Best Selling Books by Vijay Govindarajan

How Stella Saved the Farm is a simple parable about making innovation happen. Written by the authors of the New York Times bestselling Reverse Innovation: Create Far From Home, Win Everywhere, Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble. This story resonates in organizations of all types—public sector, private sector, and social sector, from mammoth corporations to small organizations employing just a few dozen people. The parable is about a farm in trouble. Bankruptcy, or the grim prospect of being acquired by a hostile competitor, threaten. The farm succeeds only if the team pulls together and innovates. The main characters in the story—Stella, Deirdre, Bull, Mav, Einstein, Rambo, Maisie, and Andrea—are all like people you know, maybe even yourself. The tale includes an unexpected leadership challenge, an ambitious call to action, a bold idea, countless internal obstacles and conflicts, fears, joys, triumphs, and even a love interest. It''s a story that can be enjoyed by anyone. How Stella Saved the Farm delivers eight simple lessons to guide innovation initiatives to success. It prepares business leaders to avoid some of innovation''s most toxic myths, teaches how to build the right kind of team, and shows how to learn quickly from experience.

How to Innovate and Execute Leaders already know that innovation calls for a different set of activities, skills, methods, metrics, mind-sets, and leadership approaches. And it is well understood that creating a new business and optimizing an already existing one are two fundamentally different management challenges. The real problem for leaders is doing both, simultaneously. How do you meet the performance requirements of the existing business—one that is still thriving—while dramatically reinventing it? How do you envision a change in your current business model before a crisis forces you to abandon it? Innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan expands the leader’s innovation tool kit with a simple and proven method for allocating the organization’s energy, time, and resources—in balanced measure—across what he calls “the three boxes”: • Box 1: The present—Manage the core business at peak profitability • Box 2: The past—Abandon ideas, practices, and attitudes that could inhibit innovation • Box 3: The future—Convert breakthrough ideas into new products and businesses The three-box framework makes leading innovation easier because it gives leaders a simple vocabulary and set of tools for managing and measuring these different sets of behaviors and activities across all levels of the organization. Supported with rich company examples—GE, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hasbro, IBM, United Rentals, and Tata Consultancy Services—and testimonies of leaders who have successfully used this framework, this book solves once and for all the practical dilemma of how to align an organization on the critical but competing demands of innovation.

The authors reveal how to execute an innovation initiative. Regardless of the type of initiative, the crux of the challenge is that business organizations are not designed for innovation; they are designed for ongoing operations. And there are deep and fundamental conflicts between the two.

Companies stumble when they imagine that innovation is mostly about ideas. The reality is that ideas are only beginnings. Indeed, even a company with the world''s best idea still faces a devilish challenge: it must build the business of tomorrow without endangering the business of today.

Innovation is no longer the exclusive domain of the Silicon Valley elite. Reverse Innovation will open your eyes to the fact that the dynamics of global innovation are changing-and if you want your firm to survive, you''d better pay attention. The gap between rich nations and emerging economies is closing. No longer will innovations travel the globe in only one direction, from developed to developing nations. They will also flow in reverse. CEOs of the world''s most influential companies agree and have cited Reverse Innovation as their playbook for the next generation of global growth.

A new, comprehensive playbook for innovation from the New York Times bestselling author of Reverse Innovation, Vijay Govindarajan In his seminal book The Three-Box Solution, Vijay Govindarajan offered an amazingly simple and highly effective framework for leading innovation: Execute the present core business at peak efficiency (Box 1) Avoid the inhibiting traps of past success (Box 2) Build a future day by day through breakthrough innovations (Box 3) Since the book''s publication, companies across the globe have used the three-box framework to great success. Now, along with Manish Tangri, a corporate dealmaker at Intel, Govindarajan goes deeper into the most crucial box of all: creating the future. Together they provide a repeatable process for companies to create new breakthroughs--from ideation through incubation to scaling. Full of worksheets, exercises, tools, and examples, The Three-Box Solution Playbook is the guide you and your team need to drive innovation and growth--and continually revitalize your company.

Health-Care Solutions from a Distant Shore Health care in the United States and other nations is on a collision course with patient needs and economic reality. For more than a decade, leading thinkers, including Michael Porter and Clayton Christensen, have argued passionately for value-based health-care reform: replacing delivery based on volume and fee-for-service with competition based on value, as measured by patient outcomes per dollar spent. Though still a pipe dream here in the United States, this kind of value-based competition is already a reality--in India. Facing a giant population of poor, underserved people and a severe shortage of skills and capacity, some resourceful private enterprises have found a way to deliver high-quality health care, at ultra-low prices, to all patients who need it. This book shows how the innovations developed by these Indian exemplars are already being practiced by some far-sighted US providers--reversing the typical flow of innovation in the world. Govindarajan and Ramamurti, experts in the phenomenon of reverse innovation, reveal four pathways being used by health-care organizations in the United States to apply Indian-style principles to attack the exorbitant costs, uneven quality, and incomplete access to health care. With rich stories and detailed accounts of medical professionals who are putting these ideas into practice, this book shows how value-based delivery can be made to work in the United States. This "bottom-up" change doesn''t require a grand plan out of Washington, DC, agreement between entrenched political parties, or coordination among all players in the health-care system. It needs entrepreneurs with innovative ideas about delivering value to patients. Reverse innovation has worked in other industries. We need it now in health care.

Use design thinking for competitive advantage. If you read nothing else on design thinking, read these 10 articles. We''ve combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you use design thinking to produce breakthrough innovations and transform your organization. This book will inspire you to: Identify customers'' "jobs to be done" and build products people love Fail small, learn quickly, and win big Provide the support design-thinking teams need to flourish Foster a culture of experimentation Sharpen your own skills as a design thinker Counteract the biases that perpetuate the status quo and thwart innovation Adopt best practices from design-driven powerhouses This collection of articles includes "Design Thinking," by Tim Brown; "Why Design Thinking Works," by Jeanne M. Liedtka; "The Right Way to Lead Design Thinking," by Christian Bason and Robert D. Austin; "Design for Action," by Tim Brown and Roger L. Martin; "The Innovation Catalysts," by Roger L. Martin; “Know Your Customers'' ''Jobs to Be Done,''" by Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan; "Engineering Reverse Innovations," by Amos Winter and Vijay Govindarajan; "Strategies for Learning from Failure," by Amy C. Edmondson; "How Indra Nooyi Turned Design Thinking into Strategy," by Indra Nooyi and Adi Ignatius, and "Reclaim Your Creative Confidence," by Tom Kelley and David Kelley. HBR''s 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR''s 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever‐changing business environment.

Management Control Systems helps students to develop the insight and analytical skills required of today''s managers. Students uncover how real-world managers design, implement, and use planning and control systems to implement business strategies. The 12th edition builds on the strengths of prior editions by offering a rich diversity of cases balanced with current content and research.

Even world-class companies, with powerful and proven business models, eventually discover limits to growth. That''s what makes emerging high-growth industries so attractive. Although they lack a proven formula for making a profit, these industries represent huge opportunities for the companies that are fast enough and smart enough. But constructing tomorrow''s businesses while simultaneously sustaining excellence in today''s, demands a delicate balance. It is a quest fraught with contradiction and paradox. Until now, there has been little practical guidance. Based on an in-depth, multiyear research study of innovative initiatives at ten large corporations, Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble identify three central challenges: forgetting yesterday''s successful processes and practices; borrowing selected resources from the core business; and learning how the new business can succeed. The authors make recommendations regarding staffing, leadership roles, reporting relationships, process design, planning, performance assessment, incentives, cultural norms, and much more. Breakthrough growth opportunities can make or break companies and careers. Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators is every leader''s guide to execution in unexplored territory.

In The Many Facets of Leadership, more than 40 top leadership experts share their insights on every aspect of leadership in the 21st century. This book brings together new ideas and techniques for leading change, promoting learning and innovation, handling complexity and crisis, overcoming blind spots, managing knowledge workers, coaching tomorrow''s leaders, increasing value, retaining customers, and much more.

An indispensable guide for managers concerned with cost, strategy, and business re-engineering. Experts on the strategic use of cost data, the authors show how stategic cost management is revolutionizing accounting practices in leading companies. Includes numerous examples. 120 line drawings.

Two world-renowned experts on innovation and digital strategy explore how real-time data and AI will radically transform physical products—and the companies that make them. Tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, and Google can collect real-time data from billions of users. For companies that design and manufacture physical products, that type of fluid, data-rich information used to be a pipe dream. Now, with the rise of cheap and powerful sensors, supercomputing, and artificial intelligence, things are changing—fast. In Fusion Strategy, world-renowned innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan and digital strategy expert Venkat Venkataraman offer a first-of-its-kind playbook that will help industrial companies combine what they do best—create physical products—with what digitals do best—use algorithms and AI to parse expansive, interconnected datasets—to make strategic connections that would otherwise be impossible. The laws of competitive advantage are changing, rewarding those who have the most robust, data-driven insights rather than the most valuable assets. To compete in the new digital age, companies need to use real-time data to turbocharge their products, strategies, and customer relationships. Those that don''t risk falling on the wrong side of the next great digital divide. Fusion Strategy is the way forward.

A STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK FOR GLOBAL DOMINANCE In the battle for global dominance, only those organizations that lead the ongoing globalization of their industries will succeed. That’s why students need a strategic framework that they can apply in a global setting. In GLOBAL STRATEGY AND ORGANIZATION, awarding-winning scholars and teachers Anil L. Gupta and Vijay Govindarajan focus on the four essential tasks for transforming a company in a global success: Identify market opportunities worldwide and pursue those opportunities by establishing the necessary presence in all key markets Convert global presence into global competitive advantage Cultivate a global mindset Strive to reinvent the rules of the global game Each chapter focuses on a specific, action-oriented issue. Reports on the activities of real firms, such as Wal-Mart, Dell Computer, and Canon, provide insights into the challenges associated with globalization and illustrate the author’s findings.

How to compete in a world dominated by tech giants. A new breed of monopolies is threatening your business. Tech mega-firms from around the world are encroaching on your industry''s space, rewriting the rules, and scooping up talent--and your customers. What should you and your company be doing right now to counter these challenges? Monopolies and Tech Giants: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will provide you with today''s most essential thinking on corporate inequality and the future of antitrust, help you understand what these threats mean for your organization, and give your company the tools to succeed in the winner-take-all economy. Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind? Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company''s future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR''s smartest thinking on fast-moving issues--blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more--each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can''t afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas--and prepare you and your company for the future.

A year’s worth of management wisdom, all in one place. We’ve reviewed the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to keep you up-to-date on the most cutting-edge, influential thinking driving business today. With authors from Clayton M. Christensen to Adam Grant and company examples from Intel to Uber, this volume brings the most current and important management conversations to your fingertips. This book will inspire you to: Rethink the way you work in the face of advancing automation Transform your business using a platform strategy Apply design thinking to create innovative products Identify where too much collaboration may be holding your people back See the theory of disruptive innovation in a brand new light Recognize the signs that your cross-cultural negotiation may be falling apart This collection of articles includes “Collaborative Overload,” by Rob Cross, Reb Rebele, and Adam Grant; “Algorithms Need Managers, Too,” by Michael Luca, Jon Kleinberg, and Sendhil Mullainathan; “Pipelines, Platforms, and the New Rules of Strategy,” by Marshall W. Van Alstyne, Geoffrey G. Parker, and Sangeet Paul Choudary; “What Is Disruptive Innovation?,” by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael Raynor, and Rory McDonald; “How Indra Nooyi Turned Design Thinking into Strategy,” an interview with Indra Nooyi by Adi Ignatius; “Engineering Reverse Innovations,” by Amos Winter and Vijay Govindarajan; “The Employer-Led Health Care Revolution,” by Patricia A. McDonald, Robert S. Mecklenburg, and Lindsay A. Martin; “Getting to Sí, Ja, Oui, Hai, and Da,” by Erin Meyer; “The Limits of Empathy,” by Adam Waytz; “People Before Strategy: A New Role for the CHRO,” by Ram Charan, Dominic Barton, and Dennis Carey; and “Beyond Automation,” by Thomas H. Davenport and Julia Kirby.

To innovate profitably, you need more than just creativity. Do you have what it takes? If you read nothing else on inspiring and executing innovation, read these 10 articles. We’ve combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you innovate effectively. Leading experts such as Clayton Christensen, Peter Drucker, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter provide the insights and advice you need to: Decide which ideas are worth pursuing Innovate through the front lines—not just from the top Adapt innovations from the developing world to wealthier markets Tweak new ventures along the way using discovery-driven planning Tailor your efforts to meet customers’ most pressing needs Avoid classic pitfalls such as stifling innovation with rigid processes

EBOOK: Management Control Systems, 2e

Anil K. Gupta, Vijay Govindarajan, and Haiyan Wang are among the most distinguished experts in the field of globalization. In The Quest for Global Dominance they present the lessons from their twenty-year study of over two hundred corporations. They argue that, in order for a company to create and maintain its position as a globally dominant player, executives must ensure that their company leads its industry in the following four essential tasks: Identifying market opportunities worldwide and pursuing them by establishing the necessary presence in all key markets Converting global presence into global competitive advantage by identifying and developing the opportunities for value creation that global presence offers Cultivating a global mindset by viewing cultural and geographic diversity as an opportunity, not just a challenge Leveraging the rise of emerging markets especially China and India to transform the company''s growth prospects, global cost structure, and pace of innovation

Management Control Systems helps students to develop the insight and analytical skills required of today''s managers. Students uncover how real-world managers design, implement and use planning and control systems to implement business strategies. The first European edition is specifically aimed at an international audience and it has been thoroughly updated to include the latest developments in the field.