How maverick companies have passed up the growth treadmill — and focused on greatness instead. It’s an axiom of business that great companies grow their revenues and profits year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, a small number of companies have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Goals like being great at what they do, creating a great place to work, providing great customer service, making great contributions to their communities, and finding great ways to lead their lives. In Small Giants, veteran journalist Bo Burlingham takes us deep inside fourteen remarkable companies that have chosen to march to their own drummer. They include Anchor Brewing, the original microbrewer; CitiStorage Inc., the premier independent records-storage business; Clif Bar & Co., maker of organic energy bars and other nutrition foods; Righteous Babe Records, the record company founded by singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco; Union Square Hospitality Group, the company of restaurateur Danny Meyer; and Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, including the world-famous Zingerman’s Deli of Ann Arbor. Burlingham shows how the leaders of these small giants recognized the full range of choices they had about the type of company they could create. And he shows how we can all benefit by questioning the usual definitions of business success. In his new afterward, Burlingham reflects on the similarities and learning lessons from the small giants he covers in the book.

Considers economic concentration within the U.S. automobile industry and its impact on consumers, competition, and technological progress, and its response to Government regulations.

Profiles fourteen companies that have achieved high levels of success by focusing on the quality of their products and services, rather than their bottom-line profits, in a guide for small businesses that reveals how to earn consistent revenues by becoming purpose-driven. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.

Creativity is crucial to business success. But too often, even the most innovative organization quickly becomes a "giant hairball"--a tangled, impenetrable mass of rules, traditions, and systems, all based on what worked in the past--that exercises an inexorable pull into mediocrity. Gordon McKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years, many of which he spent inspiring his colleagues to slip the bonds of Corporate Normalcy and rise to orbit--to a mode of dreaming, daring and doing above and beyond the rubber-stamp confines of the administrative mind-set. In his deeply funny book, exuberantly illustrated in full color, he shares the story of his own professional evolution, together with lessons on awakening and fostering creative genius. Originally self-published and already a business "cult classic", this personally empowering and entertaining look at the intersection between human creativity and the bottom line is now widely available to bookstores. It will be a must-read for any manager looking for new ways to invigorate employees, and any professional who wants to achieve his or her best, most self-expressive, most creative and fulfilling work.

Considers economic concentration within the U.S. automobile industry and its impact on consumers, competition, and technological progress, and its response to Government regulations.

Asia's growing economic clout is starting to re-shape global business rules that have been molded by Western multinationals for many decades. The region's rising star, Vietnam, is now flexing its economic muscles and Competing with Giants tells the story of its transformation from war ruin to dynamic nation through the experiences of Tân Hiệp Phát (THP), the drinks company founded by Phương Uyên Trần's family. Narrated through the eyes of the daughter who watched her parents overcome numerous obstacles to achieve success, the book offers a primer for others to follow suit. Its message is an empowering one. East and West can learn from each other. Family-owned businesses are thriving. Asian women are making their mark. Most importantly of all, it shows that small companies, which take advantage of their local knowledge and marry it with the best international standards, can hold their own and even outflank giant global corporations. It is not easy, but as THP's founder, Trần Quí Thanh, tells himself daily, "Nothing is Impossible."