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Average Customer Rating:

Very good book for 'Business Strategy' students

Customer Rating:

I bought this book only for one reason - to pass an upcoming June 2008 ACCA Paper P3 'Business Strategy' exam. And I did! I had only 9 days allocated for this paper so my only hope was this book. Its language is very understandable, though sometimes I felt that material is too much detailed (maybe because I hadn't much time). With the book you receive access to an online content. At that time the content was incomplete and was partly lacking business case scenarios, but the tests module was perfect. For every chapter you have many multiple-choice questions and all your answers and results are being recorded. So you can easily see where an improvement required. Also you have an option to download mp3's summarizing the content of the book. You have also 'Interactive key concepts', 'Flashcards', 'Glossary', etc. Highly recommended!

Great book, but terrible online content

Customer Rating:

I ordered this book as part of my Masters in Business Administration course. The book is neatly structured, mainly separating subjects in three main parts: Strategic Positioning, Strategic Choices and Strategy in Action. I also found the case studies presented in this book to be of great help when studying for the Business Environment module of my MBA. A matrix table presents a guide for each case study in the book and what are their main focus. For example, if you want a case study that focus on Porter's five forces, then read the TUI case study on page 619, and so on. The book also comes with an "student access kit" to access further content online, and claims that users would have access to more than 30 "classic case studies" within the companion website. The book is good but I must say the so called online content is a joke. You can only find the case studies that came with the book, and there are no further "classic case studies" to be found. I was particularly interested on a given business case which is mentioned in the book as available in the companion website for my dissertation, and I can't help but to feel cheated about it. I emailed support asking for advice but I never got an answer, and I tried to call Pearson's support line but I have never received a call back or a proper answer to my query. The experience I had with Pearson's student access kit was terrible that comes with this book, and I would warn anyone who is thinking to buy one of their books or a standalone student access kit to stay away from them.