The 30 Day MBA: Your Fast Track Guide to Business Success

576 Pages·2013·3.63 MB·English

by  Colin Barrow

For many of the topics in the book there are direct links to the free
teaching resources of the world’s best business schools.
There are also links to hundreds of hours of free video lectures given by
other distinguished Business School professors, from top schools
including Cranfield, Wharton, Chicago, Harvard and CEIBS (China
Europe International Business School).
You can download Duke University’s top ranking Fuqua School of
Business’s lecture material on forecasting; a vital aid to anyone preparing
sales projections.
Link into Cranfield’s School of Management’s Research Paper Series
and see the latest insights in global supply chain logistics, or watch
Harvard’s Professor Michael Porter – a leading world proponent of
international business strategy methodology – outline his ideas.
You can find a list of all these online resources and more at
www.koganpage.com/30DayMBA and interspersed within the chapters.
Note on the Ebook Edition For an optimal reading experience, please view large
tables and figures in landscape mode.
This ebook published in 2013 by Kogan Page Limited
120 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JN
UK
www.koganpage.com
© Colin Barrow, 2009, 2011, 2013
E-ISBN 978 0 7494 6991 7
Full imprint details
CONTENTS
List of figures
List of tables
Introduction
01 Accounting
The rules of the game
Fundamental conventions
Accounting conventions
The rule makers
Bookkeeping – the way transactions are recorded
Cash flow
The income statement/profit and loss account
The balance sheet
Filing accounts
Financial ratios
Analysing accounts
Accounting ratios
Getting company accounts
Ratio analysis spreadsheets
Break-even analysis
02 Finance
Sources of funds
How leverage/gearing works
Borrowed money
Banks
Bonds, debentures and mortgages
Asset-backed financiers
Equity
Sources of equity capital
Hybrids
Cost of capital
Investment decisions
Budgets and variances
03 Marketing
Getting the measure of markets
Understanding customers
Segmenting markets
The marketing mix
Selling
Negotiating
Market research
Marketing in the internet era
04 Organizational behaviour
Strategy vs structure, people and systems
Structures – the options
Building and running a team
The board of directors
People
Motivation
Leadership
Management
Delegation: the essential management skill
Systems
Managing change
Culture
05 Business history
How business history is studied in business schools
Babylon and beyond (4000 BC–1000 AD)
Mediaeval merchants (1000–1700)
The era of ventures (1700–1900)
The age of financial panics (1900–to date)
06 Business law
Corporate structures
Employment law
Employment legislation
Intellectual property
07 Economics
Schools of economic thought
Micro vs macroeconomics
Market structures
Essential economics
Business cycles
Inflation
Interest rates
Economic policy and tools
More concerns
The broken window fallacy
08 Entrepreneurship
Why entrepreneurship matters
Who make good entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurial categories
Family business
Business incubators: where entrepreneurs hang out
09 Ethics and social responsibility
Teaching ethics and social responsibility in business schools
Owners vs directors: the start of the ethical tug of war
Understanding stakeholders
Mapping out the stakeholders
Assessing obligations
Stakeholder strategies
Implementing ethical and responsible strategies
Does being ethical pay off?
10 Operations management
Outsourcing and the value chain
Production methods and control
Inventory management
Quality
Information technology
Supply chain channel structures
11 Quantitative and qualitative research and analysis
Quantitative research and analysis
Qualitative research and analysis
Triangulation
12 Strategy
Devising strategy – the overview
The experience (or learning) curve
Differentiation
Focus
First to market: possible international advantages
Industry analysis
Shaping strategy – tools and techniques
Environmental
Appendices
1. Elective: Introduction to International Global Business
2. Elective: Business Planning
Index
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1.1 Cost model 1: showing fixed costs
FIGURE 1.2 Variation on cost model 1: showing a step up in fixed costs
Cost model 2: showing behaviour of variable costs as volume
FIGURE 1.3
changes
FIGURE 1.4 Cost model showing total costs and fixed costs
FIGURE 1.5 Cost model showing break-even point
FIGURE 1.6 Break-even chart for special deals
FIGURE 2.1
Funding appetite
FIGURE 2.2 Risk and leverage/gearing
FIGURE 2.3 Cobra Beer’s financing strategy
FIGURE 3.1 Market share UK supermarkets 2011–12
Example SWOT chart for a hypothetical Cobra Beer
FIGURE 3.2
competitor
FIGURE 3.3