The speed with which consumers make choices will be faster than in the last two decades, making the predictability of the right strategic direction even more challenging. The business world is evolving at an unprecedented pace with a sputtering economy, the advancement of technology, and disruptive competitive forces. All are re-writing the rules of customer engagement. This book is a must-read for anyone leading or managing any business with a deteriorating culture, failing market relevance, and a need to change their short- and long-term performance. The boards and owners that oversee these organizations need to respond more swiftly to the decision-making of management. The one industry that faces the greatest challenge is the retail sector, where staying relevant has always been difficult and longevity of retail brands is something that is not easily achieved. So much of remaining relevant and competitive resides within leadership's ability to move an organization in the right direction. The Last Retailer Standing is a book that establishes what organizations need to address in order to remain competitive for the long-term.

Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened To Record Shops? documents the sad disappearance of a cultural icon from our high streets. Once a thriving industry, the UK has gone from having over 2000 independent record shops in the 1980s to just 269 in 2009. Written by Graham Jones, who has worked in the distribution industry for over 25 years as a record company salesman, this book presents a snapshot of a business that is under threat of going the same way as the stamp shop, the coin shop and the candlestick maker. Jones’ speaks to 50 record shop owners to see why they have survived while nearly two thousand others have closed. These interviews form the basis of the book, which celebrates the rich social history in which the record shop is steeped. In 2012 Last Shop Standing was made into an award winning 50 minute film, featuring interviews with Johnny Marr, Norman Cook, Richard Hawley, Paul Weller and Billy Bragg, alongside many of the record shop owners featured in the book. Given a new tagline – ‘the rise, fall and rebirth of the independent record shop’, the film has been screened around the globe and was an official selection at the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival in 2013.

The speed with which consumers make choices will be faster than in the last two decades, making the predictability of the right strategic direction even more challenging. The business world is evolving at an unprecedented pace with a sputtering economy, the advancement of technology, and disruptive competitive forces. All are re-writing the rules of customer engagement. This book is a must-read for anyone leading or managing any business with a deteriorating culture, failing market relevance, and a need to change their short- and long-term performance. The boards and owners that oversee these organizations need to respond more swiftly to the decision-making of management. The one industry that faces the greatest challenge is the retail sector, where staying relevant has always been difficult and longevity of retail brands is something that is not easily achieved. So much of remaining relevant and competitive resides within leadership's ability to move an organization in the right direction. The Last Retailer Standing is a book that establishes what organizations need to address in order to remain competitive for the long-term.

Major Ernest Pettigrew is perfectly content to lead a quiet life in the sleepy village of Edgecombe St Mary, away from the meddling of the locals and his overbearing son. But when his brother dies, the Major finds himself seeking companionship with the village shopkeeper, Mrs Ali. Drawn together by a love of books and the loss of their partners, they are soon forced to contend with irate relatives and gossiping villagers. The perfect gentleman, but the most unlikely hero, the Major must ask himself what matters most: family obligation, tradition or love? Funny, comforting and heart-warming, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand proves that sometimes, against all odds, life does give you a second chance.

In the midst of the most disastrous economic climate of Wall Street’s history, one executive has weathered the storm more deftly than any other: Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. In 2008, while Dimon’s competitors watched their companies crumble, JPMorgan not only survived, it made an astonishing $5 billion profit. Dimon’s continued triumph in the face of an industry-wide meltdown has made him a paragon of finance. In Last Man Standing, award-winning journalist Duff McDonald provides an unprecedented and deeply personal look at the extraordinary figure behind JPMorgan’s success. Using countless hours of interviews with Dimon and his full circle of friends, family, and colleagues, this definitive biography is by far the most comprehensive portrait of the man known as the Savior of Wall Street. Now, in an updated prologue, McDonald offers insight into the future of Wall Street and how Dimon will overcome the challenge of aggressive new regulation from Washington—and how he plans to continue to thrive as the world’s preeminent banker.

This book will act as a wide ranging but accessible guide to both the main defining features of the new retail landscape globally and, the skills and capabilities that enterprises and their leaders will need in order to be successful.

Tourists are drawn to explore new environments and peoples. What better way to interact with a locality than to seek out and roam its marketplaces? The nature of tourist shopping activity thus goes beyond mere functional purchasing into multi-sensory explorations of place and space. Awareness of the shifting nature of these attractions is crucial to retailers and place marketers, in this age of the internet, in order that the physical space of the market is also social and cultural space. This book offers new perspectives on the intersection between tourism and retail research that is liminal to both fields yet central to the tourist experience, standing as an important and illuminating realm of consumer behaviour. It features a selection of multidisciplinary researchers' perspectives on tourist retail format and formation attractiveness for consumers, from the economist to the fashion retailer. By reviewing selected developments in space, place and behaviours within leisure, entertainment and recreational shopping, encompassing travel points, retail centres, sensory/festival marketplaces, leisure/cityscapes, department stores and fashion, the book offers thought-provoking insights into the past, present and future of tourist retail across a variety of global locations. Given the emphasis upon consumer experience in place and space study and the apparent importance of retail activities within the tourism sphere, this book will be valuable reading for all those interested in retail, tourism and wider socio-cultural leisure environments and behaviours.