MBA in a Box: Practical Ideas from the Best Brains in Business

by Joel Kurtzman, Glenn Rifkin

The best minds in business—at your service

MBA in a Box brings together some of the best brains in business who show how the core curriculum of an MBA program works in the real world. People like Michael Porter, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Adrian J. Slywotzky, Warren Bennis, and Bill George give you a box full of ideas and tools that can boost your career and help you add value to your organization. For

• Why finance is not just about manipulating numbers but of immense importance in sustaining growth, building widespread wealth, and creating jobs.
• The profit zone and how to tell if a business is in one.
• The skill of turning an idea or invention into a product that solves a problem for a market.
• Merging the need of business to produce and grow with the environment so they are both sustained.
• The latest thinking in marketing about branding, pricing, reversing a product’s life cycle, and turning what has become a commodity into a specialty.
• And much more.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book got a lot of flack from other readers, but I think it's more of a reflection of when it was written, immediately after the dot-com bust and 9/11. There was a very pessimistic attitude then, and it shows.

But despite that, there are some very good nuggets of information in there that I found helpful.

[Nick Sabatini · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. No flow, no real actionable items, no story, noting inspiring to take from it. From a readers perspective just seems like a CEO would wanted to be an author and throw some random texts together. Nothing sticks that I took from this book. Bought it for $2 at a garage sale, couldn’t imagine buying full price at a store.

[Mihai Pintilie]

MBA in a box - Tai's Vault

Brand = Status
What status is attached to your name
3 things a brand does for its customers;
-

Marketing is the vehicle by which you convey the status

You must convey 8 things:
Functionality, ease of use
Appearance, beauty
Technological differentiations
Quality ( lamburghini )
Convenience
Customisation
Reliability, safety ( we have experience, we won awards, with us its a safe bet )
Image

You can't have both a ferarri and a prius, you must use a primary differentiation of those 8 above

Spend the 90% on the who is doing the advertising, 9% on the what, 1% how you are gonna do the advertising

For every 30 mins you spend on your name logo spend 100 hours on your customer base what they are interested in what excites them

Once you know the primary differentiation, after the who and what


For a cool hotel business ( hotels tonight ):
You make millions by defining the who ( say last minute shoppers )
What ( discounted stuff )

Convenience and technology


Don t major in minors

90% who is going to be my viral fan?


How? Iconography = packaging ( website, box)

You have to protect the brand, nurture it, then it will carry a lot of weight and you will be fine

Signal key words to your target audience " are you late with? Do this..."

[Randall · Rating 2 out of 5]

The material was dated and all over the place. It was like he gathered up a bunch of random articles and put them in a book. I did get some ideas, but this mostly seemed directed at people who work in large corporations. I listened to the audio version and struggled to get through it. I found Josh Kaufman's book The Personal MBA to be much more helpful.

[Redd Kaiman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not intriguing. Would not recommend it.

[Mark Manderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Incredibly basic business information. I had much higher expectations with a title MBA in a Box. Best to leave this book on the shelf.