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Conquering Complexity in Your Business: How Wal-Mart, Toyota, and Other Top Companies Are Breaking Through the Ceiling on Profits and Growth

by Michael L George

Conquering Complexity in Your Business: How Wal-Mart, Toyota, and Other Top Companies Are Breaking Through the Ceiling on Profits and Growth Cover

ISBN13: 9780071435086
ISBN10: 0071435085
Condition: Standard
Dustjacket: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

"The winners and losers in the next decade...may well be separated by a single factor: those that conquer complexity and those that do not."

- Michael L. George and Stephen A. Wilson

Here's a guarantee: Somewhere in your business, there is too much complexity. It erodes profitability, impedes productivity, confuses customers, and adds non-recoverable costs that can kill you in the marketplace. But that's only half the equation: You may also be losing out by having too little of the complexity where it counts--in the products, services, and options you offer to customers. Customers call this value-added complexity "variety", "options", or "customization". Either way, as you'll discover in Conquering Complexity in Your Business, the impact of complexity is enormous in terms of lost profit and missed growth opportunities.

In this breakthrough book from Michael L. George and Stephen A. Wilson, you'll find out why the trick to outperforming your competition and staying ahead of the curve in today's highly customer-centric business environment is achieving the optimum levels of complexity in your products, services, and operations. Best of all, for the first time in print, you'll find powerful tools that will let you quantify and pinpoint complexity in your business. You'll also find strategies for conquering that complexity and dramatically increasing productivity, profits and market share.

Conquering Complexity in Your Business is packed with real-world practical advice and guidance from both a strategic and tactical perspective. With the help of fascinating and instructive in-depth case studies from Dell, Capital One, Southwest Airlines, Wal-Mart, Toyota, Scania, Lockheed Martin, Aldi, and othercompanies that have conquered complexity to become world leaders in their industries, the authors show you how to

  • Strategically identify the offering and process complexity in your business
  • Quantify the impact of that complexity
  • Decide which complexity you want to keep to drive growth and which to eliminate to cut costs
  • Select and implement specific operational approaches to eliminate different kinds of complexity
  • Sustain an environment with just the right balance of complexity your company needs to maximize productivity and profits

Don't let complexity impose a ceiling on your profits and growth. Read Conquering Complexity in Your Business and learn how to serve your customers more effectively, dominate your competition, and delight your shareholders.

"This is an important book that should be read by every CEO. Conquering Complexity is not just about reducing costs; it's fundamentally about growing revenues and creating economic value by serving your customers more effectively."--Lou Giuliano, Chairman, President and CEO, ITT Industries

"Complexity creeps into organizations incrementally, and each additional decision is, by itself, almost always justifiable. But faced with a crisis, many companies, including American Airlines, have chosen a head-on approach to removing complexity--we simply could not afford to do otherwise."--Gerard J. Arpey, President and CEO, AMR Corporation and American Airlines

"As we tackle the most resistant issues in the company, it is clear that complexity is a key causal. The challenge is getting our arms around the cost of complexity. Being able to size the opportunity creates a compelling call to action."--Anne M. Mulcahy, Chairman and CEO, Xerox Corporation

"It is critical that the authors' study and analysis gets outs to a wider audience to explain how complexity occurs and more importantly, how to both attack it and prevent it."--Chris Cool, Vice President, Northrup-Grumman Corporation

Many managers and executives intuitively understand that the benefits from conquering complexity can be huge. But only a handful worldwide know to how to precisely measure, manage, and profit from complexity. Now, with Conquering Complexity in Your Business a breakthrough book from complexity gurus Michael L. George and Stephen A. Wilson, all of that changes. Learn how to break through the ceiling on your company's profits and growth.

For more information about Conquering Complexity, please visit our website at www.georgegroup.com

Review:

"When Thoreau's injunction to simplify, simplify, is translated into the context of business management, the result is this labyrinthine treatise. George, author of Lean Six Sigma, and 'complexity expert' Wilson contend that overcomplication is an insidious drain on businesses. A proliferation of product and service offerings intended to boost business actually imposes hidden costs and masks the unprofitability of stagnating lines, while consumers are often baffled and irritated by the plethora of superficially distinct options. The authors' cure for complexity, however, seems almost as complicated as the disease. They offer a maze of arcane diagnostic tools for assessing the complexity and profitability of products, services and customers, along with advice on how to simplify, standardize or eliminate them altogether, and pile on mathematical equations, byzantine flowcharts and highly technical case studies ('at 50KW the DC voltage doubled, cutting the current in half — which meant the design for the lower power ratings could be used all the way to 80KW'). They provide a number of useful insights, actually, although lumping them under the trendy rubric of 'complexity' doesn't add much conceptual rigor. Unfortunately, the method of quantitatively analyzing the profit impact of minute components of larger processes seems itself an onerous layer of complexity to add to the project of simplifying business practices. The accountants and process design engineers who might read the book will find much food for thought, but are also likely to put it aside when it comes time to roll up their sleeves and get to work. " Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Synopsis:

""The winners and losers in the next decade...may well be separated by a single factor: those that conquer complexity and those that do not.""<P>- Michael L. George and Stephen A. Wilson<P>Here's a guarantee: Somewhere in your business, there is too much complexity. It erodes profitability, impedes productivity, confuses customers, and adds non-recoverable costs that can kill you in the marketplace. But that's only half the equation: You may also be losing out by having too "little" of the complexity where it counts--in the products, services, and options you offer to customers. Customers call this value-added complexity "variety," "options," or "customization." Either way, as you'll discover in "Conquering Complexity in Your Business," the impact of complexity is enormous in terms of lost profit and missed growth opportunities. <P>In this breakthrough book from Michael L. George and Stephen A. Wilson, you'll find out why the trick to outperforming your competition and staying ahead of the curve in today's highly customer-centric business environment is achieving the optimum levels of complexity in your products, services, and operations. Best of all, for the first time in print, you'll find powerful tools that will let you quantify and pinpoint" "complexity in your business. You'll also find strategies for conquering that complexity and dramatically increasing productivity, profits and market share.<P>"Conquering Complexity in Your Business" is packed with real-world practical advice and guidance from both a strategic and tactical perspective. With the help of fascinating and instructive in-depth case studies from Dell, Capital One, Southwest Airlines, Wal-Mart, Toyota, Scania, Lockheed Martin, Aldi, and other companies that have conquered complexity to become world leaders in their industries, the authors show you how toStrategically identify the offering and process complexity in your business Quantify the impact of that complexity Decide which comple

Synopsis:

Conquering the complexity in products and services can generate larger contributions to profits and growth than nearly any other business strategy

Here's a guarantee: Somewhere in your business, there is too much complexity. You may also be losing out by having too little complexity where it counts - in the products, services and options you offer to customers. Either way, the impact of complexity is enormous in terms of lost profit and missed growth opportunities.

"Conquering Complexity in Your Business shows how to break through the ceiling on profits and growth by implementing the three rules for conquering complexity: Eliminating complexity that customers will "not pay for Exploiting the complexity that customers "will pay for Minimizing the costs of the complexity you offer

You'll find methods and tools you need to: Identify the offering and process complexity in your business Quantify the impact of that complexity Decide which complexity you want to keep and which to eliminate Select specific approaches to eliminate different kinds of complexity

This knowledge will significantly improve your ability to grow profit, revenue, and shareholder value.

About the Author

Michael George (Dallas, TX) is the author of Lean Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma for Services . He is founder and CEO of George Group, a consulting company that delivers rapid and sustained improvements in shareholder value through unique methodologies. George Group is the global leader in Lean Six Sigma.

Stephen Wilson (Dallas, TX) is the director of the Cost of Complexity practice at the George Group. He also has expertise in strategy development, Valued Based Management and Lean Six Sigma, the process improvement methodology. He holds an MBA in Strategy and Finance from the Wharton School.

Product Details

ISBN:
9780071435086
Subtitle:
How Wal-Mart, Toyota, and Other Top Companies Are Breaking Through the Ceiling on Profits and Growth: How Wal-
Author:
George, Michael L
Author:
Wilson, Stephen
Author:
Michael, George
Author:
George, Michael L.
Publisher:
McGraw-Hill
Subject:
Management
Subject:
Entrepreneurship
Subject:
Management - General
Subject:
strategic position chart, process cycle efficiency, conquering complexity, complexity due diligence, overall market profitability, value stream map, noncore processes, substructure analysis, average completion rate, complexity equation, waterfall chart, s
Subject:
Economic Profit, Six Sigma, Capital One, Complexity Matrix, Lockheed Martin, Process Cycle Efficiency, Complexity Value Stream Map, Complexity Profile, Complexity Value Agenda, Harvard Business Review, United Technologies, British Airways, Michael Dell, N
Copyright:
Edition Number:
1
Publication Date:
June 2004
Binding:
Hardcover
Grade Level:
Professional and scholarly
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
336
Dimensions:
9.28x6.44x1.15 in. 1.43 lbs.
Age Level:
Economic Profit, Six Sigma, Capital One, Complexit

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