Московская школа управления СКОЛКОВО

The changing landscape for business books

Welcome and introduction

Questions about business books

! Who writes business books? ! What does business literature cover? ! Who wrote the first business books? ! How many business books are published? ! What are the current trends in business

books? ! How can I find out more?

Academics: business school faculty

Business leaders

Consultants

Journalists

….anyone with something to say

What does business literature cover?

! The enterprise –  Types of Businesses, Management and Leadership

! The functions of the enterprise –  Sales and Marketing, Operations and Logistics, R&D, Finance and

Accounting, Human Resources, IT

! The environment in which the enterprise operates –  Economics, Politics, Law and Regulation, Science, Psychology,

Transport

First business book

! Adam Smith: ! The Wealth of Nations 1776

Father of management: Peter Drucker

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” “Management by objectives works if you know the objectives; ninety percent of the time you don’t.” “No institution can possibly survive if it needs

geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way to get along with the leadership of ordinary human beings.”

First business bestseller: In Search of Excellence

Tom Peters and Robert H Waterman Jnr.

“Celebrate what you want to see more of.” “Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast.” “Excellent firms don’t believe in

excellence, only constant improvement and constant change.”

Applying research to business

Evidence based research -  Data -  Best practice “Most managers invent their own solutions by lonely trial and error without benefitting from what has worked for others”

How many business books are published today?

USA 2011 figures – (US biggest market for business books)

! 19 million business books sold ! 10,000 business titles published ! 13% in e-book format (compared to 51% e-

book format for fiction hardbacks)

! 80% of business books bought are never read.

What about Russian translations?

Harvard Business Review Press ! Out of about 1200 business books

published in the last few years 251 Russian translations have been contracted. ! Russian is HBR’s 9th biggest language over

all time and 7th in the last 3 years. ! Excluding Spanish and Portuguese,

Russian is the 2nd biggest European language for HBR books, just behind French.

Personal view: 3 trends

1.  Uncertainty following the financial crash and the impact of globalization.

2. Humanizing business: psychology and behavioral economics.

3. Big data, technology, the internet and the

importance of analytics.

Trend 1: The end of…..

! Change ! Globalization ! Financial crisis

Trend 2: how do people actually behave?

Psychology and behavioral economics – impacts on decision making, marketing, organizational culture.

Trend 3: Watching and analyzing your every move?

Finding out more

! Thinkers 50 and other rankings: http://www.thinkers50.com/

! FT Business Book of the Year Award and other prizes :http://www.ft.com/management/business-book-award

! Bestseller lists http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/hardcover-business-books/list.html

! Library Facebook pages: http://www.facebook.com/skolkovo.library

New book I’m looking forward to reading next year

Everything I need to know about economics I learned from online

dating Paul Oyer Harvard Business Review Press, 2014. “Oyer uses his own experience of dating sites to show that behaviors driving online dating mimic those driving any other market…… help anyone to understand the intricacies of economics and the role they play in everyday actions.”

Thank you

Enjoy reading! helen_edwards@skolkovo.ru