The Executive Guide has been reviewed by business leaders and shareholder value luminaries. Their comments are set out below:
"Jones has written a thoughtful, thorough and practical guide focusing on the key element of shareholder value creation - creating long term, sustainable cash flow. His diagnoses and prescriptions will make business leaders better stewards of capital. For those business leaders operating under private equity ownership, this book is a must read; for those who are not, Jones' book is a glimpse at the playbook that private equity firms employ."
- John Almeida, Jr. General Partner, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe
"Having spent the bulk of my career in media and communications and now in a non-profit enterprise, I believe the precepts of value creation I first learned several years ago from Jones apply across the range of business types. The key, pointed out in this seminal book, is in market strategy focused on long-term cash flow; which empowers corporate leaders to achieve outsized results for stakeholders. I highly recommend Boosting Cash Flow and Shareholder Value to anyone seeking a better understanding of what it takes to create real value in the modern corporate enterprise."
- William W. Airy COO, The Inspiration Networks and formerly, CMO, Liberty Livewire
"This book uniquely fills a void between classical financial analyses and the recent focus on execution. Providing the insight of market strategy as a path to shareholder value creation is intuitively obvious, but often obfuscated by the proliferation of short-term tactics that result when classic financial analysis is the only input for an executive focused on execution. As an executive that has led businesses within public companies and private equity owned companies, I highly recommend this book to business leaders searching for the "why" and "how" to boost cash flow and create long-term shareholder value."
- Jeffrey S. Henderson SVP, Strategy and Business Development Avago Technologies
"I am very impressed by this book and the intellectual foundation on which it sits. Cash is no longer king. It is emperor. In a sea of business books, this one delivers what it promises. The Executive Guide is a your roadmap for capturing untapped pools of cash for your business."
- Marvin Zonis Economics Professor, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago
"Jones has crafted a distinctive and valuable synthesis of the best thinking in economic value analysis, market focused investment, and strategic management. It is a practical and highly useable guide for operating executives, consultants, and investment professionals for examining existing and future businesses and building their careers."
- Vincent C. Perro President, Leadership Consulting Division Heidrick & Struggles
"To create and keep long-term client relationships, service providers must align services with the ultimate goals of those they serve. In serving business organizations, that means helping business leaders drive value growth - and this book makes it crystal clear what's needed. It prioritizes the issues facing C-suite executives and their information needs - market, financial, and organizational. Senior executives in service organizations will find this book an essential tool in their tool kit, one that gives insight into the true needs of their clients."
- Jay D. Norman President, Diamond Cluster International and, recognized as a Top 25 Consultant for 2006
"Few books make running a successful business seem so easy. In an age when how-to manuals abound, it is refreshing to read a book that actually provides sound and actionable advice. As someone who has worked intimately with many companies as both operator and investor, I am impressed with Jones’ ability to identify the key attributes for delivering shareholder value. The Executive Guide does more than simply expose the common pitfalls of managing an enterprise – it provides a useful framework for C-level executives to refocus on the oft-obscured task at hand; generating cash profits over the long-term."
- David J. Roux Cofounder and Co-CEO, Silver Lake Partners
"Typical financial accounting systems can be a huge roadblock to really understanding a business and making good decisions. In this book, Jones shows why cash-based profitability and investment information at a granular level is a critical key to managing for value growth; it tells you where to allocate capital and grow, where to rationalize, and how to manage products and services in markets. He lays out an approach to do this effectively, while avoiding the many hidden traps - like incorrectly allocated costs - which lead to very misleading conclusions and poor business decisions. C-suite executives operating under PE ownership, and those contemplating it, will find that this book provides invaluable insights and tools aligned with cash and value growth."
- Howard D. Morgan Senior Managing Director Castle Harlan, Inc.
"Jones does a great job explaining why these ideas and approaches are critical to driving shareholder value – however, unlike many other business books, he also includes very practical guidance on ‘the how.’ The initial chapters provide insightful and useful explanations for CEOs and division heads looking to create a well-organized team and to set the path forward. Following that, Jones shifts the emphasis to address specifics for marketers, strategists, finance executives and others to use this book as a primer to their work."
- Eric G. Rodli GM and Executive VP, Entertainment, Macrovision and formally, President, Entertainment Imaging, Eastman Kodak
"Jones has adopted a pragmatic approach, making the concepts of economic profit and market profit pools available to all businesses. He has brought to life, in a usable and readable manner, the best of economic profit and cash generation practices, and has taken the dry world of accounting and shown CFOs a real way to add value to their organizations. The result is a practical guide on how to set your business on the path to sustainable value growth, and illustrating how every day historical accounting can help a market-led growth strategy. It shows how opportunities to boost cash flow permeate throughout the organization–from innovation to business model structure–and makes it clear that growing value is the responsibility of all managers in the business. It outlines the tools needed in a way that everyone can readily grasp and deploy; those business leaders who implement the principles of this book will outperform competitors."
- James McLachlan Chief Financial Officer Skyy Spirits (a Gruppo Campari company)
"In a world where intense competition and everyday demands consume more and more of a marketers time, this book brings sharp clarity to what really matters in business – and the critical role marketers play in delivering it. In addition to providing a primer on new core concepts, it sets out very practical steps marketers can take to ensure market actions have a positive and dramatic impact to long-term results and business value. This high-level viewpoint is as refreshing as it is clarifying – and I recommend it as a critical input for all functional executives interested in strengthening their overall business leadership and effectiveness."
- James Taschetta Senior Vice President, Marketing, Strategy & Planning, Visa, Inc.
