Saturated markets, a decreasing valuation of fashion by a part of consumers paired with missing impulses by some companies has brought along a crisis in retail, especially in Europe. Changing consumer demand, customer sophistication, customer empowerment via the internet and rapid industry change are just a few challenges global retailers are facing today. The consequence is big pressure on prices and margins and a need for process excellence. As in the 1990s the American and European automotive industry struggled with similar challenges, a concept named lean production was imported from Japan. It helped some Western automotive companies, like Porsche, and big parts of industry to find their way back on the path of success. Is the route to success via lean production exclusive to industry? Or might retailers today benefit from lean production philosophy? In this book Simon Fauser approaches these questions by analysing lean production philosophy, extracting lean principles and applying these to retail and its challenges.

With over 7,000 islands, the Philippines is the world’s largest group of islands. For hundreds of years, the beautiful Southeast Asian archipelago was fairly isolated from its neighbouring as well as western countries. Only since 2000, the Philippines began to open its business markets to foreign investors. In his book, Timo Priester scrutinizes the Philippine retail structure. He offers interesting insights about the organization of Manila’s (the country’s dominant capital) retail trade. The principal focus is on three different business markets: The Mobile, the Home Appliances and the Audio Visual Market.

At the beginning of their venture, young and small start-ups have to struggle a lot to survive. And when a company has passed this basic stage, a battle may be won, but the road to long-term success is still a long way ahead. Young and small companies are then forced to achieve constant and high growth if they want to stay on the global marketplace by successfully defeating global competition. This book illustrates the special situation of such companies, calls for dedicated and special assistance and wants to provide necessary hands-on management advice for the future economic development of companies in this stage.The book aims at entrepreneurs, founders and managers of young and small companies which successfully survived the start-up phase as well as to venture capital companies, independent advisors, banks, consultants and other stakeholders.

This study evaluates the value generation potential of private equity for German mid-cap companies. A discussion of the private equity industry and the analysis of the value generation levers serve as a basis to further explore private equity value generation in the German market. First, the special features of German mid-cap companies are examined with a special focus on their financing needs. Second, the German private equity market is introduced and its differentiating features are revealed. The comparison of the findings assesses the general suitability of private equity as a financing option for German mid-cap companies and suggests that many mid-cap companies are not (yet) suited for private equity investments. Finally, the applicability of the identified value generation levers on the German mid-cap segment is analyzed with the help of a conceptual framework in order to evaluate the value generation potential. The results show that the traditional value generation levers are applicable but have to be adjusted with respect to national differences. Private equity associations have to specifically address the strong social considerations in the German business culture and the traditional unity of management, ownership, and supervision in the mid-cap segment in order to realize high rates of return. Anecdotal and recent empirical evidence indicates the relevance of many theoretical conclusions.

Lean Thinking was launched in the fall of 1996, just in time for the recession of 1997. It told the story of how American, European, and Japanese firms applied a simple set of principles called 'lean thinking' to survive the recession of 1991 and grow steadily in sales and profits through 1996. Even though the recession of 1997 never happened, companies were starving for information on how to make themselves leaner and more efficient. Now we are dealing with the recession of 2001 and the financial meltdown of 2002. So what happened to the exemplar firms profiled in Lean Thinking? In the new fully revised edition of this bestselling book those pioneering lean thinkers are brought up to date. Authors James Womack and Daniel Jones offer new guidelines for lean thinking firms and bring their groundbreaking practices to a brand new generation of companies that are looking to stay one step ahead of the competition.

Providing a balance betwen theory and practice, this guide to retail management includes useful career information and takes a strategic approach to decision making.