Analysis, Automation & Adoption for #AwesomeAdmins
This ebook will quickly help you master a simple business analysis approach that has been proven in 1000’s of clients in every industry, ranging from Fortune 500 down to innovative start ups.
“This is absolutely amazing! I will be sharing this one!! You’ll especially want to check out the steps for leading live mapping workshops in the appendix.” Salesforce User Group Leader
The business analysis approach and simple notation described in this book can be quickly learnt and applied in your company on your current project. It does not require you to adopt a specific methodology, to wait for a certain phase in your project, or get investment for apps.
This book has detailed step by step directions so you can hit the ground running, with the minimum risk and disruption. And you should start seeing benefits immediately.
Download the free eBook (5.6Mb PDF)
IMPACT: the strategy for the technology executive selling B2B disruptive and innovative solutions
Our 25 years of research has shown that every buyer follows a universal buying process, irrespective of industry, country or market. We have distilled this process into 6 steps; IMPACT. Idea, Mentor, Position, Assess, Case, Transaction. The buyer of your disruptive and innovative solution is the Early Adopter, as Geoffrey Moore puts it in his book “Crossing the Chasm”. Early Adopters engage vendors at the Mentor stage and work with them through to Transaction. Sadly most early stage companies try to engage their buyers as though they were Early Majority, which is not until the Case stage. With disastrous results.
The purpose of this book is to enable you understand what is happening for your Early Adopter customer through the IMPACT process and how to engage with them so that it all makes sense and becomes repeatable.
The book summary is more than a short teaser. In 25 pages it explores the Early Adopter and Early Majority buying traits in the context of the Chasm. It explains the IMPACT cycle and exposes the vital signs that show how you should engage with your customer. Finally it makes sense of the problems you are having scaling the company and what you need to do to reorient the company strategy to really maximize sales.
Download the Book Summary (780kb PDF)
Insiders Guide to San Francisco
This is a little different. We have crowdsourced from the San Francisco locals all the “inside knowledge” in 80 pages packed full of critical insights. It is a useful resource for any of you travelling to SF for Dreamforce, OracleWorld or any other conference. Here’s a thought – if you are running an event in SF, then talk to us about joint branding it for all your delegates.
- Getting around SF and the Bay Area; did you know the Richmond Bridge ONLY takes cash?
- Where to stay in the coolest boutique hotels; avoiding the standard Hiltons and Hyatts
- Where the locals eat; we’ve got them to tell us their favorite haunts
- Being a tourist; there’s the obvious stuff, but there other really cool things to do that are not in the guidebooks.
- Venturing further afield; Route 1, the Wine Country, Yosemite and Whale Watching.
- With kids; make sure they have a great time and then you will too
Download the Insiders Guide to San Francisco (4MB PDF)
Thinking of People-Centric Process Management?
There are many books on Business Process Management, and its derivatives but few address the biggest challenge which is the People Side of Processes. It is written by two of the leading authorities in Business Process Management who are known for their depth of experience and their pragmatic approach to what is an increasingly important topic. It is a ‘must read’ for all leaders whatever the size, sector or maturity of their organisations.
Roger Cliffe, Quality Director, Vodafone Group Services
Although some organizations have moved forward with BPM initiatives and seen significant success, there’s still a large part of industry which sees BPM more as “yet another three-letter-IT-acronym” than as a business initiative with real value. This book helps to demystify how to get started with BPM and see it for what it can be at its best: a way for organizations to improve the process of process improvement – collaboratively driving change, sharing knowledge and empowering their workforces to participate in improvement.
Neil Ward-Dutton, Research Director, MWD Advisors
Thinking of Buying a Cloud Solution?
This is not a fun read as it is 100 pages of the questions that you need to consider before you buy and implement a cloud solution in your company. However, it is a lot more fun than dealing with the fall-out from not asking a critical question and making a poor choice.
Cloud Computing is a new business model that requires new thinking for our customers. How they architect the solution, how they secure the applications and how they federate their on-premise computing with the cloud are all extremely critical success factors for Cloud Computing adoption. Ian and Stephen have done a great job of exposing the questions that our customers need to be asking their cloud services vendors to ensure a successful project. Shannon Day, Marketing Manager Software plus Services (Microsoft)
There are many sources of information, but not one source for all the information that buyers need to conduct their evaluation of Cloud Computing. Until now that is – “Thinking of… Buying Cloud Computing? Ask the Smart Questions” puts buyers in the driving seat. Caveat Emptor becomes Caveat Venditor! Frank Bennett, Founder (SaaSDeal)
Thinking of Offering a Cloud Solution?
Every vendor has a cloud solution, so you need to keep up to compete. But you have a solid on premise offering that is still selling well. So how do you migrate/. The technical side is hard, but is achievable, but depends on your starting point; architecture, platform & database. What is harder is everything else; the company culture, people, processes & metrics. It is like changing all the engines on a 747 in flight over the Atlantic which everyone on board is not expecting to feel a thing and you still get to New York on time.
Ian and Stephen have pulled together a great book on the subject of offering a Cloud Computing solution and brought it to life with some real life case studies. My plea to you is to read the book, think carefully about the Smart Questions and use them to make equally smart decisions in your organization. And make sure that you are one of the leaders in the next wave of computing. Darren Bibby (Program Director, IDC Software Channels Research)
Thinking of Building a Force.com app?
The “Smart Questions” structure will help you to make well-informed choices. Nothing is left unexamined: Misra and Gotts explore the issues from both business and technical perspectives, but focus on the one intent that matters most: commercial success on Force.com. (Parker Harris Co-founder, executive vice president, salesforce.com)
This book, “Thinking of…” outlines the thinking and planning required to migrate a traditional software company to the “software as a service” model, using salesforce.com’s Force.com platform. The book presents dozens of questions an ISV must ask itself before jumping into SaaS and many case study examples of companies that have failed and succeeded at their attempts to offer software as a service. It should serve as a useful guide to any company interested in making this shift. (Penny Crosman, Executive Editor, Techweb)
Why Killer Products Don’t Sell
Your unique, innovative product should have flown out of the warehouse, but sales have tanked and the sales team’s morale is at an all time low. What has gone wrong, and why?
Whether or not your corporation has a strong track record of sales success, there is no guarantee that your experience can help you to take a ground-breaking product to a new market. If you have a killer product, and you want it to sell the book will help you to understand:
- the common reasons why killer products don’t sell – and how to
change your strategies. - four different sales models, based on customers’ buying culture.
- how to align your entire organization to support value-created sales.
With contributions from EADS, Cisco, Fuji Xerox Global Services, Symantec, SAS, a host of smaller successful start-ups and the investor community. Foreword written by Guy Kawasaki.
If you are an early stage tech company, then Killer Products has been updated and is called IMPACT. Download the IMPACT book summary.
Common Approach, Uncommon Results
How do you really deliver results on all the initiatives and projects in your company? The answer is Adoption. Through Adoption, everyone in your company ensures that your strategy gets implemented and you obtain visible results from your initiative. We put this succinctly: R=IA2 (Results = Initiatives x Adoption[squared])
The book sets of a simple but highly effective top-down process mapping approach that has delivered tangible results in thousands of client projects and has won Gartner BPM awards. The clients are global, cover every industry and include Nestle, Toyota, HSBC, AstraZeneca, Northrop Grumman, SAP, Sara Lee, Chevron and central and local Government.
The book also shows how the approach can be tailored and applied to different types of project; process improvement, Shared Services, CRM / ERP implementation and compliance.
Available from Q9 – email them
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