Family Issues

Each time I’m in an online bookstore or in Barnes and Noble, I see a new book that promises to give reader the equivalent of an MBA education in just a few hours time. I’m sure that many people see value in a single book, one that is smaller than any textbook that they read as an undergraduate student and one that offers all of the knowledge gained from a two year graduate degree. And this morning, while I was scanning the tltles at Books-a-Million, I had an “a-ha” moment. Why don’t we work with our Japanese translation specialists, Russian translation service and Portuguese translators to create a 15-minute Master’s of Business Administration program for our customers? This would provide all the information they need, thereby saving them time and money and putting them on the fast track to great earnings. But then I had another thought. Why offer this when I could offer an even shorter course?

Granted, a five minute MBA program doesn’t -and can’t exist anywhere. But just as a builder can sell a house before it’s built, we can provide the nuts and bolts 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.

Generating Your Own Demand
A few Portuguese Translation workers took the first stab at defining how demand is created. What they defined was that truly successful organizations are expert at identifying, creating and supplying products and services that bring new customers and keep old customers coming back. However, this is only the case if the company provides the product at a cheaper price or provides a more desirable product than the competition.

How To Become Profitable
While the Portuguese translation team worked, the Russian Translation team nailed down how to create profitability. The Russian translators suggested that successful businesses must sell their products or services at rates that will enable them to pay investors and cover fixed and variable costs. Often times, it’s not enough to be a market share leader and be slightly profitable. It can be quite difficult when trying to make investors and customers both happy at the same time. This difficulty is one of the main reasons why people earn advanced business degrees.

So far, I think we are still on track to providing the world’s first 5-minute MBA. It was encouraging to see that the Portuguese and Russian translation groups grasped the daunting task that companies face when trying to please 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 translators came back with the assertion that to be successful, a business must have talented workers at every level. 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 translators underscored the importance of having sufficient funds to conduct business and to carry out long term plans.

In conclusion, if you have read to this point you are now realizing that we succeeded in developing a 15-minute MBA program that we managed to teach in 5 minutes – - and it was free.