New York Business Service

Now more than ever, companies that want to stay competitive must deliver superb service to their customers. In Command Performance, leading business thinkers and executives provide valuable - and often unexpected - insights into achieving that goal. Featuring the most influential recent articles and interviews on quality service from the Harvard Business Review, Command Performance focuses on four major areas (Developing a Service Strategy, The Art of Quality Service Delivery, Delivering Quality Service in the Public Sector, and Linking Service and Profit). The contributors provide a range of timely, specific, and practical insights into what it takes to deliver quality service profitably and competitively. In addition, first-person accounts and profiles of individual firms provide inspiration and lessons from the field. Command Performance effectively integrates cutting-edge thinking on successful service delivery with experiences from real companies. Peter F. Drucker writes about how the economic landscape in the coming century will be dominated by nations with high productivity gains in knowledge and service. Frederick F. Reichheld uses the success of State Farm to demonstrate ways in which companies must revitalize their services in order to gain long-term customers. Harvard Business School professors Leonard Schlesinger and James Heskett describe a new model of the "service-driven service company", which designs business processes around workers with the closest customer contact. A twenty-five-step audit allows managers to determine how to implement successful service practices in their own companies. Other writers explore issues of delivering quality service in the public sectorarena. Peter Johnson analyzes the challenges he faced as the administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration in Portland, Oregon. Former New York City Police Commissioner Lee P. Brown describes that city's Community Patrol Officers Program.

The compelling story of one of finance’ s living legends As the Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1982, Paul Volcker established himself as one of the most influential economic thinkers. Currently a major advocate for corporate governance and accounting reforms, Volcker’ s reputation as a great business leader with uncompromising ethics continues to this day. Written by award-winning New York Times journalist Joseph Treaster, Paul Volcker takes readers through the most compelling moments of this legend’ s life in private and public service. From his early days as a young Treasury Department official during the Nixon years grappling with international economic affairs through his appointments as President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Chairman of James D. Wolfensohn, Inc., and his work in recovering money from Holocaust-era bank accounts in Switzerland, this book explores the ethical, economic, and moral dilemmas Volcker faced at every turn. Treaster captures many of the significant moments in Paul Volcker’ s life, including his friendship with David Rockefeller who hired him as Vice President for International Business at Chase Manhattan; his leading role as Treasury Department undersecretary in ending the Bretton Woods system; his appointment to Chairman of the Federal Reserve by President Jimmy Carter and later by President Ronald Reagan; and his campaigns for changes in corporate governance and accounting. Joseph B. Treaster (New York, NY), a prizewinning reporter for the New York Times for more than 25 years, began his career with the Times as a foreign correspondent in Southeast Asia and has reported fromdozens of countries. Treaster currently writes lead stories in economics, business, and finance for the Times.