Product Description

Want to get an MBA? The Complete MBA For Dummies, 2^nd Edition, is the practical, plain–English guide that covers all the basics of a top–notch MBA program, helping you to navigate today’s most innovative business strategies. From management to entrepreneurship to strategic planning, you’ll understand the hottest trends and get the latest techniques for motivating employees, building global partnerships, managing risk, and manufacturing.

This fun, easy–to–access guide is full of useful information, tips, and checklists that will help you lead, manage, or participate in any business at a high level of competence. You’ll find out how to use databases to your advantage, recognize and reward your employees, analyze financial statements, and understand the challenges of strategic planning in a global business environment. You’ll also learn the basic principals of accounting, get a grip on the concepts behind stocks and bonds, and find out how technology has revolutionized everything from manufacturing to marketing. Discover how to:

• Know and respond to your customers’ needs
• Handle budgets and forecasts
• Recruit and retain top people
• Establish and run employee teams
• Use Sarbanes–Oxley to your company’s advantage
• Negotiate with the best of them
• Build long–term relationships with clients
• Avoid common managerial mistakes
• Improve cash flow
• Market your products and services
• Make the most of your advertising dollar

Once you know what an MBA knows, the sky’s the limit. Read The Complete MBA For Dummies, 2^nd Edition, and watch your career take off!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6653 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
" with this friendly guide, everyone can sample the benefits of an MBA education in a fraction of the time and at much less cost " (Business a.m., 5 November 2002)

From the Back Cover
Covers key trends in marketing, selling, and advertising

Qualify for an MBA and succeed in any business

Want to get an MBA? This practical, plain–English guide covers all the basics of a top–notch MBA program, helping you navigate today′s most innovative business strategies. From management to entrepreneurship to strategic planning, you′ll understand the hottest trends and get the latest techniques for motivating employees, building global partnerships, managing risk, and manufacturing.

• Know your customer′s needs

• Handle budgets and forecasts

• Recruit and retain top people

• Understand Sarbanes–Oxley

• Be a successful negotiator

About the Author
Kathleen R. Allen, PhD, is the author of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management, 3rd Ed., Launching New Ventures, 5th Ed., Bringing New Technology to Market, and Growing and Managing an Entrepreneurial Business, as well as several other trade books. As a Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, based in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, Allen has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs start their ventures. At USC, she’s also director of the Marshall Center for Technology Commercialization, where she works with scientists and engineers to help bring their inventions to market. As an entrepreneur herself, Allen has co–founded four companies and is presently the co–founder and president of N2TEC Institute, which is dedicated to technology–based economic development in rural areas of the United States (www.n2tec.org).
Allen holds a PhD from USC, an MBA, and a master’s degree in Romance Languages.

Peter Economy (La Jolla, CA) is Associate Editor for the Apex Award–winning magazine Leader to Leader, a member of the National Advisory Council of the Creativity Connection of the Arts and Business Council of Americans for the Arts, a member of the board of directors of SPORTS for Exceptional Athletes (www.s4ea.org), and bestselling co–author of The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8 Billion Employee–Owned Technology Company. He has also worked on more than 30 other books, including Managing For Dummies, 2nd Ed., The Management Bible, Enterprising Nonprofits: A Toolkit for Social Entrepreneurs, and Writing Children’s Books For Dummies.

Customer Reviews

How to fail an MBA
Normally I'm a big fan of the "dummies" series but this one badly misses the mark. I bought it thinking it would be a good quick reference guide for the team, explaining MBA models and how to apply them.

Unfortunately, it bears little resemblance to a UK MBA. Many of the theories explained (eg accounting, stock trading and govt bonds) are US centric and the whole thing is woefully out of date and superficial (I was prepared for superficial as I wanted to use it as an aide memoire). Topics include sections on staff interviewing / hiring, how to conduct a meeting and negotiation - important for managers but hardly strategic in nature. Where are the sections on organisational design? Cultural ownership and fit? Brand? Strategic human resource management? Competitive advantage and differentiation? Net Present Value and WACC for calculating future value of projects?

I wanted a book that quickly recounted how to use the various business models much beloved by strategists - from Ansoff to BCG to Porter to Mckinsey and back again. Looking through I can't see any of these - let alone a critique. The only one covered seems to be the perennial SWOT.

For me, the book is characterised by the section on "your new employee's first day at work". I'm not sure where this would have been covered in the 2 year / $40,000 MBA that this book is supposed to be able to replace in some way, but it sure wasn't on my £13k 3 year OUBS MBA - and neither would I want it to be. The book is overly tactical in nature, written for the practicing US manager (and then not particularly well). It does not give much insight into the skills and modelling required of the strategic manager. Even the section on the marketing plan is weak - giving little guidance on any aspect other than a quick nod to the 5 Ps (what happened to the other 2? We were up to at least 7Ps in the marketing mix at last count!) What about relationship marketing? Product portfolio management? Environmental scanning? Segmentation and target marketing? Etc., etc. etc.

The perforated section in the "Dummies" series gives a good indication of what is important in the book - a tear out and keep quick reference. As an idea of the dearth of material in this badly misnamed guide (how far from complete could it be!) the topics of greatest importance deemed are: the right way to delegate tasks, advertising guidelines, the basics of managing risks and how to create a marketing plan. The first two clearly have no place in any MBA, the third and fourth are of interest - but both are badly written and superficial.

Steer clear. I want my money back!

A succinct , interesting and easy-to-read MBA materials
It contains essentially the basic but important materials for MBA study. Despite the "thickness" of the book which consists of 387 reading pages, the words employed are simple and easy to understand , together with the amusing "Far-side" comics at the beginning of each section/part[ I finished reading the book within one week simply as "bed time" reading! Just like reading a novel!]. What's interested me are the examples given through the practice and the view from different Corporates, though a reference for those examples quoted will increase the credibility and the possibility for advanced study.I'll recommend this book as a pre-MBA reading or simply as passtime reading .

-Thomas