the
TEN-DAY
MBA
4TH EDITION
A Step-by-Step Guide to
Mastering the Skills Taught in
America’s Top Business Schools
Steven Silbiger
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Acknowledgments
Introduction
DAY 1 - Marketing
DAY 2 - Ethics
DAY 3 - Accounting
DAY 4 - Organizational Behavior
DAY 5 - Quantitative Analysis
DAY 6 - Finance
DAY 7 - Operations
DAY 8 - Economics
DAY 9 - Strategy
DAY 10 - MBA Minicourses
Appendix: Quantitative Analysis Tables
MBA Abbreviation Lexicon
Permissions
Index
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Acknowledgments
I gratefully thank Rose Marie Morse and Sarah Zimmerman of William Morrow for all their diligent efforts to transform my MBA drafts into the original book. Thanks to Toni Sciarra at Quill, who championed the second edition; Herb Schaffner at HarperCollins, who led the third; and Colleen Lawrie, who helped on this one.
I also thank Rafe Sagalyn at the Sagalyn Agency for his extraordinary ability to see my book’s potential and to place it with publishers around the world. The best always make it look easy.
Questions, comments? E-mail the author at [email protected] or visit our Web site at www.tendaymba.com.
Introduction
After I earned my MBA, I had a chance to reflect on the two most exhausting and fulfilling years of my life. As I reviewed my course notes, I realized that the basics of an MBA education were quite simple and could easily be understood by a wider audience. Thousands of Ten-Day MBA readers have proven it! Readers are applying their MBA knowledge every day to their own business situations. Not only useful in the United States, The Ten-Day MBA has been translated into many languages around the world. So many people are curious about business education, including doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, and aspiring MBAs. This book answers their questions. The Ten-Day MBA really delivers useful information quickly and easily. Current MBA students have written me that they even use the book to review for exams. Ten-Day MBAs are “walking the walk and talking the talk” of MBAs every business day. Executive mini-MBA programs are designed around the book. It’s proven that this book can work for you. Written for the impatient student, The Ten-Day MBA allows readers to really grasp the fundamentals of an MBA without losing two years’ wages and incurring a $175,000 debt for tuition and expenses.
Prospective MBAs can use this book to see if a two-year investment is worth their while; those about to enter business school can get a big head start on the competition; and those of you who cannot find the time or the money can get at least $20,000 of MBA education at 99 percent off the list price. Unfortunately, this book cannot provide you with the friendships and lifelong business contacts that you can develop at an elite school. However, it can impart many of the skills that make MBAs successful.
The Ten-Day MBA summarizes the essentials of a Top Ten MBA education. The mystique and the livelihood of the Top Ten business schools are predicated on making their curriculum appear as unique and complex as possible. Companies pay thousands of dollars to send their executives to drink from these hallowed fountains of knowledge for a few days. I spent two years of my life not only drinking from the fountain but also bathing and washing my clothes in it.
Which schools are included in the Top Ten is a subject of considerable debate, as displayed by the recent rankings shown at the end of this introduction. The Top Ten actually refers to a group of fifteen nationally recognized schools that play musical chairs for Top Ten ranking. They distinguish themselves by long application forms, active alumni networks, long lists of recruiters, and the ability of their graduates to demand and receive outrageous starting salaries. The Top Ten schools require of candidates at least two years’ work experience before admission. Experienced students can enrich class discussions and study groups. A great deal of my learning came from my classmates’ work experiences.
The Top Ten schools do not necessarily offer the best teaching, facilities, or curriculum. Reputation plays a great part in their status. A variety of rating books are available that give the “inside” story on those reputations. So many magazines and newspapers are now publishing rankings because they are among their best-selling issues. According to the 2010 Bloomberg Businessweek poll, “racking up the highest satisfaction scores from graduates are, in descending order, Virginia, Chicago, MIT, Berkeley, and Harvard.” The recruiters’ rankings, on the other hand, are Chicago, Pennsylvania, Harvard, Northwestern, and Michigan.
My aim is to cut to the heart of the top MBA programs’ subject matter clearly and concisely—the way only an MBA can, and the way academics would not dare. To cover the major concepts, I use examples and outlines and summarize wherever possible. I slice through the long-winded and self-serving academic readings that at times I had to trudge through. This book contains only the pearls of wisdom buried in my thirty-two binders of cases, course materials, and notes, and updated by current MBAs.
I have no vested interest in promoting any of the business theories presented in the book. Therefore, this book does not repeat the same idea over the course of two hundred pages as many popular business books tend to do. I crystallize the most important concepts in brief passages so you can learn and remember them without losing interest.
From my interviews with graduates from Wharton, Harvard, Northwestern, and other top schools, I learned that all of their programs serve up the same MBA meal. Only the spices and presentations of the business banquets vary.
The basics of MBA knowledge fall into nine disciplines. Some schools have carefully crafted their own exalted names for each subject, but their unglorified names are:
Marketing
Ethics
Accounting
Organizational Behavior
Quantitative Analysis
Finance
Operations
Economics
Strategy
The synthesis of knowledge from all of these disciplines is what makes the MBA valuable. In the case of a new product manager with an MBA, she can not only see her business challenges from a marketing perspective, but she can recognize and deal with the financial and manufacturing demands created by her new product. This coordinated, multidisciplinary approach is usually missing in undergraduate business curricula. By learning about all the MBA disciplines at once, in one book, you have the opportunity to synthesize MBA knowledge the way you would at the best schools.
When MBAs congregate, we tend to engage in “MBA babble.” Our use of mystical abbreviations like NPV, SPC, and CRM is only a ruse to justify our lofty salaries and quick promotions. Please do not be intimidated. MBA jargon is easy to learn! As you read this book, you too will begin to think and talk like an MBA.
My goal is to make you familiar with the significant MBA tools and theories currently being taught at the leading business schools and to help you understand and develop the MBA mind-set. When you finish the ten days, please feel free to fill in your name on the diploma at the end of the book. It serves as evidence of your scholarship, and you should proudly display it for all your friends to see.
CURRENT MBA SCHOOL RANKINGS
Below are the most current rankings of MBA programs. Although the rankings change from year to year, the same schools are consistently listed. School names listed in parentheses immortalize founders and major benefactors. Internatio
nal schools have become a force to be reckoned with in the 2000s.
TWO-YEAR MBA DEGREE PROGRAMS
U.S. News & World Report, Top Business Schools, 2011
Based on academics, recruiters, admissions standards, and employment success
1. Stanford
2. Harvard
3. MIT (Sloan)
3. Pennsylvania (Wharton)
5. Northwestern (Kellogg)
5. Chicago (Booth)
7. Dartmouth (Tuck)
7. Berkeley (Haas)
9. Columbia
10. NYU (Stern)
10. Yale
12. Duke (Fuqua)
13. Virginia (Darden)
14. UCLA (Anderson)
14. Michigan (Ross)
(Several ties in the rankings)
Bloomberg Businessweek, Top Business Schools, 2010
Based on recruiter and student polls
Top U.S. Schools
1. Chicago
2. Harvard
3. Pennsylvania
4. Northwestern
5. Stanford
6. Duke
7. Michigan
8. Berkeley
9. Columbia
10. MIT
11. Virginia
12. SMU (Cox)
13. Cornell
14. Dartmouth (Tuck)
15. Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
Top Non-U.S. Schools
1. INSEAD (France)
2. Queen’s University (Canada)
3. IE Business School (Spain)
4. ESADE (Spain)
5. London Business School
6. Western Ontario (Ivey)
7. IMD (Switzerland)
8. Toronto (Rotman)
9. York (Schulich)
10. Cambridge (Judge)
Forbes, Best Business Schools, 2011
Based on 5-year MBA compensation gains less tuition costs
Best U.S. Business Schools
1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. Chicago
4. Pennsylvania
5. Columbia
6. Dartmouth
7. Northwestern
8. Cornell
9. Virginia
10. MIT
11. Yale
12. Duke
13. Berkeley
14. Michigan
15. Brigham Young
Wall Street Journal, September 2007
Based on recruiter surveys
Top North American Schools
1. Dartmouth
2. Berkeley
3. Columbia
4. MIT
5. Carnegie Mellon
6. North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)
7. Michigan
8. Yale
9. Chicago
10. Virginia
11. Pennsylvania
12. Northwestern
13. Duke
14. Harvard
15. UCLA
Top International Schools
1. ESADE (Spain)
2. IMD (Switzerland)
3. London Business School
4. IPADE (Mexico)
5. MIT (USA)
6. Columbia
7. ESSEC (France)
8. EGADE (Mexico)
9. HEC-Paris
10. Thunderbird (Garvin)
Bloomberg Businessweek, 2010
Students’ Favorites Poll
1. Virginia
2. Chicago
3. MIT
4. Berkeley
5. Harvard
6. Northwestern
7. Stanford
8. Cornell
9. USC (Marshall)
10. Columbia
Bloomberg Businessweek, 2010
Recruiters’ Favorites Poll
1. Chicago
2. Pennsylvania
3. Harvard
4. Northwestern
5. Michigan
6. Southern Methodist
7. Stanford
8. Duke
9. Columbia
10. NYU
Bloomberg Businessweek, 2010
Best Teaching and Career Services as Rated by Students
1. Virginia
2. Chicago
3. Cornell
4. Carnegie Mellon
5. USC
These 5 top schools were the only schools rated A+, top 20 percent, on both of these key criteria of student satisfaction.
Financial Times, 2011
Global Ranking
1.London Business School
1. Pennsylvania
3.Harvard
4. INSEAD (France)
4. Stanford
6. Hong Kong UST
7. Columbia
8. IE Business School (Spain)
9. IESE Business School (Spain)
9. MIT
11. Indian Institute of Management
12. Chicago
13. Indian School of Business
14. IMD (Switzerland)
15. NYU
(Some ties in the rankings.)
The Economist, 2011
Global Ranking
1.Dartmouth
2. Chicago
3.IMD
4. Virginia
5.Harvard
6. Berkeley
7. Columbia
8. Stanford
9. York
10. IESE
11. MIT
12. NYU
13. London
14. HEC-Paris
15. Pennsylvania
Day 1
MARKETING
Marketing Topics
The 7 Steps of Marketing Strategy Development
The Buying Process
Segmentation
Product Life Cycle
Perceptual Mapping
Margins
The Marketing Mix and the 4 P’s
Positioning
Distribution Channels
Advertising
Promotions
Pricing
Marketing Economics
A scene from the boardroom of Acme Corporation:
DIRECTOR: Every time we do our annual review of our executives’ salaries, I cringe when I think that we are paying more to Jim Mooney, our vice president of marketing from Penn State, than to our company’s president, Hank Bufford from Harvard. I just don’t understand it.
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD: What don’t you understand? Without Jim’s sales we wouldn’t need a president—or anyone else for that matter!
“HOLD ALL CALLS. I’LL BE DOWN IN ACCOUNTING—FLEXING MY MUSCLES.”
Marketers see the world like the chairman of Acme. As renowned professor Philip Kotler of the Kellogg School at Northwestern teaches, marketing comes first. Marketing integrates all the functions of a business and speaks directly to the customer through advertising, salespeople, and other marketing activities.
Marketing is a special blend of art and science. There is a great deal to be learned in marketing classes, but no amount of schooling can teach you the experience, the intuition, and the creativity to be a truly gifted marketer. That’s why those with the gift are so highly paid. Formal education can only provide MBAs with a framework and a vocabulary to tackle marketing challenges. And that is the goal of this chapter and of the numerous expensive executive seminars conducted by the leading business schools.
The top schools prepare their students for executive marketing positions—in spite of the fact that their first jobs will likely be as lowly brand assistants at large food or soap companies. Therefore, the core curriculum stresses the development of full-fledged marketing strategies instead of the technical expertise needed on an entry-level job out of MBA school.
Numbers-oriented students tend to view marketing as one of the “soft” MBA disciplines. In fact, marketers use many quantitative or “scientific” techniques to develop and evaluate strategies. The “art” of marketing is trying to create and implement a winning marketing plan. There are literally an infinite number of possibilities that may work. McDonald’s, Burger Kin
g, Wendy’s, Hardee’s, and White Castle successfully sell burgers, but they all do it in different ways. Because there are no “right” answers, marketing classes can provide students with either an opportunity to show their individual flair, or many hours of frustration as they try to come up with creative ideas. Marketing was my favorite subject. It was fun cooking up ideas for discussion. My B-school buddies still kid me about the time I proposed to the class that Frank Perdue introduce a gourmet chicken hot dog.
THE MARKETING STRATEGY PROCESS
The marketing process is a circular function. Marketing plans undergo many changes until all the parts are internally consistent and mutually supportive of the objectives. All aspects of a proposal need to work together to make sense. It is easy to get one part right, but an internally consistent and mutually supportive marketing plan is a great accomplishment. It’s a seven-part process.
1. Consumer Analysis
2. Market Analysis
3. Review of the Competition and Self
4. Review of the Distribution Channels
5. Development of a “Preliminary” Marketing Mix
6. Evaluation of the Economics
7. Revision and Extension of Steps 1–6 until a consistent plan emerges
MARKETING STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
Although there are seven steps, their order is not set in stone. Based on circumstances and your personal style, the order of the steps may be rearranged. This chapter could get bogged down in a morass of marketing theory, but to make it practical, I will outline the questions and areas that should be considered when developing a marketing plan. For expediency, I will concentrate on product marketing, but the same frameworks and vocabulary are also applicable to service marketing.
I will present the MBA models in the same seven-step order in which they are taught at the best schools. This chapter offers a generic structure to apply to whatever marketing issue you may encounter. I have not neglected to use the vocabulary taught at the schools, so you can pick up on the MBA jargon and speak like a real MBA marketer. Marketing is an area especially rich in specialized vocabulary. With the correct vocabulary, even your mediocre marketing ideas can appear brilliant. That may sound funny, but that’s the way ad agencies market their product, advertising.
The Ten-Day MBA 4th Ed. Page 1
