long process. This book takes you the rest of the way—bringing together people, programs, processes, and systems from two (or more) organizations into a single, unified whole.
Amazon.com
When Terrence E. Deal and Allan A. Kennedy collaborated on Corporate Cultures in 1982, they were examining a facet of organizational life that over time would evolve from unknown to generally misunderstood to widely accepted. In light of the attention that corporate culture has since received--and the continuous pressures exerted upon it by everything from the broadening dependence on outsourcing to the growing recognition of shareholder value--Deal, a professor at the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, and Kennedy, an international management consultant and writer, decided to revisit and update their thinking in New Corporate Cultures. The two contend that a solid corporate culture is more important today than when they wrote their first book and examine ways that business leaders can "find a balance between the management actions needed to stay competitive and the human needs of workers to belong to meaningful institutions." Deal and Kennedy discuss the reasons that today corporate cultures are "in crisis" and offer suggestions for reversing the decline. --Howard Rothman
Book Description
The authors of the hugely influential Corporate Cultures reunite to assess the effects of the last two decades of management trends and to offer new strategies for achieving corporate renewal.
Customer Reviews:
A classic on corporate culture........2000-11-27
The other reviewers have summed up the best points about this book. Anyone studying organisational behaviour will be well advised to read this book. It brings you up-to-date in developments on the subject of corporate cultures in the 1990s. The book has global application. The notes at the end of the book are a useful reference to locate related articles and content.(My comments refer to the paperback edition.)
Corporate Cultures from 1980s to 2000s........2000-04-10
"In 1982 we published Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. We were motivated to write the book because of a nagging feeling that something was missing in our ability to understand organizations. This missing link was obviously very subtle-but also extremely powerful. Along with other pioneers (Organizational Culture and Leadership - E.Schein, Corporate Culture and Performance - J. Kotter / J. Heskett, Built to Last - J. Collins / J. Porras), we ventured an idea about what lay underneath the rational-technical veneer of business. We tagged the phantom force 'corporate culture.'... In this, our new book, we plan"Deal and Kennedy write, "to chronicle changes that have occured-where they came from, why they happened, and their effect on business cultures. We also offer suggestions for how corporations can be revitalized in the wake of the grueling assaults since the early 1980s. Our hope is that modern managers can use our book to find a balance between the management actions needed to stay competitive and the human needs of workers to belong to meaningful institutions."
In this context, with their words, Deal and Kennedy basically :
* summarize the evidence that has emerged since they first wrote about the importance of culture to superior performance over the long haul.
* chronicle, one by one, the forces that have chipped away at the culture of companies since the early 1980s.
* discuss the shareholder value movement and the impact it has had on corporate decisionmaking.
* focus on downsizing, which has cut the soul out of many corporations.
* show how outsourcing has emerged as the new tool of cost cutters just when conventional cost-reduction approaches have begun to run out of steam.
* explore how merger mania has forced the most unlikely of combinations on workforces still reeling from the waves of cost cutting that decimated them in the early 1990s.
* look at how computerization, potentially a tool for liberating workers from drudgery, has instead isolated workers from one another and made them servants to machines.
* discuss how the combination of these factors has decimated traditional corporate cultures, replacing joy, commitment, and loyalty with fear, alienation, and self-interest.
I highly recommend this study to all executives.
Look Back in Anger.......2000-01-27
The last twenty years have seen two major trends: increasing study of corporate cultures, and increasing reason to rue the cultures' progress. Since 1982, when Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy published Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life, the havoc wrought by corporate upheaval has been measured as much by the spillage of ink as by the ruin of employee life. Short-term management, outsourcing, downsizing, reengineering, mergers, and the ever-popular leveraged buy-outs have taken their toll on once-strong corporate cultures. Today, when authors and analysts detect fear, cynicism, and anomie among corporations' employees, their blame is laid unhesitatingly at the door of senior executives. Look on thy works, ye mighty, and despair.
Now Deal and Kennedy are back with a sequel, The New Corporate Cultures, and they shall not fail or falter in condemning what they find. They devote the first half of the volume to a trenchant economic history of the last two decades, exposing the roots of these negative cultures with remarkable clarity and precision. Drawing largely from key books and articles in the field, Deal and Kennedy describe a Bizarro, anti-Rockwell world - culture of want, culture of fear, culture of denial - that makes you want to weep into your beer. Gone are the corporate cultures of yesteryear, supplanted by "negative influences that threaten the ability of businesses to thrive and compete."
This is a distinctly diffident claim, and rightly so. While few would argue that weak cultures are a good thing, even fewer have come close to proving that they impact the bottom line. John Kotter and James Heskett gave it a shot in their Corporate Culture and Performance (1992); as Deal and Kennedy admit, "in [Kotter and Heskett's] analyses, cultural strength itself did not seem to correlate significantly with financial performance." (Not that this stops Deal and Kennedy from deliberately skewing those data and presenting the results as revelatory proof, accompanied by a jab at Harvard academics.) Even if we presume that the strength of a corporate culture can be measured - for which Deal and Kennedy give neither formula nor method - we still don't know that a culture affects performance or ROI, rather than the other way around. Emboldened by proselytizing zeal, the authors have fallen victim to logical fallacy. True, Southwest Airlines is profitable, therefore it does not downsize. But it's bad logic to conclude that Southwest does not downsize, therefore it is profitable.
Deal and Kennedy are offering antagonism over answers, and their petulance is ultimately as dispiriting as their findings. Although their attacks on reengineering and overpaid CEOs may be trite, at least they're supported by facts. But they reserve a particular vitriol for the young ("young money managers", "consultants, most of them young", "newly trained MBAs not eager to spend their time on factory floors", etc.) that is unseemly in a professor and a management consultant. And when it comes time for solutions, Deal and Kennedy submit five chapters of vague recommendations unsupported by suggestions for implementation. They propose, for example, that companies should create and publish fair criteria for deciding which jobs and people are retained. That's all very well - no one wants to feel his company's retention decisions are made by the Giant Claw from Toy Story, which chooses who will go and who will stay - but who decides what is fair, whether the criteria are met, and how ever-present performance metrics can be prevented from sapping workers' souls?
Unable to prove or retaliate, The New Corporate Cultures falls back on finger-pointing and name-calling. It's a pity, really, because the authors have much to offer. Their combination of cultural anthropology, secondary research, and intelligent prose is rare and welcome among the shelves of business literature, and their book is worth reading simply for its chronicle of the American corporation in the 1980s and 1990s. As diagnosis and prescription, however, The New Corporate Cultures needs a taste of its own medicine. If you're going to pour your readers a bitter cup, be certain that the suffering is justified by the cure.
New Corporate Cultures.......1999-12-09
Corporate leaders need to re-visit corporate values to keep on track. Allan Kennedy and Terence Deal have put a message for corporations in their book. Corporations depend on their people - and people need to feel positive about their work and work situation to make the company fly. The book gets into outsourcing, downsizing, mergers, globalization, shareholder value, and cultural leadership. A wake-up book, written in clear, simple terms, a worthwhile read.
Average customer rating:
- A weak sister to two masterpieces
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The Morning After: Making Corporate Mergers Work After the Deal is Sealed
Stephen J. Wall , and
Sharon Rye Wall
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0738205230 |
Book Description
Real-world strategies for overcoming roadblocks and making the most out of your company's acquisitions.
Despite the economic downturn, the corporate marriage frenzy continues to proceed at fever pitch, as companies reach beyond their traditional boundaries to gain access to resources, expertise, and markets. But after the ink is dry, most experiments in corporate acquisition fail to live up to expectations. In The Morning After, Stephen and Shannon Rye Wall showcase dozens of cases to identify the seven common myths and misconceptions of mergers and offer a wealth of concrete tools for leading and sustaining successful collaborations.
Customer Reviews:
A weak sister to two masterpieces.......2000-12-06
As a corporate executive, I am always seeking material that will provide new insights into ensuring deal success. This book doesn't offer much. Many of the major findings I've either read before in newspapers or come straight from the pages of more detailed books on how to succeed at M&A. There is not a lot of detail on following through with particular strategies and the idealism of the authors suggests that they have never been true players in the process. This book seems like a diluted version of the two pioneering books that have already said it all --"Joining Forces" and "Winning at Mergers & Acquisitions". In my opinion, no integration can truly work without implementing the guidance set forth in these two masterpieces.
Average customer rating:
- After the Merger by Max M. Habeck, et al
- Attention: you can be (in) the next!
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After the Merger
Fritz Kroger , and
Michael Tram
Manufacturer: Financial Times Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Textbook Binding
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Consolidation & Merger
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ASIN: 0273643541 |
Customer Reviews:
After the Merger by Max M. Habeck, et al.......2001-06-12
The title does not accurately describe this book. There is absolutely no substantial discussion around post-merger integration. I must have been confused by the "After the Merger" title, there is limited value to this book if you are looking for strategies of how to handle merger integration, and little value for other purposes as well. The book describes generalities, for example: it takes the authors approximately 15 pages to relate that mergers should not be focused on cost cutting "efficiency synergies", rather they should be focused on "Growth Synergies". If you already have a basic understanding of merger integration concepts, this book is a waste of your time.
Attention: you can be (in) the next!.......2000-10-23
The word "merger" is one apt to strike fear in the hearts of any employee of a successful company in this era of globalization. No matter in what market you are or the size your company has, it is a possible target (or "source") for a future merger. As it is mentioned in the introduction of this book: any employee will experience at least one merger during his/her working life!
But, being such an important move, why are only 42% of the mergers successful? Why are they so focused on "fit" and "synergy" instead of vision and growth? Why have 86% of the companies failed in communicating their new alliance sufficiently? Why do only 32% of merging companies actively pursue risk management?
Having so many questions in mind, we should ask at least another one: What about the future?
The 3 authors, all top executives of A.T.Kearney with extensive experience in Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), will not give the reader all the answers but at least show the way. They develop that subject focusing on 7 simple, but effective, rules that should help you steer through a merger a successful integration: Vision, Leadership, Growth, Early Wins, Cultural Differences, Communication and Risk Management. After placing the reader in a hypothetical situation related to each rule, the authors briefly explain it, point some facts they confronted in the A.T.Kearney Global PMI (Post-Merger Integration) Survey and give many examples (more than 40) involving well-known companies which had both successful and unsuccessful attempts in mergers, such as Novartis, Aventis and Exxon Mobil. These examples bring the subject into focus and help the reader understand how the particular rule being explored impacts the post-merger integration. At the end of each chapter, the authors state the rule and give the reader some practical suggestions on how to apply each rule to their own situation.
This book presents a powerful blueprint on how post-merger integration should be done. The seven rules presented confirmed how critical the so called Triangle of Merger Success (Get Buy-in, Provide Orientation and Manage Expectation) is during the post-merger integration process.
I strongly recommend this book to all professionals, especially those who are facing a merger, and top managers, who are/would be responsible for a present/future post-merger integration. It is an easy-to-read book, interesting and the case studies are clear and do not detract from the main thrust of the book.
Book Description
Just as organizations have survived other recessions, they will come through this latest one-but they will need help to recover from it. In this book, acclaimed author and consultant Mitchell Marks offers the wisdom drawn from his many years of experience in helping organizations weather and manage the storms of mergers, acquisitions, and downsizing. Marks shows senior executives, team leaders, HR directors, and consultants how to get jaded employees back on track, carry them through the transition, and motivate them to perform at their best. He provides comprehensive guidance on "transition management," explaining how to approach the new and create a context for recovery. And he details how to revitalize the entire organization-the individual spirit, teams and their performance, and organizational systems.
Mitchell Lee Marks (San Francisco, CA) is an independent management consultant specializing in helping firms plan and implement mergers, restructurings, and other transitions. He also consults in areas of CEO coaching, senior team development, HR development, and corporate culture. Previously, he was senior director at Delta Consulting Group and national chair of the HR Management Practice Group at William H. Mercer, Inc.
Customer Reviews:
Well written and incredibly helpful.......2003-01-30
Our company, like many others, has gone through merges, acquisitions, downsizings, and other transition. Marks, who is an independent consultant based in San Francisco with experience in over 100 organizational transitions, has written an outstanding book that tells how to revive employee morale, workteam performance, and organizational effectiveness following difficult transitions. Marks knows his stuff--his approach is well grounded in organizational behavior theory, but he presents it in a straight forward way. And, he offers numerous case studies from companies like Pfizer, Seagrams, Qualcomm, and Kyocera.
Marks presents a model for helping employees let go of the baggage they gathered from mismanaged mergers and difficult downsizings, so they can look forward to "charge up the hill" and achieve desired business results. This book is a must for any senior executives who has led a company through a difficult period--or for one who has taken over a firm after a merger or other tough period. It also is very helpful for middle managers and other employees. Marks shows them how to focus on what they can control over their work situation rather than fret about what they cannot control.
The book is enlightening, helpful, and not jargony. Am I gushing too much? Let me just say that after I read it, I bought ten copies of the book for my team!
Average customer rating:
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After the Merger: Managing the Shockwaves
Price Pritchett
Manufacturer: Irwin Professional Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Consolidation & Merger
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Management
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New Business Enterprises
| Small Business & Entrepreneurship
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ASIN: 0870946277 |
Book Description
After the merger... after the deal is struck... after the lawyers and investment bankers have gone, the real work of putting two companies together begins. This book provides insights on how executives and managers can address the vital human resource issues that arise from a merger. This provocative book is essential for any manager executive who has to make a merger work.
Books:
- Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics (Bradford Books)
- Deflation: What Happens When Prices Fall
- Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American
- Dynamic Asset Pricing Theory, Third Edition.
- Dynamic Nonlinear Econometric Models: Asymptotic Theory
- Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism (Foundations of the Market Economy Series)
- Economic Restructuring and Human Resource Development
- Economics and Management of Franchising Networks (Contributions to Management Science)
- Economics Today: The Micro View plus MyEconLab Student Access Kit (13th Edition)
- Entrepreneur's Notebook: Practical Advice for Starting a New Business Venture
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