Hi,
Any offers on what to read to improve business acumen?
Especially free sources would be appreciated.
Thanks
Great feedback! Thanks a lot!
Sources for Business Acumen
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Hi,
Business Acumen is all about building proper industry and functional knowledge. Here is how you can do that:
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Practice more cases with the other candidates. Try to start with the most common industries - Retail, Consumer Goods, Airlines, Banking
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Study the annual reports of the public companies in each industry. They have a good overview of the company and the industry.
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Get the industry information from relevant books, magazines, etc. We'll recommend some good reading in the next lessons.
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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:
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Revenue streams
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Cost structure
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Average margins
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Key Performance Indicators
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Industry trends
Best
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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
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