Concepts You Should Know Before Starting The 1st Year Of MBA

Congratulations to all those who converted their dream b-school and are eagerly looking forward to beginning this new journey! This new chapter’s rocket is soon going to be launched, but for the launching to be successful, you need an effective launching pad. Similarly, for beginning your b-school journey without any hiccups, you need to have a firm grasp on a few concepts which will be needed not only during the MBA course but also in your Summer Internship interview. As soon as you enter the b-school, you (who is most probably an engineer) will be expected to understand accountancy and not mathematics. You will be learning laws of economics and not quantum physics. It will all be new for you and there will be moments where you will feel like a dumb student who can’t understand how a simple tagline can make a huge difference to a marketing campaign. Here, only knowing the definition will not be sufficient (which you used to answer in the interview) but understanding the concept will create the difference. Here, I have tried to highlight a few topics and the sources you can use to get a head start to your MBA.

Accountancy and Finance

You have to understand the ABCD of accounts. What is an asset, what is a liability, what is business entity concept and then only you can move forward to actual valuation? Topics to be covered-:

• Balance Sheet
• Profit and Loss Account
• Cash flows
• Accounting ratios
• Concept and methods of depreciation
• Golden rules of accounting and journal entries
• Cost accounting

You can refer to the following resources to understand all the concepts-:

• Youtube channel of CA Naresh Aggarwal- He has explained the concepts from the very basics and in a lucid manner.
• Youtube channel of Gagan Kapoor- Cost accounting can be easily learnt from here
• Accounting and financial modelling courses on Coursera or Udemy. You can apply for financial aid in courser and also get the certificate for the course you have completed. This will also add to your CV
• D.K Goel and T.S. Grewal are the best authors when it comes to accounting

Operations and Strategy

You can begin with the following concepts-: ·         Linear Programming ·         Graphical and Simplex methods ·         Probability You can refer to “Kauser Wise” channel on youtube to learn all these concepts. You should also go through “Case-in-point” for various cases focusing on strategy and frameworks which are used to tackle these cases. You will be using concepts like SWOT analysis, PESTEL, Porter’s 5 forces, BCG matrix etc. a lot and this book can teach you how to use them effectively. You can easily find a softcopy online with just a google search.

Marketing

Marketing is all about understanding the consumer and these concepts form the basics when it comes to marketing-:

• Consumer Behavior
• 4 Ps of Marketing- Product, Price, Place and Promotion
• Market segmentation
• ATL and BTL Marketing
• Branding

You can refer to various channels on YouTube. ” Marketing by Vijay” is one such channel where you can learn the concepts in a short time. You can also do courses on Coursera by reputed institutes and add to your resume. Along with that, you can refer to “Marketing Management” by Philip Kotler- the book known as bible of marketing.

Economics and Statistics

Understanding the concepts of economics is necessary both for finance and marketing. You need to understand how demand and supply determine prices and how does a producer decide the production point. How does RBI control the money supply? This refers to microeconomics and macroeconomics.

• Microeconomics by Dunberg
• Macroeconomics by Schiller

You can also refer to the channel Microeconomics-IITK and Khan Academy to learn the concepts. Your focus should be basically on learning the concepts of Class 12 commerce’s student. For statistics, “Hypothesis testing” and “Time series analysis” are 2 of the most important topics and you can refer to various youtube channels to learn the same. All these are concepts you will be learning in first semester and learning so much in such a small timeframe is a huge task. Starting soon will help you get an edge over others, not only in your courses but also in your summer internship interviews. The companies don’t care if you are an engineer or a CA. if you know how a transaction can impact the three statements of accounting or how the marketing campaign should change given the current economic scenario, they will give you an offer! All the best!

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