Newest Business and Finance Reviews

Review of The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson Autobiography If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader. Full Review

Review of A Beautiful Way to Coach by Fiona Parashar Business and Finance So what am I doing reading this book, using this book, and being audacious enough to review it? Truth is I bought it out of curiosity. I was at an on-line launch for the book and Fiona’s description of her Vision Days appealed to me. I wanted to see if there were things in there that I could use with someone I am currently helping / supporting / trying to mentor – without committing them to a full day, which I know would send them scurrying for their burrow. I also wanted to see if I could give myself a Vision Day, to bring me away from their vision and back to my own. Full Review

Review of Disaster in the Boardroom: Six Dysfunctions Everyone Should Understand by Gerry Brown and Randall S Peterson Business and Finance Boards must act in the best interests of their stakeholders and ensure that they are well-managed and financially secure. This might seem obvious but a series of disasters - some of which have resulted in death or the collapse of a major company - have left interested parties asking what the board was doing. Where were they? Occasionally the boards were unaware of what was happening or they preferred to turn a blind eye, leaving watchers wondering which was worse - ignorance or criminality. The 21st century has delivered some major company scandals but what has happened is nothing new: Gerry Brown and Randall S Peterson give us a very readable trip through such major debacles as railway mania, the South Sea Bubble and even tulip mania. Over three centuries we seem to have learned very little. Full Review

Review of Making a Living: How to Craft Your Business by Sophie Rochester Crafts Starting a creative business has never been easier. If not now, when? I know that I'm not alone in having wondered whether or not I could turn my hobby into a business. There's a lot of motivation to do so: I make more items than we can sensibly use and there are a lot of people who have been delighted to accept what I make as gifts. Selling would offset the costs, which can be quite considerable and it could be fun to do, couldn't it? But where to start? What do I need to think about? Well, the first thing anyone who is considering turning a crafting hobby into a business should do is to read Making a Living. Full Review

Review of Supply Chain 20/20: A Clear View on the Local Multiplier Effect for Book Lovers by Kim Staflund Reference So, you've finished writing your book and you think the hard work is all done? You're convinced that all you need to do now is get it published and the money will start rolling in? Wrong and wrong again. You presumably wrote the book because you wanted to - and you had a talent for delivering the written word. You knew your subject back to front. Now you're going to have to get to grips with the book supply chain, which even parts of the publishing industry believe to be wrong but it's too difficult to change and no one wants to be the first to try. Then, when you finally have a copy of the book in your hands, you're going to have to work out how to sell it - because it is going to be down to you. Full Review

Review of We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba Politics and Society To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts... We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba 0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman. The Bookseller 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford. Full Review

Review of Why You? 101 Interview Questions You'll Never Fear Again (3rd Edition) by James Reed Business and Finance Six years on from the original edition, the book is being re-issued with a bonus chapter entitled The Future of Work which includes an additional 10 questions. I've come to this some 6 years after reviewing the original book and my life has changed significantly in the meantime. I'm no longer working in middle-management having opted for a down-shift into reduced hours freelancing to enable me to focus on other (not necessarily paying) work. I can therefore relate to the first point made in this chapter namely that independence and flexibility are core skills that employees need to have. Full Review

Review of Making a Difference: Leadership, Change and Giving Back the Independent Director Way by Gerry Brown Business and Finance You're not there to run the organisation. You are there to make sure that it is run properly. Gerry Brown is passionate about the benefits which Independent Directors can bring to a board - not just a corporate board, but the board of an NHS Trust, a university, a sports organisation or a charity. He's particularly keen that there's increased diversity on these boards and feels that this would help to avoid some of the scandals (Oxfam, Kids Company - we're thinking about you) which have occurred in recent years. For this to happen, boards need to have a wider field of people to choose from when they're looking for an ID. Full Review

Review of The Independent Director in Society: Our current crisis of governance and what to do by Gerry Brown, Andrew Kakabadse and Filipe Morais Business and Finance Independent Director: a job for which no one is qualified (Financial Times) Independent Director: An independent director is a member of the board of directors who (1) do not have a material relationship with the company, (2) is not part of the company's executive team, and (3) is not involved with the day-to-day operations of the company. (Corporate Finance Institute) Gerry Brown, Andrew Kakabadse and Filipe Morais feel that the relationship between the executive members of boards and the independent directors (formerly known as non-executive directors), trustees or governors of organisations is frequently unbalanced. The function of the independent director is to have general oversight of the executive side of the board - to spot when and where things are going wrong - but all too often the relationship is too cosy, too antagonistic or the independent director lacks the knowledge and/or experience to understand what's happening or to know how to intervene. Covid-19 has highlighted the failings and weaknesses of leadership and governance and you might be tempted to think that these are extraordinary times and that all will be well once we get back to 'normal' but a pandemic was predicted and modelled in the past and there has been a general failure to prepare for what has happened - and is still happening. Full Review

Review of Banking On It: How I Disrupted an Industry by Anne Boden Business and Finance Anne Boden had an impressive track record in the financial services sector: she had thirty years experience at a senior level including Group Chief Operating Officer at Allied Irish Bank. AIB was in the throes of recovering from the 2008 financial crisis when she arrived and she was one of the first to realise that banks needed to do things differently. AIB thought it was at the cutting edge when it proposed opening a branch which allowed customers to access their accounts via a terminal. Boden took things a step further, realising that customers could access their accounts from their homes: the old branch network, employing thousands of people, would soon become redundant. Full Review

Review of The Journey Mapping Playbook: A Practical Guide to Preparing, Facilitating and Unlocking the Value of Customer Journey Mapping by Jerry Angrave Business and Finance I had no idea what 'journey mapping' was until I read this playbook but any business that engages with their customers will benefit from reading the book and acting on the contents. You're going to learn how to run a workshop to discover what it feels like to be one of your own customers. At this point, please don't say 'oh (expletive deleted) not another workshop' because this is going to be fun and you're going to be surprised by what emerges. Full Review

Review of The Radical Innovation Playbook: A Practical Guide for Harnessing New, Novel or Game-Changing Breakthroughs by Olga Kokshagina and Allen Alexander Business and Finance So, why bother? Every time you set out to do something new you end up with the same thing in a slightly different form and quite a bit of money spent. Why not just leave it as it is? After all, it's roughly working, isn't it? You might not have said it, but you've probably thought it. You've also thought the small, incremental improvements which you have been able to make - the optimisation of your core business with cost efficiencies wherever possible, the extension of your existing products into new areas - haven't really delivered in terms of growth. It's been manageable and largely risk-free but you could easily be challenged by a competitor who takes a more radical approach. You've merely kept the business ticking over and there's a nagging suspicion in the back of your mind that an organisation designed for the twentieth century might not survive in the twenty-first. What you need is innovation - radical innovation. Full Review

Review of Creating Value Through Technology: Discover the Tech that Can Transform Your Business by Andrew Hampshire Business and Finance I was once told that 'technology' is anything that happens after you're eighteen, so there's been a lot of technology in my life. I once worked for a manager who judged if an accountant was reputable by establishing whether or not they had a typewriter. Times - thankfully - have moved on. Nowadays the problem is that someone running a business doesn't have the time to keep up with constant innovation and they might also be scared because previous IT investments haven't delivered as expected. It's also a fact that no one develops a business because they have the knowledge of the required technology, so they start off in conversations about technology feeling that they're at a disadvantage. They need help, but they frequently don't know what help they need. Full Review

Review of Dosh: How to Earn It, Save It, Spend It, Grow It, Give It by Rashmi Sirdeshpande Children's Non-Fiction What a relief! A book about money, for children, with clear explanations of what it is, why it matters, how to acquire more of it (nope - robbing banks is out) and what you can do with it when you've managed to get hold of it. Your reasons for wanting money don't matter: we all need it to some extent. You might want to go into business, be a clever shopper, a saver (you might even become an investor) and there might be something you really, really want to buy. There's also the possibility of using to do good in the world. Full Review

Review of The Double X Economy by Linda Scott Politics and Society Women are economically disadvantaged in every country in the world. It's a bold statement for an opening chapter, but it's far from hyperbole as the following pages explain. This book shines a light on what is happening in different places, and the impact on the local and world economy. What can be learnt from the great strides in gender-equalising legislation in the west? What can be done about the selling of young women into marriage, and what can chimpanzees and bonobos teach us about mothering? Full Review

Review of Life's Work: 12 Proven Ways to Fast-Track Your Career by James Reed Business and Finance Do you have a guaranteed and more-than-adequate income which will last the rest of your life? Do you have no need to work, either for income or fulfilment? If you even hesitate over either of those questions then you really ought to read Life's Work': 12 Proven Ways to Fast-Track Your Career. If you're not yet in work or considering that you might need to make some changes then this is the book you need. James Reed is the chairman and chief executive of REED, Britain's biggest and best-known name in the recruitment industry. Who better to give you the advice you need? Full Review

Review of The Money Revolution by Anne Boden Business and Finance Money is changing. It might not be in the ways you think. We’re not suddenly getting a 3p or £3 coin (and have you ever even found a country that offers anything different to the 1, 2, 5 model?) We’re getting a lot more digital with payments, which seems to suit most people apart from charity collectors and the homeless on the street, but although this book has the subtitle that includes the word digital, it’s not really about this either. Instead, it's about the management of your finances, and how to take control. Full Review

Review of Financial Accounting Essentials You Always Wanted To Know: 4th Edition by Kalpesh Ashar Business and Finance Financial Accounting Essentials You Always Wanted to Know gives people without an accounting background who have risen in a company the knowledge to understand the accounts which show how the company is doing. The book begins by looking at why financial accounting systems are necessary, then moves on to give an excellent overview of the types of accounting systems which will be encountered and the terms used. We then look in detail at the balance sheet, the income statement and the statement of cash flows... Full Review

Review of Cost Accounting & Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know by Vibrant Publishers Business and Finance I'm capable of drawing up a profit and loss account (income statement in the USA) and a balance sheet and I do so for my own business and for another organisation. The accounts give me broadly what I need: I know whether we're making a profit or a loss and I can look at the expenses and see what looks as though it could be trimmed back in future years. My problem was that the accounts didn't really give me any help in making decisions, which was why I turned to Cost Accounting and Management, part of Vibrant Publishers' Self-Learning and Management series... Full Review

Review of The Simple Act of Self-Publishing With Amazon: A Simple Step by Step Guide by Georgianne Landy-Kordis Business and Finance I frequently meet authors who are struggling to be published by the traditional houses, but when I suggest self-publishing they explain that they don't have the big bucks required to go down that road with Author Solutions or Matador or their like. I then ask if they've considered Kindle and the answer is, inevitably, that they wouldn't know where to start. I can empathise with that. Despite having used a computer for about thirty years, running most of my life and a website online, I'm still nervous when it comes to starting something new. I like someone to hold my hand as I go through it for the first time. That was why I was very interested when The Simple Act of Self Publishing With Amazon came across my desk... Full Review

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