Economist Books – serie

'A majestic must-read' - Andy Haldane, chief economist at the Bank of EnglandThere are 17 ingredients in a typical tube of toothpaste, from titanium dioxide to xanthum gum, and that's not counting the tube. Everything had to come from somewhere and someone had to bring it all together. The humblest household product reveals a web of enterprise that stretches around the globe.More is the story of how we spun that web. It begins with the earliest glimmerings of long-distance trade - obsidian blades that made their way from what is now Turkey to the Iran-Iraq border 7,000 years before Christ - and ends with the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. On such a grand scale, quirks of historical perspective leap out: futures contracts and commercial branding are among the many seemingly modern components of the global economy have existed since ancient times. Yet it was only in the 18th century that a cascade of innovations began to drive up prosperity in a lasting way around the world.To piece this fascinating saga together, Philip Coggan takes the reader inside medieval cottages and hi-tech hydroponic farms, prehistoric Chinese burial mounds and modern central banks. At every step of our journey, he finds that it was connections between people that created our wealth. Will the same openness continue to serve us in the 21st century?

THE ONE MILLION COPY BESTSELLER Why are the best words short and old? Why are full stops a writer's best friend? How can we simplify, then exaggerate? And what exactly are dangling modifiers?We'd all like to write with style.But what does that mean, and what can we learn from The Economist, a publication well known for its clarity and flair?Welcome to Writing with Style, an elegant survey of the principles available for writing better prose. By adopting some tried and tested tools and techniques, you too can learn how to inform, persuade and entertain when you write.Whether you want to know your singulars from your subjunctives, how colons add drama or why the word "comprise" is contaminated, this is the style guide for you.

The world of finance can be a minefield for the unwary. Without training, very few managers are prepared for the challenges of dealing with management reports, budgets and capital proposals, and find themselves embarrassed by their lack of understanding.This classic book, now in its third edition, supplies a step-by-step guide to the whole territory: 'how to assemble a budget', 'how to read variances on a report', 'how to construct a proposal to invest in new equipment'. By examining the actual things that managers have to do, each chapter explores the range of principles that can be applied, illustrates practical techniques and provides general guidance. The book will help the reader understand financial jargon, financial statements, management accounts, performance measures, budgeting, costing, pricing, decision-making and investment appraisal. New material brings this edition up to date with chapters on crowdfunding and the influence of global uncertainty on the best-laid financial plans.

Business growth is a clear goal for ambitious entrepreneurs and leaders. It's often a short hand for business - and wider economic - success. But it's not without its pitfalls and challenges, and planning for, and managing, a growing business needs careful thought. Take, for example, the start-up facing for the first time the need to balance flexibility with more structure. Or a larger business tackling a range of divisions evolving at different speeds. Or an inspirational owner-founder confronting the need to step back and let others take the business forward. These are the kinds of challenges that Growing a Business tackles head-on. Drawing on a wide range of models and research, and using case studies from across the business world, it offers practical advice and guidance on a whole range of topics, including:- the different types and stages of growth;- predicting the problems presented by growth;- identifying growth triggers - and barriers;- the implications of growth: financially, culturally and for the people involved in the business.Growing a Business is required reading for owners and managers looking to understand and foster growth in their businesses.An Economist Book, published in association with the Economist.

The effectiveness of a good strategy well implemented determines a business' future success or failure. Yet history is full of strategic decisions, big and small, that were ill-conceived, poorly organised and consequently disastrous. This updated guide looks at the whole process of strategic decision-making - from vision, forecasting, and resource allocation, through to implementation and innovation. Strategy is about understanding where you are now, where you are heading and how you will get there. There is no room for timidity or confusion. Although the CEO and the board decide a company's overall direction, it is the managers at all levels of the organisation that will determine how the vision can be transformed into action. In short, everyone is involved in strategy. But getting it right involves difficult choices: which customers to target, what products to offer and the best way to keep costs low and service high. And constantly changing business conditions inevitably bring risks. Even after business strategy has been developed, a company must remain nimble and alert to change, and view strategy as an ongoing and evolving process.The message of this guide is simple: strategy matters, and getting it right is fundamental to business success - this book will show you how.

CMI Management Book of the Year Award 2016With a Foreword by Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever. Frugal innovation is a way that companies can develop high-quality products and create more value with limited resources. In today's cost-constrained environment, companies in the developed economies are seeking new routes to long-term business success - while also appealing to cost-conscious and environmentally-aware consumers. With an estimated trillion-dollar global market for sustainable products, and with potentially huge cost savings to be gained, frugal innovation is revolutionising business and reshaping management thinking. This seminal book gives an overview of the principles, perspectives and techniques behind frugal innovation, connecting with key contemporary business concepts such as the sharing and circular economies and the maker movement. It offers a blueprint for leaders and managers in companies of all sizes and across all sectors on how to profit from doing business frugally.Based on the authors' six key principles of frugal innovation, and packed with targeted advice and recommendations for business functions such as R&D, operations, HR and sales, Frugal Innovation is a masterclass in the art of doing more with less.

Some questions you never think to ask. Others, you didn't know you didn't know. And some facts are so surprising they cry out for answers. What can a president actually do? Why do cities sink into the ground? Why is Australia seemingly invulnerable to recessions? Why do people in couples do more housework than singletons?The brilliant minds of the Economist collect these questions. Individually, they might seem bite-sized and inconsequential, but taken together they can reveal a whole new world.

The world can be an amazing place if you know the right questions to ask:How much does a ghost reduce a house's value? How are winemakers responding to climate change? How much should you tip your Uber driver? Should your dog fear Easter more than fireworks?The keen minds of The Economist love to look beyond everyday appearances to find out what really makes things tick. In this latest collection of The Economist Explains, they have gathered the weirdest and most counter-intuitive answers they've found in their endless quest to explain our bizarre world. Take a peek at some Unconventional Wisdom - and pass it on! The world only gets more amazing when discoveries are shared.

Our extraordinary world makes more (and sometimes less) sense when you wonder:What's driving the international turkey-meat boom?How does a cannonball determine a maritime boundary?Where can you wed your mobile phone?Why do septuagenarians have a better chance of summiting Mount Everest than ever?The ever-keen minds of The Economist Explains solve all these riddles and more in their latest encyclopaedic excursion around the globe. Baffle your friends and colleagues with unconventional headscratchers that shed surprising light on science, culture, world affairs and more. From the underground trade in hair to Hollywood's role in the creation of the snow globe, Truly Peculiar takes a walk on the weird side.

The more we ponder, the odder the world can seem.How do footballers get their shirt numbers? Why does having daughters make couples more likely to divorce? How do you move a horse from one country to another? What counts as a journey into space? The keen minds at The Economist contemplate all these questions and more in their quest for the globe's most extraordinary quandaries and conundrums, with bizarre facts and headscratchers that show the world is even stranger than we might have thought. From plant-based milk and supermoons to the next Dalai Lama and what really happened at the storming of the Bastille, this collection of the oddest and most mindboggling explanations will amaze and delight in equal measure.

The first quarter of the new century has seen developments in technology, monetary policy and the management of large companies that have transformed personal savings and investment around the world.Love it, loathe it, or just not interested in it, this innovation has changed not only the nature of money, but our understanding of what it means to invest - whether we want to safeguard our pensions, experiment with personal trading platforms or simply understand how the markets really work. How to Invest aims to help investors navigate this new world, offering a principles-based, keep-it-simple approach to help them make investment decisions and have investment conversations that will make the most of their money.

Emotional intelligence is not a new idea. We know that it helps people to understand themselves and others better.But if skills like being self-aware, showing empathy and active listening are so important, why is the world still full of bullies, credit takers and serial interrupters?The New EQ tackles this paradox head on, exploring a new approach to emotional intelligence that will teach you how to:· improve self-awareness and boost resilience· successfully navigate relationships with others · communicate effectively, resolve conflicts and make better decisions · thrive in times of uncertainty and changeEmotional intelligence is no longer a nice-to-have. It's an essential toolkit for success at work and in life. The New EQ will show you how to make the most of it.

Survey after survey confirms how the success of businesses has become increasingly dependent on the ability and skills of their staff. And because talented workers are in short supply the hunt for people of unusual ability will continue in earnest. Hiring such people is the relatively easy part; keeping them engaged so that they don't move on and getting the best out of them while they are with you is what really matters.Drawing on original research, including interviews with senior executives, recruitment specialists and headhunters, and people considered 'talented' within their organisations, this book outlines the way in which companies such as Ford, Goldman Sachs, Cisco, Diageo, Tesco, General Electric and HSBC are facing the challenge of recruiting and developing the talent they need.This book will also boost readers' own career prospects.

Strategy-to-performance gaps foster a culture of under-performance Unrealistic plans create the expectation throughout the organisation that plans simply will not be fulfilled. This book shows how to overcome such failings and implement strategy effectively. Common failings include: Companies rarely track their performance against long-term plans - less than 15% of companies make it a regular practice to go back and compare the business' results with the performance forecast for each business unit in its prior years' strategic results Results rarely meet projections - when companies do track performance, it rarely matches the prior years' projection. The consequence is year-after-year of under-performance relative to the original plan A lot of value is lost in translation - a combination of poor communications, misapplied resources, limited accountability and lack of information creates an in-built strategy-to-performance gap