Scenario Planning in Organizations - How to Create, Use, and Assess Scenarios

It is time to rethink the way businesses organize and run forecasting processes and how they use the insights that they provide to navigate through these turbulent times. This book synthesizes and structures findings from a range of disciplines and over 60 years of the authors combined practical experience. This is presented in the form of a set of simple strategies that any organization can use to master the process of forecasting. The key message of this book is that while no mortal can predict the future, you can take the steps to be ready for it. ’Good enough’ forecasts, wise preparation and the capability to take timely action, will help your organization to create its own future.

Written in an engaging and thought provoking style, Future Ready leads the reader to answers to questions such as:

• What makes a good forecast?
• What period should a forecast cover?
• How frequently should it be updated?
• What information should it contain?
• What is the best way to produce a forecast?
• How can you avoid gaming and other forms of data manipulation?
• How should a forecast be used?
• How do you ensure that your forecast is reliable?
• How accurate does it need to be?
• How should you deal with risk and uncertainty
• What is the best way to organize a forecast process?
• Do you need multiple forecasts?
• What changes should be made to other performance management processes to facilitate good forecasting?

Future Ready is an invaluable guide for practicing managers and a source of insight and inspiration to leaders looking for better ways of doing things and to students of the science and craft of management.

Praise for Future Ready

"Will make a difference to the way you think about forecasting going forward"
—Howard Green, Group Controller Unilever PLC

"Great analogies and stories are combined with rock solid theory in a language that even the most reading-averse manager will love from page one"
—Bjarte Bogsnes, Vice President Performance Management Development at StatoilHydro

"A timely addition to the growing research on management planning and  performance measurement."
—Dr. Charles T. Horngren, Edmund G. Littlefield Professor of Accounting Emeritus Stanford University and author of many standard texts including Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis, Introduction to Management Accounting, and Financial Accounting

No More Homework! No More Tests! includes the funniest poems about school ever collected in one book.  These hilarious poems were written by a number of poets, including Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, David L. Harrison, Colin McNaughton, Carol Diggory Shields, Kalli Dakos, and Bruce Lansky.  Sillier than a teacher with hiccups, funnier than toilet paper stuck to the bottom of the principal’s shoe, it is certain to have readers laughing by the first page.  This book puts the cool back in school and makes students WANT to write and read poetry. 

Dale Ennis, Canadian MoneySaver

"...easy-going style and avoidance of the more mind-numbing details make for a solid primer on the perks and pitfalls of self-employment. The...one-sentence tips in the appendix are probably worth the price of admission alone."

Gordon Powers, The Globe and Mail

"...one of the better books I've seen on the market for small-business owners and better yet, it's all Canadian content."

Linda A. Fox, The Toronto Sun

As a small-business owner or a home-based entrepreneur, you have lots of questions about taxes, but very few answers. Fortunately for you, 167 Tax Tips for Canadian Small Business contains a wealth of tax planning advice and strategies to help you save on your business tax bill. So whether you want to do it yourself or reduce what you pay your accountant - not to mention the government - this is how you'll keep more money in your pocket, where it belongs.

• Packed with tax tips that will save you hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars year-round.
• Written in a question-and-answer format that's easy to understand, practical, and easy to apply.
• Features 167 "Tax Beaters" - quick-reference tips that highlight key points - plus three bonus tips to help you save even more!
• Explains how to save taxes in every aspect and at every stage of your business.
• Features a Year-Round Tax-Planning Calendar.
• Coverage includes: business start-up, corporate tax planning, GST/HST, deductibility of home and automobile expenses, what to do if you are audited by the Canada Revenue Agency, CPP and QPP deductions for self-employed entrepreneurs, and much more.

The ultimate "tax coach" for every Canadian in a small or home-based business, this book will help you to beat the taxman at his own game!

The Unbeatable, Updated, Comprehensive Guidebook For First-Time Consultants

Getting Started In Consulting

More people than ever are making the jump from corporate offices to home offices, taking control of their futures, being their own bosses, and starting their own consultancies. Consulting is a bigger business than ever and growing every day.

For almost a decade, Alan Weiss's Getting Started in Consulting has been an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to strike out on his own and start a new consulting business. It provides a rich source of expert advice and practical guidance, and it shows you how you can combine low overhead and a high degree of organization to add up to a six- or even seven-figure income. You'll learn everything you need to know about financing your business, marketing your services, writing winning proposals, meeting legal requirements, setting fees, keeping the books, and much more.

This new Third Edition of Getting Started in Consulting is more comprehensive, up to date, and practical than ever. In addition to the nuts-and-bolts basics, you'll also get a wealth of new information and resources:

• How to leverage new technologies to lower your business costs and increase your profits

• A budget sampler that shows you how best to maximize an initial start-up investment of $5,000, $10,000, or $20,000

• Free downloadable tools and forms to help you design and start your business quickly and easily

• New interviews with consultants who achieved rapid success, including their personal stories and most effective techniques

• Brand-new references, examples, and appendices

The Definitive Guide to Unstructured Data Management and Analysis--From the World’s Leading Information Management Expert

A wealth of invaluable information exists in unstructured textual form, but organizations have found it difficult or impossible to access and utilize it. This is changing rapidly: new approaches finally make it possible to glean useful knowledge from virtually any collection of unstructured data.

William H. Inmon--the father of data warehousing--and Anthony Nesavich introduce the next data revolution: unstructured data management. Inmon and Nesavich cover all you need to know to make unstructured data work for your organization. You’ll learn how to bring it into your existing structured data environment, leverage existing analytical infrastructure, and implement textual analytic processing technologies to solve new problems and uncover new opportunities. Inmon and Nesavich introduce breakthrough techniques covered in no other book--including the powerful role of textual integration, new ways to integrate textual data into data warehouses, and new SQL techniques for reading and analyzing text. They also present five chapter-length, real-world case studies--demonstrating unstructured data at work in medical research, insurance, chemical manufacturing, contracting, and beyond.

This book will be indispensable to every business and technical professional trying to make sense of a large body of unstructured text: managers, database designers, data modelers, DBAs, researchers, and end users alike.

Coverage includes

• What unstructured data is, and how it differs from structured data
• First generation technology for handling unstructured data, from search engines to ECM--and its limitations
• Integrating text so it can be analyzed with a common, colloquial vocabulary: integration engines, ontologies, glossaries, and taxonomies
• Processing semistructured data: uncovering patterns, words, identifiers, and conflicts
• Novel processing opportunities that arise when text is freed from context
• Architecture and unstructured data: Data Warehousing 2.0
• Building unstructured relational databases and linking them to structured data
• Visualizations and Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs), including Compudigm and Raptor solutions
• Capturing knowledge from spreadsheet data and email
• Implementing and managing metadata: data models, data quality, and more

Play Your Best Hand also covers:

• The four employee talent types
• Key challenges of managing knowledge workers-and recommended solutions
• The five talent-based leadership principles and how to apply them