Wharton@Work

November 2011 | Reading List

Wharton Digital Press Debuts “Essentials” Series

The Aresty Institute of Executive Education has launched Wharton Executive Education Essentials, a new line of digital books published by Wharton Digital Press. Each book in the series provides the essential knowledge successful managers need in a specific area of business. They are written by members of Wharton’s globally renowned faculty, and draw directly from Wharton Executive Education courses they teach. Each book is aimed at managers and is filled with real-life business examples.

The first two books in the series are Wharton Executive Education Customer Centricity, by Peter Fader, and Wharton Executive Education Financial Literacy for Managers, by Richard A. Lambert. Planned titles for 2012 will cover topics such as strategy, innovation, decision making, and global strategy.

Wharton Executive Education Customer Centricity is authored by renowned behavioral data expert Peter Fader, co-director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative. The book helps businesses radically rethink how they relate to customers. The Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor at Wharton, Fader provides a roadmap for revamping your organization, performance metrics, and product development to meet the needs of your most valuable customers.

Fader says, "The aim of Wharton Executive Education Customer Centricity Essentials is simple: to give you a clear and concise understanding of what customer centricity is and isn't, to help you understand why a customer-centric outlook might prove crucial to your bottom-line success in today's super-fast, super-competitive environment, and to guide you around the pitfalls that other companies have faced when attempting to implement customer-centric initiatives."

Richard A. Lambert, Miller-Sherrerd Professor of Accounting at Wharton, is the author of Wharton Executive Education Financial Literacy for Managers. The book demystifies financial statements and finance concepts and shows you how you can apply this information to make better business decisions for long-term profit.

"The book will help you recognize how your actions and strategies are linked to the economic value they create,” says Lambert. “Understanding financial statements is critical to business success; it allows you to assess how well your strategies have been performing so that you can revise and improve them. Accounting and finance skills are also essential in evaluating and comparing strategic decisions, especially for long-term investments where the benefits don't occur for years.”

“The books in this series allow today's leaders to experience the essence of Wharton Executive Education wherever and whenever they want it. Our globally renowned faculty brings each topic to life through real business examples,” notes Jason Wingard, vice dean of Wharton Executive Education.