Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/59881
"How fast do you read? Depending on your answer, by the time you finish this book, Wal-Mart will have opened one, two, three or more stores." That's just one of the nuggets contained in What I Learned From Sam Walton, written by former Wal-Mart executive Michael Bergdahl. But Bergdahl isn't interested in merely wowing readers with facts about Wal-Mart's juggernaut success. He wants to offer potential Wal-Mart competitors concrete advice about how to compete with the retail giant. He's devised a strategy for "picking Wal-Mart's pockets," which, conveniently, spells the word POCKETS. Readers come to under- stand Wal-Mart strategies on price, operations, culture, key item promo- tion, expenses, talent, and service. The chapter on pricing, for instance, details Wal-Mart's commitment to rock-bottom prices and then states point-blank that no one can com- pete with the company head-to-head on pricing. "The key is to find a niche ... within your area of expert- ise, with products and services not offered by Wal-Mart." It's a great read for anyone interested in how Wal-Mart has reshaped the landscape of retailing. (Wiley, $24.95) Through what combination of experience and innate intelligence do people develop the skills and knowledge to be excellent leaders? Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap call that kind of knowledge Deep Smarts and have written a book about the process of acquiring it. They studied Internet entrepreneurs— who compressed a whole life cycle of learning, suc- cess, and failure into a span of a couple of years—as well as veterans of long-established organizations such as The World Bank and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Although some of their conclusions are obvi- ous—experience is the best teacher, for example—the questions they ask are thought-provoking. While we know experience matters, they write, do we appreciate its importance in "designing our own careers, in man- aging the careers of others, or in building and retaining deep smarts within our organizations?" (Harvard Business School Press, $29.95) In today's highly differentiated world, it's virtually impossible to sell the same product to everybody. There are too many markets, too many competi- tors, and too many customers with specialized needs. But how does a CEO determine who his customers are and how to find them? Art Weinstein provides a guide in Handbook of Market Segmentation, which focuses on the high-tech and industrial markets. Weinstein demonstrates how executives can zero in on their niche markets by considering geographic location and product lines while determining if a market is penetrated, untapped, generic, or rel- evant. Too many firms "still base their marketing plans on cursory, incom- plete, or intuitive market analysis," he writes. What's required, he says, is the sound planning and research that lead to strategic seg- mentation. (Haworth Press, $19.96) Every aging population views members of the upcoming generation with a low-level dread, believing they can- not be as hard-working, passionate, or collaborative as their own con- temporaries. So it's no surprise that baby boomers look with horror on the video gamers just now muscling their way into the work force. After years of sitting numbly before com- puter screens immersed in violent fantasy worlds, what could gamers have to offer to the work- force? Plenty, accord- ing to John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade in Got Game. They con- ducted interviews with thousands of business professionals, men and women, who were gamers as teenagers, to determine if the video gaming experience changed their attitudes and expectations about work. The answer is: absolutely—and often in a positive way. Gamers are confident, competi- tive, high-performing, multitasking, and at least as social as nongamers. Playing self-centered games in which they are called upon to do heroic tasks leads them to appreciate "fac- ing a challenge with real teeth, where the reward is partly in service to some larger cause." Why is it important to understand what moti- vates former gamers? Because, according to the authors, they make up 81 percent of the workforce of people 34 years old or younger, a huge portion of today's employees. (Harvard Business School Press, $27.50) ■ z BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2005 55