World's Best Value-Global Competition in the Information Age

By Rob Faw

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0967767709
• ISBN13: 9780967767703
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Worldsbestvalue.Com
• Length: 241 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.8" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Solid Material...Sensible Commentary

According to Faw, "World's Best Value™ companies are like leaders. Steven Covey describes the paradigm shift from management [italics] to one of principle-centered leadership [italics]. Leaders develop, contribute and make a difference in the lives of their employees, community, customers, and shareowners -- each and every day. Leaders are not found everywhere, but countless numbers are in pursuit of an excellence leading towards World's Best Value™." As this brief excerpt correctly indicates, there really isn't much that is new in this book. And frankly, I was irritated by the constant repetition of "World's Best Value™ in bold face throughout the book and struggled to suppress my irritation while trying to absorb and digest the book's contents. In fact, the material is solid, presented with a crisp prose style. Faw views this book as "a simplification of complex business system perspectives...a guidepost for business survival and long-term success." That is an accurate description.In Chapter 1, he suggests the characteristics of (here we go again) the "World's Best Value™:* World-class products and services* Best practices, business and information systems* High-performance team members* Low-cost values* Total quality management culture* Intensive global customer focus* Principled centered leadershipOnce again, nothing new. However, with this initial chapter, Faw creates an appropriate context within which to present follow-up material (on each of the aforfementioned subjects) in the succeeding 15 chapters. He does become overheated at times (eg "If you're not changing the world, you're taking up space!") but, on balance, the material is sound and his discussion of it is lucid as well as well as sensible.

Helpful Overview of Top Management Tasks

This is a book of to-do lists built around today's best practices of global companies. If you want a reference guide to help you understand the kinds of things you should be thinking about, World's Best Value will be useful for you. The key limitation of the book is that it provides too little guidance in how to go from where you are to these levels of effectiveness. Most companies will have difficulty moving from where they are to this standard, and the book seems aimed primarily at large, wealthy companies in technology-rich industries which have abundant staff resources to do all the things involved. If you are a convenience store operator in Dallas, for example, I suggest you look elsewhere for guidance. Unfortunately, most business books do not attempt to provide an overview of what the firm should be working on. Most take one little area, and blow it up in detail. As a result, management becomes a patchwork of little areas suddenly expanded. The result is distorted. World's Best Value overcomes that weakness. If you are working towards becoming a global, world-class company, you will find the book a good touchstone. World's Best Value is built around the idea of having (1) "World-class products and services"(2) "Best practices, and [top flight] business and information systems"(3) "High-performance team members"(4) "Low-cost values"(5) "Total quality management culture"(6) "Intensive global customer focus"(7) "Principle centered leadership" (a la Stephen Covey).I thought that the most eloquent and new parts of the book related to the importance of having global customer-based thinking, the qualities of market leadership, and measuring how you are doing in providing World's Best Value. There are three weaknesses that recur in the book. One is that the examples are overwhelmingly built around a limited set of companies that few would think today are world's best companies (AT & T -- which is barely surviving, Ford -- which is having SUV tire problems, and Motorola -- which is faltering in the cell phone business). To the author's credit, he does raise some doubts about AT & T's new strategy and admires Nokia. The second weakness is that the author assumes a familiarity with many of the advanced management concepts described in the book. I have that background, so I understood what he was talking about. If you don't have this familiarity already, you won't get enough here to learn the basics. You will have to look elsewhere to fill in your knowledge. But no one can cover everything in one book. This book could have used a little more grounding for those who are unfamiliar with these ideas. The third weakness is a stylistic one. For my taste the book came across a little too much as a plug for a set of consulting services. But you may see it differently. Just as one example of this problem, the book's title appears somewhere between 125-150 times in bold-faced type in the book, reflecting a trademarked service.

incisive business advice

This book would be useful for anyone in almost any kind of business. Faw is one of the world's top business leaders, but he decides to share his advice with anyone who chooses to read his book. I think we should take advantage of this generosity. Chapter by chapter, he lays out practical steps for creating a successful global business. He is specific enough that you can use the book as a blueprint for laying out a business plan.There are two key points he emphasizes which I found heartening. First is that customer satisfaction and customer service must be of the highest priority in any business. As a frequent customer, this is good news for all of us! Any businessman who doesn't value customer service will get what is coming to him. Second is that businesses must be socially responsibility. He cites both his own company dedicated to giving money to good causes and Bill Gates' huge donations to help bring technology to everyone. Again, any business that tries to keep all the profits to itself will not last in the global market.My only small gripe about the book is the constant boldfaced use of the trademarked term "World's Best Value." It gets in the way of the text and makes the book sound at times like a giant advertisement. But this is only a small gripe for a very solid book full of helpful information. Highly recommended for anyone thinking of starting or expanding a business.

Faw's brain in print

It took awhile for me to understand what was meant by the title of Rob Faw's new book, "World's Best Value - Global Competition in the Information Age". But just two chapters into it and I realized that what I was reading was the equivalent of having a high-profile, successful chief executive officer, at my beck and call - there to pick his brain about how he did it.I am accustomed to interviewing CEOs and other executive of companies - particularly those running high-tech firms - having been a business reporter for the past 17 years at a large, metropolitan daily. But never in all those years was I able to pick an executive's brain like this book allowed me to do. It turns out World's Best Value is really a concept, emanating from Faw's mind, flowing onto the pages of what really is a step-by-step guide to successfully starting, running, or establishing, a business, during these times when the Internet, telecommunications, and conventional buying and selling, have melded into one large, global pot. If you are selling widgets in Small Town America and you aren't paying attention to competitors who have figured out how to sell them internationally, sorry, you lose - or you will lose, soon. Take Faw's word on that. Or better yet, take the CompuServe-AOL example, which Faw points to in his book.The book was immediately inspiring. It made me believe that I could lead a company, or at least play an important role in one, were I to follow Faw's guidance. After all, he did it. Faw is an American success story. He went from a $50,000-a-year-job in a cubicle at some company, to heading up Westell, Virtual Access plc, - a communications industry pioneer with digital subscriber line technology. The fact that he is now worth millions and there seems absolutely no need to share his secrets with the rest of us, is not evident anywhere in the book. Instead, he shows he is still frugal, still "one of us," by sharing such personal feelings as flying coach to Scotland with his wife, Jill, and commenting about the excellent service he received as compared with having to wade through telephone menus at another airline flying domestically. (I've been there.)If I were having trouble picking a Christmas gift for the executive in the family who has everything, or, if I were just working my way up the ladder, I would choose "World's Best Value" only because any executive, no matter how bright or high up or low in the ranks, would glean a thing or two from Faw's excellent outline for success in the global information age. Worth reading twice.- Frank Ruiz, columnist