Free, Perfect, and Now: Connecting to the Three Insatiable Customer Demands: A CEO's True Story [Hardcover]

Robert Rodin (Author), Curtis Hartman (Draft Writer)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 1999

As the CEO of electronics distributor Marshall Industries, Robert Rodin was responsible for overseeing the creation of an award-winning business-to-business web site. This is the story of that transformation and a practical guide to tuning and coordinating every function of an organization.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Free, Perfect and Now tells how one CEO nearly quadrupled his company's market value through the power of the Internet and some daring management. Written by Bob Rodin, president of electrical distributor Marshall Industries, Inc., the book is about the struggle to give customers what they want: reduced prices, higher quality, and speedy service. "Who in the world is figuring out how to serve customers at a lower cost? Closer to perfect for your customers' changing values? Faster?" Rodin writes. "We ask ourselves those questions every day at Marshall." Rodin is renowned in the trade for overseeing the creation of an award-winning business-to-business Web site--launched in 1994, far ahead of the competition. A disciple of management guru W. Edwards Deming, Rodin describes his company's astonishing rise over six years. He changed the culture by ridding the company of contests and bonuses and freeing managers from meeting quarterly objectives. One of his most revolutionary moves: abolishing commissions for his 600-strong sales staff. As far as Rodin can determine, Marshall boasts the only major sales team in the U.S. that gets paid strictly by salary and profit-sharing. That means sales pros can move customers to the Internet without worrying about losing commissions. But Rodin cautions that the Internet also means relentless competition. Even as this book was released, Marshall lost a major customer and its stock price was cut in half--Rodin may need to work some magic again. This book is for senior executives, middle managers, and businesspeople open to some radical methods for expansion. --Dan Ring

Review

George Gendron Editor, Inc. magazine Call me crazy, but the last thing we need in business is another "Big New Management Idea." What we could all use -- whether we are part of a big organization or a small one -- is more trustworthy information about the implementation of the ideas we already have. Free, Perfect, and Now is the perfect business book for our times, one of the few authentic accounts I've read of how companies really manage to transform themselves. No New Economy babble here -- real people, a real company, pulling off real change."

Warren Bennis author of On Becoming a Leader One of the most remarkable, firsthand stories of wealth creation I've ever read! For anyone who wants to understand the "on the ground" narrative of how entrepreneurs work, how innovation leverages intellectual capital, and how ideas -- business ideas -- can improve the quality of life, this is the book for you.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter Harvard Business School, author of Rosabeth Moss Kanter on the Frontiers of Management Rob Rodin's personal journey to innovative leadership is told with candor and wit -- it's the real story of how things get done in the best companies. The lessons learned by this world-class change master will resonate with every CEO or wannabe CEO, and the down-to-earth advice for managers on every level can help almost any business to profit and grow.

Alan Webber, founding editor, Fast Company magazine These days, lots of companies talk about change and transformation. But if you want to see what it really takes to become a fast company -- and what it really looks like -- read this book.

Bruce Karatz chairman and CEO, Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation With great candor about his setbacks as well as his victories, Robert Rodin offers compelling advice on making an organization succeed. He combines a broad vision of the future with the management skill to deal with the present -- a rare talent indeed! Because all of us -- even those in government -- serve "customers," this is an important book for any organization. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (March 3, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068486312X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684863122
• ASIN: 0684850222
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,373,224 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent case study for companies that need big change, May 18, 1999

By 

D. B. Merrifield (Boston, Ma.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Free, Perfect, and Now: Connecting to the Three Insatiable Customer Demands: A CEO's True Story (Hardcover)

Anyone struggling with how to adapt to too much cumulative change within their industry will benefit from reading this book for several good reasons. If for starters you believe, as I do, that the internet will have revolutionary effects on all traditional industry and education models, then this book offers an unusually open and thorough explanation of how Marshall Industries created and has continuously improved a great B2B web site capability. Marshall is easily the best within all distribution channels, and Advertising Age has rated Marshall's web site as the #1 B2B capability for all industries.

But, the internet case study is actually a downstream result of a tough and on-going transformational change process that Marshall has been going through since 1992. Back then, Marshall's business environment was changing faster than their top-down by the numbers and incentive plan culture could handle. So, instead of trying harder in out-dated ways the company decided to try to become a learning organization that would transform itself - an enormously tough and risky under-taking. Because so many other companies are currently in the same learn, die or sell-out situation, they need prescriptive help, and this book has an effective delivery style for the medicine.

The book is written in a first person, narrative style, which makes it an enjoyable, read, but more importantly Rodin has distilled good management theories down to a basic, comprehensible level grounded in a real story. Readers will, as a result, find particular problems described in ways that will strongly connect to their own similar problems. They will go on to borrow many of Rodin's analogies for getting the same messages across to their employees. I expect that a lot of managers will buy extra copies of this book for entire management teams to read.

A final reason for buying the book with eyes open are all of the other reviews posted here at Amazon.com - both the positive AND the negative! The positive ones support the good read, good theories, good grounded case example elements, and the bad ones from ex-employees illustrate the pain that learning companies doing transformations have to go through. Just because the top guy(s) have the right vision and work hard to implement it, doesn't mean that all of the managers really believe it or will do it even as they nod in agreement. Russia and China's attempts to go to free market economies are bigger current examples of how lots of people that are personally happy with the old order fight change.

One negative comment talks about how Marshall's stock has tanked, but so have all of the other publicly traded semiconductor stocks due to their tough environment. Marshall's 5 year average return on equity has been a little less than Arrow's and little more than Avnet's. The two larger firms have had better franchise lines to ride and have bought much more sales and earnings via acquisitions while Marshall has been forward investing in and expensing their transformational efforts and internet capability. Time will tell how this horse race will finally turn out. In summary, if your company is a top-down firm that plays "beat last year for bonus bucks" starring incremental, financial, tactical changes in the face of too much business environmental change. If you seem to be working harder and harder to get less results. If your customers want lots more value, customization and speed of response, then you need to start reading as many case studies on corporate change as you can find starting with this one.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Corporate face lifting, December 14, 1999

By 

Phil Rapp - See all my reviews

This review is from: Free, Perfect, and Now: Connecting to the Three Insatiable Customer Demands: A CEO's True Story (Hardcover)

Robert Rodin presents in this book both a corporate survival guide and a tight specification for engineering the re-invention of conventional business. Based upon his own experiences, Rodin rolls out a blueprint of controversial methods and bold innovative means to transform a company that "works", into one which thrives in the globalized electronic marketspace of today. Nothing is safe. Everything from Mission Statements to corporate structure itself is examined, questioned, torn down to basics and rebuilt without the un-necessary un-functioning parts. Centered around the customer, and inspired by the Total Quality Management doctrine of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Rodin identifies and attacks the conventional "system" as the greatest challenge and foe to product quality, customer satisfaction, and ultimately corporate success. Part case study, part instruction guideline, this book provides the tools necessary to examine the culture and corporate organization of any company. More importantly perhaps, the book motivates the reader to go out and "operate" like any good surgeon would after a thorough patient examination.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, August 16, 2001

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Free, Perfect, and Now: Connecting to the Three Insatiable Customer Demands: A CEO's True Story (Hardcover)

Marshall Industries was in trouble, facing the pressures of modernization and internal discord. Today, it is an effective Internet-adapted company. CEO Rob Rodin (with writer Curtis Hartman) explains how he transformed his firm. He tells his personal story, including how he recognized the need for dramatic change, and planned and implemented a strategy. This excellent book tracks his saga and discusses general principles and how-to tips leaders can apply to create effective change. This isn't just another leadership book. Rodin involves you in his personal story. He candidly outlines the difficulties he faced in his company when he tried to get everyone involved in his transformation mission. The book captures a spirit of suspense (rare in business writing). You want to know what will happen next because it is well crafted and dramatic. We [...] recommend this engaging read to those involved in leadership, change, and strategy issues, or anyone who enjoys a page-turner.