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Fast Track to Profit, The: An Insider's Guide to Exploiting the World's Best Internet Technologies

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Fast Track to Profit, The: An Insider's Guide to Exploiting the World's Best Internet Technologies

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Description

  • Copyright 2003
  • Edition: 1st
  • Book
  • ISBN-10: 0-13-046347-7
  • ISBN-13: 978-0-13-046347-0

An expert blueprint for achieving rapid ROI with Web & Internet technology.

  • Your best opportunities for profiting from today's Internet and tomorrow's Internet-related advances
  • Six key mistakes you can't afford to make—and how to avoid them.
  • Practical strategies and tactics for improving execution and reducing cost
  • New business scenarios, best-practice processes, and realistic implementation techniques
  • "The Great Eyeball Race": Maximizing the effect of your Web and e-commerce presence
  • "Driving the Net": A step-by-step "Internet owner's manual" for executives
  • Proven, industry-specific reengineering solutions—in depth

The Fast Track to Profit gives managers an up-to-the-minute briefing on the use of Internet technologies for profit—and realistic, specific techniques for transforming promises into cold, hard cash. Drawing on his immense experience as a strategist, IT leader, and hands-on implementer Lee Caldwell offers insider's solutions for the key challenges of Internet-based reengineering—both technical and human. Caldwell presents detailed, example-rich chapters on maximizing the value of Internet technology.

Your Internet initiatives promised lower costs, greater business value, and stronger, more profitable relationships throughout the entire value chain. It's about time they delivered. In The Fast Track to Profit, Lee Caldwell shows how to make it happen—starting today, and for years to come.

Sample Content

Online Sample Chapter

The Great Eyeball Race: From Dot.com to the Dot.bomb and Beyond

Downloadable Sample Chapter

Click here for a sample chapter for this book: 0130463477.pdf

Table of Contents



Foreword.


Preface.


Acknowledgments.


1. Using Internet Technologies to Make Cold, Hard Cash.

e-Schwab Buys Low and Sells High. Dell Revolutionizes the Process of Big-Ticket. Learning from the Mistakes of Others. Exploiting Major Internet Technology Trends. Preparing the Troops.



2. Improving Your Business Scenarios.

The Early Bird Catches the Worm. Checking Your Foundational Business Fundamentals. Developing Your Communications Infrastructure. Organizing, Storing, and Locating Information on the Internet. Integrating Your Design and Manufacturing Processes. Focusing on Customer and Tech Support. Selling Gizmos, Gadgets, and Intangibles. Over the Web. Reengineering the Way You Do Business.



3. Reengineering the U.S. Auto Industry: DaimlerChrysler, Ford, and General Motors (GM).

Change or Permanently Run out of Gas. Chrysler Ignites in Astonishing Ways. Ford and GM Hop on Board the Internet Express. Ford's Unique Set of Road Hazards. GM Navigates the Bumpy Road Ahead. Exploiting Internet Technologies in the U.S. Auto Industry. A Forward View.



4. Reengineering the Financial Services Industry.

The Financial Services Industry: Ripe for Change. Going Bust and Going Forward. A Giant Leap of Faith. Technology's Role in Security Issues. The Financial Services Industry Exploits the World's Best Internet Technologies. Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due. Cloudy Skies for the Insurance Industry. A Salute to USAA. High Fidelity. Banking on the Future.



5. Reengineering the Travel Industry.

The World Shrinks Before Our Very Eyes. Reservations about Reservations. Putting the Brakes on the Commission Gravy Train. An Expedient Twist in the Game. The Irresistible Allure of Perks. Increasing Profitability in the Travel Industry. Up, Up, and Away!



6. Reengineering the Telecommunications Industry.

From Ostriches to Idiots. Monopoly Money. Bypass Surgery. Now Entering the Ring: AT&T versus MCI. Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch? Wanting To Be in the Loop. The Internet Lures the Wild Guys. Madness and Mayhem. Unraveling the Tangled Web.



7. The Great Eyeball Race.

Reach Out and Touch Someone. Fishing for Eyeballs. The Slippery Slope from Dot.Com to Dot.Bomb. The Secrets to Dot.Com Success. Online Purchasing Purgatory. Online Purchasing Nirvana. Busy Signals.



8. Insider Secrets Revealed.

Insider Secret #1: Linking People and Processes. Insider Secret #2: Linking Electronic and Physical Universes. Insider Secret #3: Building and Sustaining Value Delivery Relationships and Partnerships. Insider Secret #4: Strengthening the Relationship with Your Customers.



9. Driving the Internet: Step-by-Step Owner's Manual.

Looking at Your Communications Infrastructure. Focusing on People, Not Processes. Driving All of Your Systems Toward Open Internet Systems. Focusing on Underlying Business Value Propositions. Rapidly Prototyping These New Value Propositions. Looking for Additional Linkages Between Systems, Processes, and People to Create Even Greater Value. Looking Beyond Your Organization's Boundaries for Other Partners and Solutions. The Fast Track to Profit.



Appendix A: Technology Primer for Executives.


Bibliography: Online Sources.


Index.

Preface

Preface

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."

Such are the prophetic words of winning racecar driver Mario Andretti. If it has been too long since you felt the thrill—the pure exhilaration—of victory, and you're hungry to take the checkered flag, there's a very good chance that you've come to the right place. But, be warned...

This is not a book for the shy and timid. Similarly, this is not a book for the reckless and out-of-control. Rather, The Fast Track to Profit is a book for people who want to accelerate their paths to profit, with a new breed of speed and precision and agility.

You have a choice. You can endure the frustration of unacceptable profit levels, or you can follow my "Step-by-Step Owner's Manual" and find that in no time flat, you can get your company on the fast track to profit.

Comedian Steven Wright recently pondered, "I watched the Indy 500, and I was thinking that if they left earlier they wouldn't have to go so fast."

Have you talked and planned and strategized about how to increase your company's profits until you're blue in the face? And for all your efforts, do you see nothing but smashed bugs all over your proverbial corporate windshield? Are you sick of having your motor idling behind the starting line, while you end up eating your competition's dust? Are you ready for tangible, impressive, bottom-line results that will markedly improve your profits in record time?

If so, read on! Fasten your seat belt and grab the wheel with all your might! Prepare for the ride of your life!

Ladies and gentlemen...it's time to start your engines...

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