Assuming you don't tend to come across this in your current job or formally study business.
Hi Lorenzo! Thanks for your answer. Do you have any recommendations for books on basic macro and microeconomics as a starting point?
Assuming you don't tend to come across this in your current job or formally study business.
Hey there!
There are many ways to develop your business acumen, and I've answered a similar question before on Preplounge. Some suggestions:
1) Subscribe to Finimize: They will send you daily updates with recent business/finance news, and explain what is happening (and why) in Layman terms. It's an excellent way to both stay up to date with most recent events in a couple of minutes (e.g. on the commute to work) and also improve your business acumen. If you want to go further, read through articles on the FT/Economist (but this will take more time)
2) Read up on some basic business/microeconomics: Any decent first year of University or even advanced highschool economics should do - to get the basics and understand some key terms (e.g. economies of scale, breakeven point, etc.)
3) Watch/listen to cases online: This is a great way to come across typical business problems from case interviews, and how to approach them! If you run out of cases to listen/watch, you can also pick a case book online/preplounge cases and read through them!
Hope this helps!
Hi Kay,
there is one simple process that can help you to develop business acumen in a time-efficient way (that is – spending 20mins per day). This is based on understanding first which are the most challenging concepts for you, and then work specifically on such concepts, instead of reading general literature on a topic. To do this, I would recommend the following:
Hope this helps,
Francesco
Hi,
Although officially most of the companies would say that you don't need any specific business knowledge, in reality, it is hard to solve a case purely based on common sense. So the lack of business knowledge becomes a very common problem among the people with various backgrounds
Business Acumen is actually about building proper industry and functional knowledge.
Focus on the most common industries in the following priority (sorted by probability of geting a case): 1-retail and CPG; 2-airlines; 3-Telecom; 4-banking; 5-natural resources; 6-tech
There are several sources of information that will help you develop the business sense:
1) Cases - you simply solve 50-70 cases and get a broad knowledge of different industries, common pitfalls and questions. The key here - find good partners who already had case interviews with MBB companies
2) Company reports, equity reports, IB roadshow docs - usually have a good overview of company and industries.
3) HBS cases - quite useful, but not sure if lot's of them available publically. Probably worth buying
4) Industry Books - one good book about airlines with numbers and industry analysis can give you all needed industry knowledge
5) News, Industry blogs
For each industry, you should understand:
I strongly recommend drawing the typical structures for each industry - profitability, value chain, etc
Then I will switch to getting functional knowledge:
Good Luck
Hi Kay,
I think that the most effective way to improve business judgement is to be curious. When I say "be curious" I do not mean just reading newspapers and listen to the latest FT podcast, but really try to understand what is behind macroeconomic trends. Just to give you an example: don't just read that interesting article about blockchain implementation in banking, but also ask yourself "how does blockchain work? why does it work? are the alternatives? will it have really a future?" and search for answers to these question. You may want to start this process with a topic that is interesting to you, so that at the beginning will be easier to do that. In this way you will build a knowledge and a forma mentis that will help you to rapidly put the "puzzle pieces" together and create your own point of view. Of course, even if you have not formal studies on this topic, reading some books about the main principle of macro and microeconomic is fundamental (i.e. you can't have real business acumen if you have not idea of what price elasticity is).
Best
Lorenzo
Hi Lorenzo! Thanks for your answer. Do you have any recommendations for books on basic macro and microeconomics as a starting point?
I think rather than picking up on acumen, it's more important to understand the value chain and operations of organisations. When you walk around in daily life, think about the places you visit, what is their purpose, what can be improved, whos working in this store, what behind the scenes operations are occurring? For example, when you visit the supermarket, walk around and observe the staff, the customers, try to think about what matters to the company and customers. Come up with some ideas of how you may improve this supermarket, is their a bottle kneck at cashiers, are the isles crowded? Then go home, read a supermarket case, read a supermarket annual report etc, compare your knowledge...make it a game if you can!
Also, im guessing you have friends who work in business...pick their brains...i would meet a person at a party who worked in a random industry, id ask him what exactly he did, what was the industry looking like atm, what are the challenges, blah blah blah.
BE CURIOUS...BE OBSERVANT...BE OBSESSIVE.
The following are the best ways to increase business acumen...
1. Reading more and more case studies.
2. Taking part in more management competitions.
3. Enhance the skills by playing more business stimulation games.
4. Keeping up to date with advancements in technology and news.
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