A comprehensive and cogent exploration of financial principles.
In this financial guide, an investment entrepreneur offers a framework for business wealth creation.
Volk began in banking and took three companies, two of which he co-founded, public. Correctly observing that “shareholder wealth creation is the single most important corporate financial performance metric,” he explores a model that helps entrepreneurs and business leaders learn how to produce that wealth. In what amounts to a polished financial textbook, the author provides historical context regarding monetary concepts as well as specifics for how to proceed, ultimately revealing a useful “Value Equation” that takes into account six key variables. Volk begins with the compelling tale of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, to illustrate the wealth creation possibilities of a business based on a winning idea. Volk employs contemporary business cases that dramatize how a strong model can overcome even the most stunning deficiencies. One captivating story, for example, is FUBU, a maker of branded clothing established in Daymond John’s home. Denied a bank loan 26 times, John and his mother used a house mortgage to fund the business. When his company had plenty of orders but was almost broke due to cash flow issues, John was finally able to secure financing, and 25 years later, he turned the operation into a $6 billion business. Compelling anecdotes such as FUBU’s add relevancy and liveliness to a book that otherwise concentrates on financial principles.
In pondering what makes a successful business model, Volk proposes that it basically involves “just Six Variables.” They are: “1. Sales 2. Business investment 3. Operating profit margin 4. Amount of interest costing proceeds (other people’s money) 5. Cost of other people’s money 6. Annual maintenance capital expense.” These variables are discussed in considerable detail in the remainder of the volume. With authority and clarity, the author walks readers through each of them, citing business cases as well as examples from his own experience and offering explanations in the lucid text. The variables are most often accompanied by financial formulas that are more engaging than one might imagine. For instance, “Mort’s Model,” which illustrates cost of capital versus cost of equity, was created by Mort Fleischer, Volk’s business partner; it humorously incorporates a Yiddish term that represents “Other People’s Money.” The author wisely converts the generalized formulas into specifics; he uses a restaurant case study throughout the book because, he says, this type of business model is relatively uncomplicated. The heart of the work is “The V-Formula,” the Value Equation developed by Volk in 1999. He deftly demonstrates the applicability and flexibility of this formula in numerous iterations, using the restaurant case study as well as the example of a real estate financing company he co-founded. The accompanying data tables make it easier to comprehend the formula in action. Volk also includes sound background material, providing a general discussion of how public companies function financially, differences in stock markets, and mergers and acquisitions, liberally referencing experts on these subjects. But this work is primarily an in-depth financial examination of business wealth creation.
A comprehensive and cogent exploration of financial principles.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-119-87564-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Wiley
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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