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The Complexity Crisis: Why too many products, markets, and customers are crippling your company--and what to do about it

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American writer Henry David Thoreau is famously quoted for saying, "Simplify, simplify," but based on the hyper-complexity of most corporations today one might think the current crop of executives had never attended a freshman English class. Enter management veteran and author John Mariotti who echoes Thoreau's call to simplify in his book titled The Complexity Crisis. In the book, Mariotti presents a case where managerial discipline; effective decision controls and new metrics can transform complexity into a competitive advantage or at least mitigate the bloodletting of profits from needless corporate constructs. Soundview recommends this book because the author not only offers proven ways to slow "complexity creep" within companies, but he introduces the concept of "managed innovation" to spur profitability without the threat of frenetic proliferation. If your organization is too unwieldy, it may need some unwinding and this book can help.

If you don't buy this book and then 15 more for your staff, you probably aren't qualified to save your company from Asian competition? This guy has been there done that and what he proposes is not just "word salad". It works and creates a common worthy goal for your company while all your employees work together to get there.

Once you read this and apply it to your company, you will be hooked...and need a basket to catch the dollars coming down out of the sky! I know, we did something very similar..whithout the benefit of his guidance. It would have saved us years had we had Mariotti's roadmap. If you aren't willing to walk the walk, don't bother reading The Complexity Crisis because it requires leadership and changing the way things happen.

The Complexity Crisis--Why Too Many Products, Markets & Customers Are Crippling Your Company - And What To Do About It

John Mariotti's new book , The Complexity Crisis, is a must read journey through the morass of burgeoning complexity facing today's businesses and out again into a cleaner and more competitive future. Mr. Mariotti identifies an aggressive focus on reducing the nonvalue-adding complexity in your business and creatively managing the value-related complexity as the perfect strategic response to the current tightened market conditions. Mr. Mariotti identifies the explosion of complexity as a two-edged sword and shows us how to wield it to our advantage.

The Complexity Crisis is rich in simple, concrete examples of how complexity relentlessly increases in businesses, dragging down profitability while overwhelming the processes and systems used to manage the business. Mr. Mariotti defines a simple, concrete six-step path to reducing our business' complexity.

He then shows us how wield as a competitive weapon key product, service and channel complexities by finding ways to manage them better than our competitors. The Complexity Crisis is an excellent guidebook to the strategic opportunity available by leveraging complexity into greater competitive advantage.

This book provides concrete examples of complexity within companies, how to measure complexity, and potential measures to reduce complexity. Most readers will find the advice offered in the book practical and easy to apply. If you find you have obsolete inventory, the number of SKUs that continual grow and need to be pruned, use this book as a reference.

John L. Mariotti, a senior business executive turned consultant, speaks from experience about the causes, costs and cure for complexity. He argues that companies complicate their businesses in the effort to grow when markets are stagnant. They multiply products, services, target markets and vendors. However, this strategy gets them into trouble: They increase overhead, because they need to hire more people to deal with the multiplication, their inventory swells and their service suffers. They don't know how to forecast accurately under these new circumstances, and their bottom lines turn red. Because the world's wealthiest markets are in regions with low population growth and, therefore, low market growth, complexity is becoming a widespread crisis. Fortunately, it is curable. getAbstract suggests that if you are a manager or executive whose company is heading down the complexity route, you might want to consider Mariotti's useful guidance on appropriate therapies.