The 2013 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards Shortlist: General Business

Over the course of this week, we will be posting the shortlist selections for our 8 business book categories: General Business, Leadership, Management, Innovation/Creativity, Small Business/Entrepreneurship, Marketing/Sales, Personal Development, Finance. Then on Monday, December 16th, we'll announce the 8 category winners! In early January, the overall winner of the 2013 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards will be awarded, so stay tuned to The Daily Blog for all the good news.

The selections for the General Business category are:

• Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think by Viktor Mayer Schonberger and Kenneth Niel Cukier, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• The End of Competitive Advantage: How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Businessby Rita Gunther Mc Grath, Harvard Business School Press
• The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon By Brad Stone, Little Brown and Company
• The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Businessby By Duff McDonald, Simon & Schuster
• The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office by Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan, Twelve

While our yearly selections in the General Business category always tend toward the eclectic since it's the most wide-open subject matter, there is an underlying theme to this year's picks: differentiation. The collection and analysis of Big Data offers unparalleled insight when identifying trends and making forecasts, which is critical. The End of Competitive Advantage urgently explains that, because the new age of business demands we react to that data quickly rather than sit tight and weather the storm, sustained success now requires great organizational agility. The influential consulting firm McKinsey has historically provided this kind of change strategy for organizations, and its story of influence is retold in The Firm. The ultimate modern story of differentiation and fast adaption can be found in Brad Stone's The Everything Store which illustrates Amazon's genesis and Jeff Bezos' genius, while Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan's The Org warns leaders against neglecting the interior of their organization in favor of always looking out.