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Summary: Why read John Nugent's Plan to Win
Review: 'Plan to Win' packs a powerful punch of insights in financial analysis, and makes each concept understandable and enjoyable to even the less experienced professional. While several books could have been written to describe each one of the numerous tools and topics presented, John Nugent does a great job at highlighting, with an easy and demystifying writing style, the most relevant points of analytical and operational tools utilized in business today. Dr. Nugent - strategy consultant, business school professor, and former senior executive of the telecommunications sector - succeeds in accomplishing the arduous task of breaking down both simpler and more complex financial methods into their most essential constituents so that each of them becomes thoroughly digestible even to sensitive "financial stomachs." Dr. Nugent's book is highly recommended for the business student and the business professional, which will both find it a valuable compendium of essential financial concepts as well as a stimulating instrument to implement older and newer analytical tools in order to gain competitive advantage. 'Plan to Win' is particularly useful to understand (or recall) just what kind of business information is relevant from an investor's perspective. In fact, modern-day corporations often incur obligations to disclose their financial statements or, in general, facts related to their performance. However, their financial departments are traditionally adept at presenting information to their maximum advantage. For instance, there can be several ways to exhibit bulging revenues or magnify positive data versus the negative ones. Nonetheless, we all know that looking at bottom-line profits is often a different story. Adhering to Sir John Templeton's tenet that "fundamentals ALWAYS win out" - Dr. Nugent's draws our attention to the fundamentals of business, on the one hand, as well as to the basic signs of any enterprise's financial health; on the other hand, he shows us what to look for when we are trying to determine the early symptoms of change in a company's performance, and includes real-world dramatic examples like AT&T, Enron, and others. Upon familiarizing with a few of the methods explained in 'Plan to Win,' some of us might even think, "I can't believe I hadn't thought of that before!" Well, the truth is that most of us do not have the time to devote their entire career to the study of analytical tools, but John Nugent does help by taking away the esoteric aura that often surrounds the best ones and by making each tool presented practically available to anyone with a genuine interest in gaining a competitive edge. Dr. Michael D. Zincani, MBA
Southern Methodist University
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Summary: "Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing"
Review: Amidst the flood of literature attempting to explain the demise of the dot.coms, the contraction of the telecom industry and the accounting shenanigans of once reputable companies, few authors have been bold enough to claim that the prudent and diligent manager (investor) could have foreseen these events in time to act. In Plan To Win, Dr. John Nugent contends that managers (investors) not only could have, but should have seen these corrections coming. Dr. Nugent purports that managerial decisions when imposed on present enviromentals lead to logical, determinable consequences. Discontinuities between strategy and the fundamental drivers of one's business give rise to inflection points. It is these inflection points that signal a shift in the underlying business. Those individuals who correctly identify these shifts stand to lead the product curve and/or business cycle. Plan To Win is a visionary's toolbox. Through easily understood, real-world examples, the reader learns to apply a variety of tools. Each of Dr. Nugent's tools takes a slightly different cut at analyzing a business. Each tool gives the practitioner a vital piece of information. By combining these disaggregated pieces, it is possible to create a fundamentally rooted, objective picture of a business, its market and future trends. Obviously, the winners are those who hold this blueprint. In academia, Plan To Win can serve as a valuable supplement to any business course where strategy and business fundamentals are taught. For investors and managers, the lessons, fundamentals outlined and tools presented herein are ignored at risk of great peril. Sean Shingler
University of Dallas, Graduate School of Management
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Summary: If you plan to win
Review: Dr. Nugent's book is a must to read, if you plan to win in business world, especially for people in telecommunications industry. I have been enjoying listening to him in many occassions. Dr. Nugent has provided training and consulting to major telecoms companies such as Ericsson using the tools in his book. This book summarizes all the necessary business tools based on his knowledge and management experience for business and financial analysis. We shall benefit a lot from reading the excellent book. Frank Pan, MBA MS MS.Ed.
Ericsson Inc.
Rating:
Summary: If You Want to Win, Read This Book
Review: First of all, I would like to congratulate the author for bringing such a great piece of work to the market. I can't think of a better time to read this book!. I have read this book and am very impressed with the concepts, content organization, clarity and flow. I have spent two years in the business school while obtaining 50 credit hours and reading 20 books!. I wish we had a course with this book!!. The essence of the tools needed for a successful business is gifted in this book. I would recommend this book for any one who would like to improve their business understanding or dealing with competition. Again I would like to thank and congratulate the author. They say big things come in small packages. Considering the price of this book, it's a great investment. Good luck.
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Summary: Compendium of Competitive Advantage Tools for Hi-Techs
Review: I highly recommend this book but it is a little disorganized. It appears to have graduated from being a collection of coveted class handouts for MBA's to an almost-book. Its perfectly bound but the fonts are large, uses Power Point graphics, and needs great editing to turn it into a professional book. That aside, you will find information here that you won't find elsewhere. It is easy to read and the information is easy to apply to your own business, although the book's focus is on evaluating existing (not new) technology companies. I'm glad the author has made it available. The author assembles critical strategic and financial methodologies and ratios into one book, then shows how they applied to real companies over the last 10 years. This works quite nicely with two small problems for me. First, many of the examples were telecommunications companies where a deep understanding of the technologies was needed to understand the context of problem being highlighted. Secondly, the over-reliance on financial ratios restricts many of the techniques to existing (and not startup) companies. However, I immediately applied two of the techniques to a new software product. I particularly liked the application of his adjusted Altman's Z Score to finding inflection points. Many of his techniques could work quite well for evaluating existing IPO's for example. Again, I highly recommend this book. John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX
Rating:
Summary: Compendium of Competitive Advantage Tools for Hi-Techs
Review: I highly recommend this book but it is a little disorganized. It appears to have graduated from being a collection of coveted class handouts for MBA's to an almost-book. Its perfectly bound but the fonts are large, uses Power Point graphics, and needs great editing to turn it into a professional book. That aside, you will find information here that you won't find elsewhere. It is easy to read and the information is easy to apply to your own business, although the book's focus is on evaluating existing (not new) technology companies. I'm glad the author has made it available. The author assembles critical strategic and financial methodologies and ratios into one book, then shows how they applied to real companies over the last 10 years. This works quite nicely with two small problems for me. First, many of the examples were telecommunications companies where a deep understanding of the technologies was needed to understand the context of problem being highlighted. Secondly, the over-reliance on financial ratios restricts many of the techniques to existing (and not startup) companies. However, I immediately applied two of the techniques to a new software product. I particularly liked the application of his adjusted Altman's Z Score to finding inflection points. Many of his techniques could work quite well for evaluating existing IPO's for example. Again, I highly recommend this book. John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX
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