Martin Sorrell's holiday reading recommendations

Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO - WPP, recommends a reading list for professionals and media advertising and communications as we approach the holidays.

The List:

A. STRATEGY: NEW MARKETS

1.Ian Morris, 'Why The West Rules For Now'

Sir Martin's comments: "This is interesting because it establishes these patterns. So, if you believe that the last 200 years have been a blip in history for China and India, as I do believe they have been, and that will go back to the BRICs and the Next Eleven representing 40-50 percent of worldwide GNP, then I think this is a book that will help you on that."

[caption id="attachment_1305983" align="alignleft" width="380"] IanMorris,'Why The West Rules For Now'[/caption]

2.Jim O'Neill, 'BRIC Road to Growth'

"Jim O'Neill is certainly the father, or one of the fathers, of the BRICs and Next Eleven theories. Well, not theories, because it's actually in practice."

[caption id="attachment_1305985" align="alignleft" width="380"] Jim O'Neill, 'BRIC Road to Growth'[/caption]

B. STRATEGY: NEW DATA

3.Brad Stone, 'The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon'

"This is an exceptional book. It's on the age of Amazon."

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[caption id="attachment_1305991" align="alignleft" width="380"] Brad Stone, The-Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon[/caption]

C. STRATEGY: DATA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT

4.Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier, 'Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think'

"It's difficult to find books on data investment management, but this one examines the importance of data, and how data is going to become more important."

[caption id="attachment_1305995" align="alignleft" width="380"] Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think[/caption]

D. STRATEGY: HORIZONTALITY

5.Sir Alex Ferguson, 'My Autobiography'

"The last area is horizontality and I thought that was a difficult one. You could find some psychological books. But what I found quite interesting and a little bit of a lighter read; it's not about cricket. We shouldn't mention cricket after the events of what's been happening 'down under' I guess. It's certainly painful getting up early in the morning here and seeing the results of Aussie destruction but, the last one's about football. It's 'My Autobiography' by Alex Ferguson. I was asked recently by Bloomberg on a book selection and I gave that, not because I think it's a great work of literature but because I think it has some interesting lessons on how we manage our own business. How you manage highly creative, highly successful, talented people, how you build a brand, how you build a company and how you do it geographically. Manchester United is one of the world's most powerful brands. The biggest fan base that Manchester United has is in China. This book demonstrates the things that we should be thinking about as we leverage talent within the organisation."

[caption id="attachment_1305997" align="alignleft" width="380"] Sir Alex Ferguson, 'My Autobiography'[/caption]