Customer Reviews

Run Your Business Like a Fortune 100: 7 Principles for Boosting PROFITS

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Positioning your product to the right customers is one of the most
significant challenges for businesses. Small and mid-sized business entrepreneurs can now simplify, adapt and integrate best practices of Fortune 100 companies without the bureaucracy and expense. Lober gives smaller companies a roadmap to greater profitability based on principles and a pragmatic approach to business building that helped the biggest and most successful companies become global leaders.

Nothing super-special in this business book. It covers strategic planning, but doesn't really add anything new or enlightening. I will say that is it well written. But I didn't particularly like the title. The target audience is small business owners who are already running a profitable business. Such companies are typically flexible and agile - whereas Fortune 100 companies are not. Thus it is hard to believe that a small business should be run like a Fortune 100 company.

But what does this book cover? Well it covers the basic time-tested 7-step strategic planning model that can be summarized as follows:

Step 1. Focus on profitability
Step 2. Focus on today and now
Step 3. Research & investigate
Step 4. Be open-minded, and be willing to shift gears & adapt
Step 5. Strategically plan
Step 6. Implement
Step 7. Evaluate

The author has named and explained these seven steps in chapters 3-9 of the book. I encourage you to use the Search Inside feature that Amazon offers so you take a look at the Table of Contents for the book. You will see how those chapters are reduced to a mnemonic called PROFITS that she explains in Chapter 2.

If you are looking for a book to help you at least sustain your company in these hard economic times, and certainly grow in better times, then consider getting a copy of this book. It may inspire you to do great things. But if you understand the above-listed 7-steps to strategic planning, then don't bother reading the book - just get to work at making your company great. 4 stars!

Lober excels in presenting vital operational insights, none more important than the pivotal role integration and testing and revising plans plays in a company's success. Companies that empower their people to accept and integrate change quickly and completely will win, she tells us. The book challenges readers to test and link every aspect and function of their business to ensure their survival and triumph in this highly competitive global marketplace. Terrific, and insightful!

In her book "Run Your Business Like a Fortune 100: 7 Principles for Boosting Profits", Dr Rosalie Lober provides an excellent framework to define, analyze, build a plan of action and finally as she calls it "Steering" the business to successful execution. Many authors talk about clichés but she actually provides tools to move scattered arrows into a particular solution space by what she calls integration and steering.
A must read for any entrepreneur who want to know how to transform their business to act like a Fortune 100 company, or anyone who is facing challenges due to M&A, Globalization, Outsourcing, Cost Efficiency, ...

In these turbulent times, it's not enough to be "good enough." Run Your Business Like a Fortune 100 provides entrepreneurs with the very tools they need to transform their companies. In her book, Rosalie Lober clears the stumbling blocks to entrepreneurial growth by posing the strategic questions and issues that business owners need to face. Lober provides the blueprint for what entrepreneurs can put into action now. The result will be a business transformation that comes from focus on the high priority and high ROI matters.

"As an entrepreneur myself, who works daily with entrepreneurs implementing capitalization strategies so they too can someday become fortune 100 companies, I found Lober's Run Your Business Like a Fortune 100 insightful, applicable to today's challenges in a world economy and a relevant handbook for the CEO who really wants to execute best practices and take his or her company to the next level in revenue growth & profitability. Not since Tom Peters' In Search of Excellence has there been such an analysis of the best practices of companies from around the world that aspiring entrepreneurs could put to use immediately to transform their own businesses. If your ambition makes you buy this book, but your schedule prevents you from really digesting this tool, do not miss reading Chapter 4, Reality. Understanding the principals taught in this chapter separates the men from the boys, the doers from the dreamers, and the successful from the wannabees."
Karen Rands, President, Launch Funding Network, http://www.launchfn.com

Lober is on the mark regarding the enormous investments successful companies make in developing sound processes. With the right leadership and a strong understanding of financial interrelationships, these investments can produce solid returns in the form of more efficient operations and improved financial performance. Run Your Business Like a Fortune 100 hands you best practices you can use right now in 'simple to adapt' steps for increasing your profitability, focusing rigorously on the reality of your markets and your business capabilities along with obtaining vital information for making better decisions.

Woven throughout Dr. Lober's new book are numerous `a-ha's' with respect to customer focus. Can your target customer also be one of your business partners? Are your functions serving your customers or pursuing extraneous activities? Are you adequately communicating your customer goals to your team? How do you measure your progress against those goals? Most importantly, Lober urges entrepreneurs and others to listen to their customers -- something all of us should pay heed to.

From BiofuelsDigest.com

(http://biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2009/05/13/run-your-business-like-a-fortune-100-contains-wisdom-for-fast-growing-biofuels-corporations/?preview=true&preview_id=12027&preview_nonce=1ceaadb3d5)

In New York, one of the most interesting business books to arrive in some time has just been published by Wiley, called Run Your Business Like a Fortune 100: 7 Principles for boosting profits. It's written for entrepreneurs at growing businesses, applying best practices from major corporations.

The Digest story today on the woes at Pacific Ethanol makes clear the fact that biofuels companies must be based not only on a great technology or government or local support - it must be based also on the best practices gleaned from the old-line companies.

In short, beat 'em at their own game.

Run Your Business Like a Fortune 100 creates a straightforward, engagingly described and well-demonstrated PROFITS system - Position, Reality, Obtain Vital Information, Flexibility, Integration, Test and Revise and Steering the Company.

The system might have been a company-saver at some first-gen biofuels companies. At advanced biofuels companies that may well experience a growth in sales from the millions to the hundreds of millions over the next few years, the book is a must-read, and a good one.

Put it on your reading list as you prepare yourself for the challenges and opportunities of fast growth.

The 7 Principles for Boosting PROFITS described in Rosalie Lober's new book represent the pillars that all business leaders should bear in mind: As leading companies globally embrace customer oriented change, interconnected information technology and interlocked business processes play a pivotal role in driving internal and external congruence for profitable growth. Lober's new book, Run Your Business Like A Fortune 100, got my attention as a creative approach to blend the best corporate practices with the simplicity and ingenuity of small companies to articulate an intuitive multifunctional discipline.