The Six Month Fix: Adventures in Rescuing Failing Companies

by Gary Sutton

Book Overview

Autor Garry Sutton ist einer der begehrtesten "Krisenspezialisten" in der modernen Geschäftswelt. Er hat fast ein Dutzend kränkelnder Unternehmen schon vor dem endgültigen Zusammenbruch gerettet, und zwar querbeet durch alle Branchen - von Sicherheitstechnik- und Druckereiunternehmen, über Entsorgungsfirmen, bis hin zu Raumfahrts-, Satellitenkommunikations- und Softwareunternehmen. In "The Six Month Fix" wirft Sutton einen Blick hinter die PR-Kulissen...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471036269
• ISBN13: 9780471036265
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating and Distinctive

This is a fascinating book and a distinctive one. To begin with, the author does not claim to have a magic formula for success and instead focuses on the many conceptually simple but difficult tasks required to make a success of a failing business. Some of the suggested strategies make me uncomfortable because of the implications for employees, but never do the strategies seem mean-spirited -- they just seem necessary. The book was given to me as a gift, and after I started reading it, I couldn't stop. It ended up reading it in less than a full weekend, but parts of it have always stuck with me. I can't summarize it any better than the front flap: "Direct, funny, and brutally honest".

Guts, Creativity and the Bottom Line

Gary Sutton does a wonderful job of writing a book that is an education on turning around companies in distress (the right way) and fun to read at the same time.It is clear to me that becoming a turnaround CEO can be fun but requires a relentless attention to the bottom line, a lot of creativity and most of all the guts to do what you know is right.Even if your not a CEO looking into turn arounds the book is a great read with lots of interesting (and frightening?) anecdotes. I recommend this book to anyone that finds the business world interesting.

The Real Book on Turnarounds

I have spent a year reading a host of turnaround books and this is the One. Fantastic Book. Easy to Read. Humorous with very clear direction after each chapter of real world implementation plans. The book gives the precise focus and direction needed in the first 30 days of a turnaround or need to change any current business. Key chapters which focus on the basics of any good turnaround are:Chapter 6 - Specialize or Die & Slash Costs ( Reduce Burn)Chapter 11 - Crawl into your Customer's skin ( Customer focus)Chapter 25 - Tighten the ship ( Profit enhancements)Great stories and advice on Board management as well as the search for a New CEO.Great for turnarounds, Start-ups and any exisiting business trying to improve profits.The benchmark for Turnaround Books.

Excellent, practical book

This is an excellent book. It's written in an easy to read, irreverent style ("Boards Suck. Here's How to Cope" is an example). It's full of practical, specific advice from a guy who's actually done it, and is full of real world examples from his own experience. It's written as a series of brief, to the point, pieces of advice, many drawing on specific examples ("Make What Sells", "Slash Costs", "Kill Meetings", "Use Lawyers Less"). As a Harvard Business School grad with a lot of management experience, I found this book cuts through a lot of the mystique, to the often common sense things that work in a difficult situation.

Practical, easy to read book on turnarounds

This is a great book on business turnarounds. It is eminently practical, humorous in spots and filled with interesting stories that highlight the advice being given.The author offers 69 small chapters of advice. There's everything from what to do first on a turnaround... to how to get the best price selling your company. Nearly every page is heavily underlined in my book.The topics that I particularly found valuable were: "Find the margin, cut all other costs"; "Specialize, do it where the margin lives, stop everything else"; "franchising is more about real estate than the business";his chapter on "make what sells" and the importance of low cost and his abundant advice on how to cut costs; his recommendations on increasing price on certain product types; setting your debt levels at the "10 year flood plain" for your company; demoting IT because it operates with its own agenda; stopping the CFO from gambling; cutting down on consultants and moving them over to more of a performance basis... well the topics go on, but you get the idea.There's lots of advice. It's blunt and somewhat in your face. The text is easy to read and interesting too. There are lots of small stories that illustrate the points.Overall I recommend this book most highly, not only for business turnarounds, but for any CEO or CEO wanna-bee. It would make a great book to take on business travel and read on the airplane. It's easy to read with the small chapters, and many topics. This is easily a 5 star book.John Dunbar