Over Christmas I took the chance to beg, borrow, steal and buy various books I’d been meaning to read for a while, and having gone through the first three, I thought it was time to share
Why We Buy by Paco Underhill:
Paco Underhill is a ‘retail anthropologist’, and the founder of Envirosell, a company which spends thousands of hours collecting data by actually tracking individual shoppers as they move around shops and supermarkets. Unfortunately my borrowing policy meant I didn’t have the edition revised and updated for the rise of the internet, so the chapter about online retailing from 1999/2000 was pretty redundant, but there was still a lot of useful information and inspiration to be gained. Particularly around the perceptions business owners had, compared to what was actually happening. There’s also some important insight into how you can accidentally make things really difficult for shoppers if you don’t think about who they are and what their needs and limitations are. Key quote: ‘Amenability and profitability are totally and inextricably linked’. There’s also a secondary lesson in that I wanted to find out more about how things have changed since the book was published, but there’s not a lot of information on the Envirosell site, and the News section isn’t updated very much. So I’m left trawling a Google Search – bit of a fail to make things amenable!
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman:
If you wanted to give someone a textbook history of how the world has changed due to online connectivity, this would be the first choice. It’s a weighty book, but incredibly readable (He’s a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner), and covers the 10 important flattening elements in our time, from the fall of the Berlin Wall and release of Netscape to changes in outsourcing, Google and personal digital devices, which were all brought together by three forces of convergence. Not only that, but he also offers great examples, and insight into how countries (particularly the U.S.) should be adapting to meet the new challenges (which also applies to businesses). He’s also got a site/blog at www.thomaslfriedman.com Key quote: The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention argues that no two countries that are both part of the same global supply chain will ever fight a war as long as they are each part of that supply chain.
Moneyhunt: 27 rules for creating and growing a breakaway business by Miles Spencer and Cliff Ennico
I’ve missed the U.S Show, which is similar to Dragon’s Den in that it allows entreprenuers to gain publicity for their businesses – except that in this case, they get free help from a specialist in their field rather than direct cash. But the book is a great, no-nonsense guide to common-sense rules which are easy to overlook – with a handy real-life example of each rule in practice which helps to make it stick. And although the legalities are all based around U.S law, there’s enough there to be valuable advice for whichever country your business will be based in. Sadly the website is a bit pants: MoneyHunt. Key quote: If in running your business you reach a point where you truly believe that you know what you are doing, where you are going, and what’s going on around you, chances are you are overlooking something very important.
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