Have you ever seen books that offer to teach you in a few hours what it took an MBA graduate up to two years to learn? Certainly most people would rather have one fairly short book that provides all the content of an MBA degree. And last evening, as I was on my way out of Border’s, it hit me. I should collaborate with our Russian translator, Japanese translator and Portuguese translator to develop a 20-minute graduate business program for our new clients. This way, they will learn everything they ever wanted to know from those types of books, save their money and increase their opportunities to earn future promotion and a big raise. But then it occured to me. Why not offer a course that is even shorter in length?
Well of course all of this is just not possible. But just as a sidewalk painter can quick make an outline of a painting before he completes it and sells it to a random person walking by on the street, we can quickly outline the key elements of an MBA education. In a nutshell, the objective of an MBA program is to help companies operate successfully, and we kept this in mind when we met with our translators to sketch out the common elements of all successful business organizations. Particularly, all highly profitable firms make their own demand and supply their wares in an efficient manner.
Creating Your Own Demand
A few Portuguese Translation workers took the first stab at defining how demand is created. They found that really successful companies identify a need, produce the product or service and deliver it in a timely manner. But this is only possible when a company is more efficient than the competition at providing lower prices and/or higher quality products.
Creating Profitability
The Russian Translation workers aimed to summarize how the creation of profitability works while the Portuguese translators examined how to create demand. The Russian translation team determined that to be successful, a company must sell its wares at a rate that will cover its costs and provide a paycheck to its investors. More often than not, it doesn’t suffice for a company to have the lead in market share and be only slightly profitable. As a result, it can be extremely difficult to satisfy investors and customers at the same time. But if it was easy, then all companies would be successful and people wouldn’t need to earn MBA degrees.
Up to now we are well positioned to offer the first of its kind five minute MBA. It was reassuring that the Russian and Portuguese translation experts showed a deep understanding of the competing demands of customers and investors. Indeed, this is a daunting task, but many companies are able to be successful at keeping customers and investors satisfied.
While Russian and Portuguese translators continued their work, Japanese Translation workers busied themselves with the task of defining essential characteristics of successful businesses. The Japanese translation team put forth the idea that successful businesses hire highly talented people at all levels. They reinforced the importance of executives who create sound strategy, managers who provide positive motivation and make sensible decisions, and front line employees who provide outstanding customer service as a result of posessing the knowledge and skills required to effectively do the job. The Japanese Translators also indicated that successful organizations develop strong relationships with external suppliers, customers and other stakeholders. Finally, the Japanese indicated that successful companies have sufficient capital to execute their plans and support their operations.
So there you have it, we successfully put together an MBA course in 15-minutes that can be taught in five minutes and has being given away for free to anyone who has read this far.