Here are several important questions which many organizations are now struggling to answer:
1. How can the value of growth from our new products and innovations be compared to the value of existing business?
2. Is there any rationale behind our valuations based on Internet growth expectations? Is there a way to identify and track the changing value of growth?
3. What's the value of our intellectual property? What is the value of our business models built around selling of ideas?
4. Are we prepared to tell a convincing, indeed compelling "story" about our growth opportunities that supports the value of our growth? Can we provide credible numbers with that "story"?
Amram addresses all of these and many others in 15 chapters which are organized as follows: "One Map of Value" (Chapter 1) and "The Look and Feel of Growth Opportunities" (Chapter 2), followed by three Parts and an Epilogue: Expanding the Toolkit (e.g. "Discounted Cash Flow," Chapter 3), Valuing Growth (e.g. "Growth Value Benchmarks from Venture Capital," Chapter 8), Across the Sweep of Value (e.g. "Creating the Credible Growth Engine," Chapter 13), and then her Epilogue in which she focuses on "Leading Growth" in Chapter 14 and "Marking a Spot on the Face of Value" in Chapter 15. Readers will be especially grateful for a substantial Appendix which consists of nine "Tables" for growth option lookup and estimating volatility, followed by a highly informative Glossary. I provide all this information to help the reader of this review get a more specific sense of what Amram offers in this book. Amram demonstrates exceptional writing when presenting her material.
All organizations embark on a new "journey" at the beginning of their fiscal year and must make hundreds (thousands?) of decisions with regard to the allocation of their resources. Many of those decisions have profoundly serious implications...both positive and negative. Whether or not an organization survives may perhaps depend on some of those decisions. I recommend in the strongest terms possible that Martha Amram's book be read and then re-read by every decision-maker, regardless of the size or nature of her or his organization. Obviously it cannot ensure a successful "journey" but it can certainly help to improve the odds.
Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read Heidi Mason and Tim Rohner's The Venture Imperative.