A powerful lesson in what is really important in business, this remarkable book by an ultimate insider takes the lessons of the peddler and reveals how they can be used by the rest of us. Reminiscent of bestsellers such as "Who Moved My Cheese?" and" The One-Minute Manager, What the CEO Wants You to Know" is simple, direct, and of immense use to everyone in business.

What the CEO Wants You to Know takes the mystery out of business and shows you the secrets of success Have you ever noticed that the business savvy of the world's best CEOs seems like a kind of street smarts? They sense where the opportunities are and how to take advantage of them. And their companies make money consistently, year after year. How different is it to run a big company than to sell fruit from a cart or run a small shop in a village? In essence, not very, according to Ram Charan. From his childhood in India, where he worked in his family's shoe shop, to his education at Harvard Business School and his daily work advising many of the world's best CEOs, Ram understands business as few can. The best CEOs have a knack for bringing the most complex business down to the fundamentals--the same fundamentals that are used to run the family shoe shop. And, they have business acumen--the ability to focus on the basics and make money for the company. What the CEO Wants You to Know captures these insights and explains in clear, simple language how to do what great CEOs do instinctively and persistently: * Understand the basic building blocks of a business and use them to figure out how your company makes money and operates as a total business. * Decide what to do, despite the clutter of day-to-day business and the complexity of the real world. Many people spend more than a hundred thousand dollars on an MBA without learning to pull these pieces of the puzzle together. Many others lack a formal business education and feel shut out from the executive suite. What the CEO Wants You to Know provides you with the universal laws of business success, no matter whether you are selling fruit from a stand or running a Fortune 500 company.

Describes how corporations work and reviews the critical elements of business success--growth, return on assets, rate of inventory turnover, understanding customers, and taking advantage of the changing marketplace.

The classic on the universal laws of business success, completely revised and updated for today's leaders Completely rewritten for today’s business world, What the CEO Wants You to Know, expanded and updated, written by bestselling author Ram Charan, describes the fundamentals behind every business, from street vendors in Mumbai, to Fortune 500 companies. Drawing on stories from Uber, Amazon, Apple, Toyota, Netflix, Lyft, The Limited, Walmart, GE and Starbucks, Charan, in the most accessible language imaginable, explains the ins and outs of how companies work, from gross revenue and operating costs, to inventory and cash flow, from turnover, profits and margins, to return on capital and accounts payable and receivable, from product quality to sales. A classic in the business literature, with hundreds of thousands of copies in print, this short and engaging book is like a miniature MBA course between covers. For everyone who wants to master and understand the levers that drive a successful business, What the CEO Wants You to Know is the perfect answer.

From the bestselling author of What the CEO Wants You to Know? How to rethink sales from the outside in We have to face the truth: the process of selling is broken. Customers have more choices and are under intense pressure. Yet few companies are facing this reality. When they don't, a lingering malaise sets in. More than ever these days, the sales process tends to be a war about price-a frustrating, unpleasant war that takes all the fun out of selling. But there's a better way to think about sales, says bestselling author Ram Charan, who is famous for clarifying and simplifying difficult business problems. What the customer wants you to know is how his or her business works, so you can help make it work better. It sounds simple, but there's a catch: you won't be able to do that with your traditional sales approach. Instead of starting with your product or service, start with your customer's problems. Focus on becoming your customer's trusted partner, someone he can turn to for creative, cost-effective solutions that are based on your deep knowledge of his values, goals, problems, and customers. This book defines a new approach to selling which Charan calls value creation selling-that while radical is nonetheless practical. VCS has been battle-tested in companies in a variety of industries, such as Unifi, Mead-Westvaco, and Thomson Financial. It will enable you to: • Gain a deeper knowledge of your customer's problems • Understand how your customer's company really makes decisions • Help your customer improve margins and drive revenue growth • Connect sales with other key functions such as finance and manufacturing • Come up with new customized offerings • Make price much less of an issue VCS gets you out of the hell of commoditization and low prices. It differentiates you from the competition, paving the way to better pricing, better margins, and higher revenue growth, built on win-win relationships that deepen over time. Someday, every company will listen more closely to the customer, and every manager will realize that sales is everyone?s business, not just the sales department?s. In the meantime, this eye-opening book will show you how to get started.

LESSONS FOR EVERYONE IN BUSINESS FROM AN ALL-STAR TEAM Every six months Dennis C. Carey and Marie-Caroline von Weichs run the CEO Academy, an immersion course for newly appointed CEOs of the world’s leading companies—what Business Week called a “boot camp” for the next class of top executives. Those attending get a priceless range of unvarnished advice and invaluable lessons from an all-star team of veteran CEOs about how to get the results they were hired to achieve. What participants pay $10,000 to hear is now contained in this book, the insights and secrets of some of the most influential business leaders of our time. Here is advice from high-caliber businesspeople such as Larry Bossidy, the recently retired CEO of Honeywell International; Ray Gilmartin, the CEO of Merck; John Smale, the former chairman of General Motors and retired chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble; and John Dasburg, who has run Northwest Airlines, Burger King, and now DHL Airways. Successful CEOs aren’t the only attraction. How to Run a Company also presents America’s leading business observers and watchdogs: Nell Minow, the shareholder rights activist; Ira Millstein, the legendary attorney and power broker; Matthew Bishop, business editor of The Economist; and Joseph Badaracco, Harvard Business School’s top professor of ethics. The combined team offers original and revealing observations on how business leaders at the top of the corporate world tackle pressing challenges, such as: • How an industrial goliath like DuPont dramatically shifted its business focus • How The Home Depot changed from fast-growing, free-wheeling adolescence to the management discipline that will help it mature and continue to expand • What Michael Armstrong, who oversaw the transformation of Hughes Electronics and AT&T, advises to companies whose core business begins to disappear • How the CEO of Tyco moved quickly during his first 100 days to build a new senior management team and began to restore trust in a company battered by scandal and bad publicity • The role of the board of directors and how corporate governance should be reformed • What strategies Jack Welch’s investor relations team at GE used to constantly probe who was buying the stock, who wasn’t, and why How to Run a Company is not just for CEOs, but anyone interested in the critical make-or-break factors in today’s ever-challenging business environment. As the demands and expectations in business become ever greater and the competition tougher, here in one volume is the accumulated wisdom and experience of people who have been in the trenches during a remarkable time. How to Run a Company is the success manual for the twenty-first century. From the Hardcover edition.

"Based on extensive interviews with today's . . . corporate leaders, this look at how the best CEOs do their jobs focuses on the mindsets and actions that foster an environment of excellence"--