Business thinking between the covers

Niche

by James Harkin

Abacus €12.99

The core message in this thoughtful book is that businesses need to find an identifiable niche rather than trying to be everything to everyone. Harkin, a former Oxford academic turned freelance futurologist, analyses the wider picture driving this trend.

This is the era for the nimble rather than for the big and a key dynamic now is that the internet has made consumers more hawkish in seeking out exactly what they are after.

His advice to budding businesses is to develop something distinctive, find a real audience and invite them in to nourish it. To protect your niche, you need to build authority by getting to know everything about it and encouraging connoisseurship among your audience too. Many consumers, he notes, are tired of flitting in and out of different places and are looking for something more satisfying.

The numerous case studies in the book illustrate his points well. These include the story of how clothing retailer Abercrombie Fitch started playing ear-splitting electronic dance music in its store in New York in 1999 in a deliberate attempt to alienate over-30s customers. It also put dark shades on its windows and placed its more modish teenage employees by the door in case the “oldies” didn’t get the message. It worked apparently.

The investment answer

by Daniel C Goldie and Gordon S Murray

Piatkus €12.99

This slim, well-crafted volume is a self-help book for those who want to take control of their financial future. The book invites readers to make five basic but key decisions about their money. These concern whether to control your own investments directly, asset allocation, diversification, active versus passive management and rebalancing. The authors suggest that investors who take the time to properly address these investment decisions will be successful.

The authors recommend the use of independent fee-earning advisers over commission-paid brokers.

Unlike a broker, an independent adviser receives commission only from their client and does not receive payment from moving your money back and forth between investments.

According to Goldie and Murray, conventional wisdom says that investment results are determined by a mix of timing, the selection of individual stocks and finding a top performing manager or mutual fund. However, the primary driver of investment returns is risk and what’s important is how you allocate the risks within your portfolio of investments.

Among the advice on the portfolio to choose is to have high-quality, short maturing bonds within this mix.

Insanely Simple

by Ken Segall

Portfolio Penguin €19.99

There has been a raft of books lately about the secrets of Apples success, written in the main by outsiders purporting to have insider knowledge. Segall has a more legitimate claim to insider status having worked closely with Steve Jobs as an agency creative director for Apple and NeXT. He also claims to be the man who put the “i” in Apple’s product range.

The clear message of this book is that the obsession with simplicity is what separates Apple from other technology companies. Simplicity was more than just a design principle with Steve Jobs, it was a religion and a competitive weapon, he says.

Segall suggests that if we view every part of the way our organisation works through the lens of simplicity, we will be astounded by the range of opportunities for improvement.

Segall contrasts Apple’s style with that of Intel, with whom he also worked. Intel is an organisation founded on engineering excellence and, like Apple, is ruthlessly efficient. However, while Apple was willing to put ads on air based largely on instinct and had a tight marketing group, Intel required hard proof and had a much larger global team involved in marketing strategy. Ironically, Intel’s quest for efficiency and perfection made it less effective in this area, he says.