Sources for Business Acumen

Hi,

Business Acumen is all about building proper industry and functional knowledge. Here is how you can do that:

1. Practice more cases with the other candidates. Try to start with the most common industries - Retail, Consumer Goods, Airlines, Banking

2. Study the annual reports of the public companies in each industry. They have a good overview of the company and the industry.

3. Get the industry information from relevant books, magazines, etc. We'll recommend some good reading in the next lessons.

4. Study MBA cases. They have a good industry overview. You can purchase HBS cases here: https://hbr.org/store/case-studies

For each industry, you should understand:

• Revenue streams

• Cost structure

• Average margins

• Key Performance Indicators

• Industry trends

Best

Hi A,

I would very much recommend subscribing at least one of the following news papers, even if its only during the prep period before your interview:

Wallstreet Journal
New York Times
Economist

A good way to improve your business judgement is to read the headline first (if its a business headline) and then ask yourself why X has happened, before reading the article.

E.g. WSJ article says ''BMW reports a loss in profit over Q3 2019'', you can create a mental framework (or on paper) to think about the potential reasons for why this happened.

Hope this helps!

Aws