Many of todays companies struggle with the task of delivering products customers when and where they want them. Using tactics from articles in this volume, any company can learn how to beat the competition, and stripping waste from each step in their value-delivery process.

Is your business playing it safe—or taking the right risks? If you read nothing else on managing risk, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help your company make smart decisions and thrive, even when the future is unclear. This book will inspire you to: Avoid the most common errors in risk management Understand the three distinct categories of risk and tailor your risk-management processes accordingly Embrace uncertainty as a key element of breakthrough innovation Adopt best practices for mitigating political threats Upgrade your organization's forecasting capabilities to gain a competitive edge Detect and neutralize cyberattacks originating inside your company This collection of articles includes "Managing Risks: A New Framework," by Robert S. Kaplan and Anette Mikes; "How to Build Risk into Your Business Model," by Karan Girotra and Serguei Netessine; "The Six Mistakes Executives Make in Risk Management," by Nassim N. Taleb, Daniel G. Goldstein, and Mark W. Spitznagel; "From Superstorms to Factory Fires: Managing Unpredictable Supply-Chain Disruptions," by David Simchi-Levi, William Schmidt, and Yehua Wei; "Is It Real? Can We Win? Is It Worth Doing?: Managing Risk and Reward in an Innovation Portfolio," by George S. Day; “Superforecasting: How to Upgrade Your Company's Judgment," by Paul J. H. Schoemaker and Philip E. Tetlock; "Managing 21st-Century Political Risk," by Condoleezza Rice and Amy Zegart; "How to Scandal-Proof Your Company," by Paul Healy and George Serafeim; "Beating the Odds When You Launch a New Venture," by Clark Gilbert and Matthew Eyring; "The Danger from Within," by David M. Upton and Sadie Creese; and "Future-Proof Your Climate Strategy," by Joseph E. Aldy and Gianfranco Gianfrate.

Protect the earth and your bottom line. If you need the best practices and ideas for turning sustainability into competitive advantage--but don't have time to find them--this book is for you. Here are 10 inspiring and useful perspectives, all in one place. This collection of HBR articles will help you: - Craft strategy to compete on green turf - Redesign your business model, products, and processes to achieve green goals - Parlay your efforts into lower costs and higher revenues - Capture more value from clean-tech investments - Launch sustainability programs with impact - Synchronize green initiatives by overhauling your supply chain - Engage constructively with environmental activist groups - Mitigate the risks of climate change

Imagine planning an event like the Olympics. Now imagine planning the same event but not knowing when or where it will take place, or how many will attend. This is what humanitarian logisticians are up against. Oversights result in serious consequences for the victims of disasters. So they have to get it right, fast.

Don't let a fear of numbers hold you back. Today's business environment brings with it an onslaught of data. Now more than ever, managers must know how to tease insight from data--to understand where the numbers come from, make sense of them, and use them to inform tough decisions. How do you get started? Whether you're working with data experts or running your own tests, you'll find answers in the HBR Guide to Data Analytics Basics for Managers. This book describes three key steps in the data analysis process, so you can get the information you need, study the data, and communicate your findings to others. You'll learn how to: Identify the metrics you need to measure Run experiments and A/B tests Ask the right questions of your data experts Understand statistical terms and concepts Create effective charts and visualizations Avoid common mistakes

A Best Business Book of 2017 -- The Financial Times China is now the biggest foreign player in Africa. It's Africa's largest trade partner, the largest infrastructure financier, and the fastest-growing source of foreign direct investment. Chinese entrepreneurs are flooding into the continent, investing in long-term assets such as factories and heavy equipment. Considering Africa's difficult history of colonialism, one might suspect that China's activity there is another instance of a foreign power exploiting resources. But as author Irene Yuan Sun vividly shows in this remarkable book, it is really a story about resilient Chinese entrepreneurs building in Africa what they so recently learned to build in China--a global manufacturing powerhouse. The fact that China sees Africa not for its poverty but for its potential wealth is a striking departure from the attitude of the West, particularly that of the United States. Despite fifty years of Western aid programs, Africa still has more people living in extreme poverty than any other region in the world. Those who are serious about raising living standards across the continent know that another strategy is needed. Chinese investment gives rise to a tantalizing possibility: that Africa can industrialize in the coming generation. With a manufacturing-led transformation, Africa would be following in the footsteps of the United States in the nineteenth century, Japan in the early twentieth, and the Asian Tigers in the late twentieth. Many may consider this an old-fashioned way to develop, but as Sun argues, it's the only one that's proven to raise living standards across entire societies in a lasting way. And with every new Chinese factory boss setting up machinery and hiring African workers--and managers--that possibility becomes more real for Africa. With fascinating and moving human stories along with incisive business and economic analysis, The Next Factory of the World will make you rethink both China's role in the world and Africa's future in the globalized economy.

Is your company delivering products to customers at the right time, place, and price—with the best possible availability and lowest possible cost and working capital? If not, you’re probably alienating your customers and suppliers, eroding shareholder value, and losing control of your fixed costs. These dangerous mistakes can put you out of business. In The New Supply Chain Agenda, Reuben Slone, J. Paul Dittmann, and John Mentzer explain how to reinvent your supply chain to avoid those errors—and turn your supply chain into a competitive weapon that produces unprecedented economic profit for your firm. Drawing on a wealth of company examples, the authors show how to activate the five levers of supply chain excellence: • Putting the right people with the right skills in the right jobs • Leveraging supply chain technologies such as system optimization and visibility tools • Eliminating cross-functional disconnects, including SKU proliferation • Collaborating with suppliers and customers to generate a seamless flow of information and supply chain improvements • Managing supply chain projects skillfully Apply the steps in this book, and you build a supply chain that delivers as it should—without leaving money on the table.