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Two figures that say it all a.k.a. The 2 Minute MBA

Time goes by quite quickly at ISB. Term 2 (and DMOP) is done and over with as of last week, and we are officially 25% MBAs! Not even 3 days into Term 3 and I am still up at 5 in the morning… No, no late night parties right now to keep us up. Instead, its assignments as Term 3 hits with a vengeance. Looking at whats to come, I can comprehend why alums say that this term was the toughest in the one year they spent at ISB.

What am I up to? Just dropped off a Management Accounting assignment an hour back and then hit an entrepreneurship case so that I can finish the online quiz on time. Both due in the morning of course. Thank God for afternoon classes this term!

Coming back to the reason for this post. I had a class today where I realized that around 50% of everything we have learnt over the last three months (has it already been that long?) can be explained by two simple graphs.

Graph - I

Graph - I

The ubiquitous supply-demand curve. Apparently, you can explain 75% of all economic theory using this figure. There are of course some slight variations, differences in variables along the axis etc, but the basic curves stay the same over multiple topics.

Graph - II

Graph - II

This ‘frontier’ graph has been verified as being the essence of multiple subjects, from Economics (the remaining 25%) to Marketing, and from Competitive Strategy to Operations Management. No wonder people can by now just walk to the board when cold called, draw this in their sleep, and be correct. Well, most of the time anyway.

The lesson? Remember these two figures and thats a major part of MBA teaching distilled right into your brain. I might just write a book (or a pamphlet?) about it. Title suggestions/comments welcome, though I am currently partial to: “The 2 minute MBA.”

- Jasnoor S Gill, Class of 2010

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