Spin Off: CEO's Version

Spin Off: CEO's Version, Yehuda Holtzman, Simple Story, 2019

This is a chronicle of one person's time as CEO of a company that was spun off from another company. It is a software company dealing with smartphones, and had fallen on hard times.

The first thing a new CEO has to do is to find out how bad things are. In this case, it was not good. Any technological superiority the company had was gone. Software updates took a long time to download, and they were filled with bugs. The Customer Service department needed a lot of help.

Next, a CEO has to do a lot of listening to the employees. If the company is small enough, give every employee a chance to speak their mind. Travel to all (or as many as possible) sales offices in other states, asking for the unvarnished truth from employees. If there are offices in other countries, get out your passport, and hop on a plane.

Now the CEO must put together a new management team to turn the company around. It must include departments like Operations, Manufacturing, Marketing and Quality Assistance. The group must go to an off-site location, without distractions, and ask a lot of hard questions. Is this company more interested in growth or profit? If the company has applied for few, or no, patents over the last several years, why? Can any sales offices be combined, or eliminated? Can any products be combined, or eliminated? If a certain country, or region, accounts for only a small portion of sales, is an office there really necessary? After those questions are answered, then comes the hard part of actually turning the company around.

This is a very interesting book that is very easy to understand. It works for all kinds of companies (not just high-tech companies), and for companies of any size. This is a really good inside look at being a CEO. It's really worth reading.