Summary of “The Ten-Day MBA”

By Li Zhang (Madison) The Ten-Day MBA was written by Steven Silbiger who went to MBA and wanted to share the American Top Ten MBA education’s core knowledge with other people. This book mainly contains the essentials of 9 different areas in business and implies the usefulness of MBA for individuals and businesses.

The author explained the 9 core disciplines sequential in the book; start with Marketing and end with Strategy, in the between, there are (ordinal): Ethics, Accounting, Organizational Behavior, Quantitative Analysis, Finance, Operations and Economics. The 9 sections in the book do not actually connected with each other’s content, so the readers can start with what they feel most interesting. Besides the 9 sections, there is another section called MBA Minicourses as the last chapter of the book. As a result, there are 10 sections in the book and the author named them from Day1 to Day 10.

DAY1-Marketing: This chapter mainly explains the 7 processes marketing has. From the research and development of the market to making a final marketing plan which should be revised over and over. In this procedure, customer purchasing process, demography issues, market, competitors, channels of distribution, how to make and how to revise a business plan and the profit of it are taught in details.

DAY2-Ethics: This is a relatively new added class which focuses on business ethics, such as business’s attitude and behavior toward to environment, lay off employees and bribery…… It also analyzes the relativism of ethics and rights and responsibilities of stakeholders.

DAY3- Accounting: Actually, accounting is numbers. The accountants record the business’s activities; then they summarize and analyze them for companies to communicate with others. This chapter explains the basic 7 concepts of accounting and the use and comprehension of the financial statements. It also illustrates the function of working capital, income statement and other various important statements used in a company. Furthermore, this chapter explained investment and financing of companies.

DAY4- Organizational Behavior: This chapter explains the 3 steps for organizations to solve problems. During the process of applying the 3 steps, there are lots of theories and company situation that the business should concern, specifically: psychology of employees and managers, motivational expectancy theory, business layout, leadership types and office procedures……

DAY5- Quantitative Analysis: This chapter contains 5 topics in analyzing the quantify business: decision tree diagram (how to make it and how to solve problems with it), cash flow (the capital and profit of the business and the cash uses), Net Present Value (explains the meaning and use of NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Probability Theory (use d to quantify uncertainty)

DAY6- Finance: This chapter explains the structure of ownerships of businesses, the corporation’s definition, the bond (market), the stock (market), investments, financial management, mergers and acquisitions, diversify the company and other ways in calculating the business’s financial situations.

DAY7- Operations: This chapter studies the production and operations management and dedicates to explain ways to improve products and efficiency of services. It introduces several experts and their theories in production or operation. It also explains the 6M in production capacity and production methods. In addition, it teaches details of inventory and the standards and control.

DAY8- Economics: This chapter teaches the basic theories in economics that are relate to business and management, such as demand and supply, opportunity cost, marginal cost and revenue. The author gives examples to explain what they are.

DAY9- Strategy: This chapter explains different strategies used in general or in different categories in a company. It also mentions the globalization and Chinese military strategy.

DAY10- MBA Minicourses: This chapter is author giving minicourses in different categories relate to business and management, such as public speaking, negotiating and conducting international business……

In conclusion, this book introduces the core knowledge of MBA. That knowledge is essential for students to know and can prepare them for executive positions. After reading and comprehend this book’s contents, the readers are prepared for establishing their own ways in the business world.