Breakthrough Business Results With MVT: A Fast, Cost-Free, "Secret Weapon" for Boosting Sales, Cutting Expenses, and Improving Any Business Process [Hardcover]

Charles W. Holland (Author), David Cochran (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2005

The first and only guide to using MVT as a breakthrough management tool

MVT(TM) (Multivariable Testing) has been heralded as a breakthrough business tool in major publications such as Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Business-Week. Although MVT could become one of the most widely used management tools and has been applied by leading companies in every industry to create billions of dollars of value-no book on it has been published, until now.

In Breakthrough Business Results with MVT, MVT creator and guru Charles Holland shows managers how multivariable testing-an advanced mathematical method that allows simultaneous testing of up to 40 variables-can dramatically improve efficiency and profits in any organization. MVT reveals to managers precisely which factors have a positive impact on any important business decision or process, which have a negative impact, and which have no impact at all. Very often the results are radically counterintuitive. MVT identifies quickly the best ways for a company to make major improvements, such as boosting sales, reducing waste, increasing production, enhancing advertising strategies, or optimizing service levels. Faster and cheaper than other quality improvement methodologies such as Six Sigma, MVT is a natural tool for any organization that wants to reduce the amount of guesswork and politics when making crucial business decisions. In Breakthrough Business Results with MVT, Holland reveals the dramatic benefits that have made true believers of top executives in such companies as Lowe's, Ameritech, Williams-Sonoma, DuPont, Pacific Bell, and Boise, among others.

Charles Holland, PhD (Knoxville, TN), is principal and founder of QualPro, Inc., the leading MVT consultancy in the world. QualPro's work has been celebrated in most major business publications, and they have consulted to senior executives at many Fortune 500 companies. QualPro regularly conducts seminars on MVT, and their work has been widely publicized. *MVT is a trademark of QualPro, Inc.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Every executive in the world wants the same thing—improved results: more profit, less cost, better quality, and higher customer satisfaction. But what business improvement ideas will produce these results, and how can you be sure that plans that look good on paper will actually work in the real world? Testing ideas one at a time is too slow and too expensive. Only one revolutionary method offers a powerful, fast, and inexpensive way to prove with certainty what ideas will have the biggest impact on your bottom line: MVT* (Multivariable Testing). MVT uses advanced statistics to test the real-world effects of dozens of business improvement ideas, discover the synergies between them, and identify those ideas that are the most powerful and profitable under real-world conditions.

In Breakthrough Business Results with MVT, MVT guru Charles Holland shows you how MVT can improve efficiency and profits dramatically in any organization. With amazing precision, MVT reveals what factors have a positive, negative, or negligible impact on any important business decision.

Holland describes the twelve basic steps in the MVT process and how to use the often-counterintuitive results to identify the best ways for your company to make major improvements. You'll discover how leading companies such as Lowe's, DuPont, Williams-Sonoma, and SBC have taken advantage of MVT's power to boost sales, reduce waste, increase production, develop advertising strategies, and optimize service levels with no new investment in equipment or people.

Holland demonstrates that MVT is also remarkably fast and economical compared with other improvement methodologies, such as Six Sigma. Many of Holland's Fortune 500 clients have added hundreds of millions of dollars to their bottom line with no capital investment at all, and MVT's speed and accuracy make it a natural tool for any organization that wants to minimize guesswork and politics when making crucial business decisions.

MVT can be applied with equal success to any process or business function, from sales and marketing to engineering and manufacturing, in any industry. Read Breakthrough Business Results with MVT and discover how your organization can revolutionize its decision-making process and give your bottom line the makeover it deserves.

"With [MVT], you not only solicit ideas from your staff, but you also have evidence showing which ones are effective and deserve to be implemented."
—Selling Power

"Some of the ideas that intuitively we'd think would help didn't, and some that we didn't think would help did¿and that's the way it's always been when I get into an MVT."
—Dennis Harris, President of Network Services, SBC/Ameritech

"[Using] the MVT process . . . what did we learn about ourselves? That our gut stinks."
—Jeff Wells, Senior Vice President, Circuit City

From the Back Cover

Praise for MVT

"I have never come across a more powerful business tool than MVT to identify what needs to be done."
—Ed Mueller, CEO, Williams-Sonoma

"The [MVT] payoff is so big that just word of mouth keeps companies coming . . . DuPont rescheduled maintenance shutdowns at a polymer plant, increasing annual output by $18 million. SBC analyzed factors influencing sales practices, boosting revenues 167%. International Specialty Products improved manufacturing efficiency at a chemical plant, adding $1.5 million in profits."
—BusinessWeek

"After Circuit City instituted MVT-validated concepts in stores, it saw an immediate 3% comparable-store sales rise. It tested the changes three separate times to make sure the benefits were real."
—Forbes

"[MVT] has aided companies such as DuPont and Monsanto to redesign chemical plants . . .and even told the National Enquirer what to put on its cover."
—The Economist

"MVT allows companies to test many changes in procedure at once, rather than one-at-a-time . . . the technique is analogous to polling a small, carefully chosen sample of voters to predict how millions will vote."
—The Wall Street Journal

"[MVT] is designed to be a low-cost approach, altering methods, not equipment."
—The New York Times

"The real power of MVT is that you engage all of your workforce in generating the ideas, designing the experiment, implementing the experiment, and actually retaining and sustaining the gains you generate."
—Andy Mouhot, International Paper

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 6, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471697710
• ISBN-13: 978-0471697718
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #712,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read for Managers, April 25, 2005

By 

Karson Stowe (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breakthrough Business Results With MVT: A Fast, Cost-Free, "Secret Weapon" for Boosting Sales, Cutting Expenses, and Improving Any Business Process (Hardcover)

Wow! I think this is this best book on process improvement ever been written!

I have read lots of books about improving business performance and this is the first one that details a truly practical procedure and then illustrates it with so many examples.

Dr. Holland's book has provided a powerful and practical process to determine what all business leaders and managers want to know - - What are the RIGHT things to change to make the business better?

The breadth of application for MVT illustrated in this book is unprecedented. It clearly demonstrates that MVT is not just applicable in R & D or in manufacturing processes, it can be used with any business process.

This book is a must read for all Executives and Managers looking to bring about significant improvement in their business processes.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This Book is Interesting and Powerful, May 3, 2005

By 

Jeff (Fort Lauderdale, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breakthrough Business Results With MVT: A Fast, Cost-Free, "Secret Weapon" for Boosting Sales, Cutting Expenses, and Improving Any Business Process (Hardcover)

This book is very interesting and contains a powerful methodology to help companies test their ideas to find out what works and doesn't work. I can only imagine how much energy and money I have wasted over the years on ideas that hurt or don't make a difference.

I especially liked how it walked through every step of the MVT process and used a real-life example to show how it is applied. After reading this book, I intend to contact QualPro and use MVT on processes that I work with.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I think thi stuff will really work, April 19, 2005

By 

John Pendergrass - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breakthrough Business Results With MVT: A Fast, Cost-Free, "Secret Weapon" for Boosting Sales, Cutting Expenses, and Improving Any Business Process (Hardcover)

'Breakthrough Business Results with MVT'has really made me think about how I manage my business. I am seriously questioning the tools I use to attempt to improve business results.

I have tried using Six Sigma with less than satisfactory results. This MVT approach provides the only sensible step-by-step procedure to improve a process that I have seen.

MVT's successful track record in a large number of well-known companiesis really compelling. I am looking forward to using this MVT Process to improve my bottom-line.