∎ [PDF] Free World Inc Bruce Piasecki 9781402208713 Books

World Inc Bruce Piasecki 9781402208713 Books

Download As PDF : World Inc Bruce Piasecki 9781402208713 Books

World Inc Bruce Piasecki 9781402208713 Books

Good and interesting concept with questionable written execution.
After reading about a third of this book, I'd had enough. The concept was an interesting one but I felt this book could have been summed up in a 20 page article in a business magazine or Harvard Business Review.
Skimmed through the rest and felt like I got the same amount of info on Socially Responsible business history.


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World Inc Bruce Piasecki 9781402208713 Books Reviews

Like his hero, E.F. Schumacher, Dr. Bruce Piasecki newest book presents us with a powerful, inspiring, and compelling alternative to business an usual. In World Inc., Dr. Piasecki argues convincingly and in writing that is accessible to all, that the future of business success lies in competing on social needs as well as on price and quality; that is, by offering products and services that serve the greater good and not just consumer desire. With success stories from today's corporate elite he describes how going green and going global can help heal the environmental and social ills we face.

According to Dr. Piasecki, social response capitalism is a sea change in big business practice. Hence, World Inc. is not a theoretical book, but rather a report on what is happening right now. The social response wave, which was born 25 years ago, has built gradually, and will play an important part in deciding the corporate winners and losers over the next several decades. Neglect it at your peril, warns Dr. Piasecki. Seize it and opportunity awaits.

For these reasons alone, World Inc. is an important book and should be read by business leaders everywhere. Yet what sets this volume apart is its focus on the role of investors in fostering change. By highlighting how rating groups determine risk and value the intangible assets born from social and environmental efforts, Dr. Piasecki shows the power of the investor in making the world a better place. And what better use of one's investment dollars could there be?

My only criticism about World Inc. (and it's a minor one) is that Dr. Piasecki does not talk much about smaller and mid-size firms. As an observer of the social responsibility practices of SMEs, I would have enjoyed reading how Dr. Piasecki feels competing on social needs will affect those millions of companies worldwide who are both suppliers and customers of the multinational firms he showcases. Going green has historically proved challenging for them. And, as Dr. Piasecki so aptly points out, the membership of the Fortune 500 has changed dramatically over the past 25 years, and today includes businesses and even industries that were unknown until quite recently. Who knows which SMEs will ride the wave of social response capitalism into the Fortune 500 of tomorrow.

John Winter
President, Social Responsibility Solutions LLC
In World Inc., Bruce Piasecki calls attention to the global transition from a government-centric to a business-centric world, where the greater capacity of companies to adapt to change makes them the most important institution to harness, in order to drive a sustainable future. Instead of condemning corporate power as an unbridled threat, or championing it as a source of salvation, Piasecki presents the emerging world as an opportunity. Businesses can use social responsibility as a selling factor for their products. They can target unserved populations for extraordinary growth and social benefit. These are not options - they are imperatives that if missed could threaten their business survival. From my perspective at [...], there isn't enough focus on the downside potential, and the perverse incentives that could trigger the opposite tactic by some companies - but that's for the next book! Meanwhile, World Inc. highlights the overarching change and offers practical guidance on how to harness it.
In April, Dr. Bruce Piasecki came to Red Fox Books downtown here in Glens Falls, NY to discuss his book "World, Inc." Dr. Piasecki has many diverse credentials ranging from his education at Cornell, his professorship at the RPI Lally School of Management and Technology, founding and presiding over AHC Group, Inc. and his authorship of a diverse selection of books on environmental matters and management. I picked up "World, Inc." in April and read it in October with the idea of a progressive business culture in mind. Almost immediately in reading the book I could see I came to the right place "positive, transformative actions in your business and your life can be not only feasible, but profitable." Clearly, I was looking into serious discussion of this topic.

Referring to many other research and publications (e.g. Patricia Aburdene's Megatrends 2010's "conscious capitalism", Jack Trout & Steve Rivkin's Differentiate or Die where focused differentiation is a key to effectiveness in massive markets, Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat which describes the leveling of industries in the new world market), a Socially Responsible Capitalism is seen to emerge. "Companies restructure their operations to actively accommodate consumer demand by creating new products that bridge the gap between traditional expectations of performance and price and social impact on the larger world." This is an emerging phenomenon. "This gap has traditionally been ignored because it wasn't considered good business to worry about such externalities; price and quality sold products." [page 43] This is also described as a "new trinity of corporate strategy price, technical quality and social response." [page 33]

"The S-Frontier" is a three-sided consequence of the new global equity culture where these factors converge (1) the swiftness of new global market information (2) the severity of leading social problems (such as global climate change and the finite supply of oil) and (3) the need for Social Response capitalists. [page 24]. Another way of describing this frontier is "faster, cheaper, better - these are the hallmarks of modern society. Yet ... when faster and cheaper become too dominant, progress is stagnant and we can feel it." [page 28] That is to say, faster and cheaper no longer mean better (as seems to be the hallmark of traditional economics).

Bill McKibben, whose recent book Deep Economy describes the economic situation as where there are two birds, called More and Better, sharing a branch on a tree. Somewhere in the advancement of economy, McKibben says, Better fluttered off a few branches from More. So now, when we aim with out stones, we cannot choose More and get Better. Instead, we are forced to choose between More or Better. Piasecki says this even more succinctly "It can't be all about more, it must be about better." [page 139]

A way of interfacing this S-Frontier is by concentrating on Social Response Product Development which will develop along these keys

1) Margin Improvement

2) Rapid Time Cycle

3) Global Market Access

4) Product Differentiation

5) Social Bundling of Value in Products

6) Reducing the Risk Premium

[page 55]

Social Response Product Development is said to be emerging and won't be at its peak until 2015 [page 66], so now is an excellent opportunity to engage in its long tail by implementing and enjoying its benefits soon.

Social Response Product Development and Social Response Capitalism represent more than an altruistic wish for a better economy, but instead represent a pattern emerging among very large and very successful companies. Throughout the book, there are examples of case studies of corporations from Toyota (in its development with Honda of its hybrid electric power train), Suncor (and its partnering with native and local peoples in developing Alberta's tar sands), Innovest (in promoting leading social indicators for investment metrics) and Hewlett Packard (for its e-incentives strategy of creating markets for the pyramid floor level of the global equity market). To this end, Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP, addressed this social development "The winning companies of this century will be those who not only increase profits by maintaining the highest standards, but those who increase social value at the same time." [page 145]

Ultimately, it comes down to a matter of trust. Promoting a corporate culture of trust will inherently create the progressive culture and all the benefits that have been described to flow from it in the Transformative Change documents. We can view the core elements of trust in corporations as "Trusted Leadership, Social Awareness, Governance, Transparency, Risk Management, Intellectual Capital, Value Creation, Scoial Response, Better Products." [page 192]
Good and interesting concept with questionable written execution.
After reading about a third of this book, I'd had enough. The concept was an interesting one but I felt this book could have been summed up in a 20 page article in a business magazine or Harvard Business Review.
Skimmed through the rest and felt like I got the same amount of info on Socially Responsible business history.