It seems like every six months or so, I see a new book that promises to give readers the amout of knowledge that took an MBA student two years to learn. Of course, a lot of folks would prefer a small book that packs two years of education over a university textbook-size book. So yesterday, while I was browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble, I had a thought. 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 consolidate the material in all those books into one small one, allowing consumers to save money and provide them with the possibility of earning a great salary and rapid job progression. But suddenly it dawned on me. Why offer this when I could offer an even shorter course?

Well, we know it’s impossible to get a graduate business degree from a single book and a 5-minute MBA is impossible. But just as a builder sets out the specifications of a building before beginning building and selling it, we can also map out the specifications of a graduate business program. In a summary, the objective of an MBA is to provide managers with the knowledge and skills they need to run successful companies, so with some help of a few translation professionals we began our outline with some common characteristics of successful companies. Basically, business success occurs when a business creates its own demand and supplies its products efficiently.

Generating Your Own Demand
Our Portuguese Translation team immediately began summarizing how to create demand. According to the translators, profitable organizations are successful at identifying, creating, and delivering products or services that are so highly valued by potential buys will from those organizations rather than from the competitions of those organizations. But this only works if the business provides the good or service at a better price or higher quality than the competitors.

Creating Profitability
Whereas the Portuguese translation group worked on defining how to create demand, the Russian Translation team researched creating profitability. The Russian translation team determined that to be successful, a company must sell its wares at a rate that will cover its costs and provide a paycheck to its investors. Quite often, companies must be highly profitable and be a leader in market share. It can be quite difficult when trying to make investors and customers both happy at the same time. Many managers earn MBA degrees because of the difficulty in meeting these needs.

Up to now we are well positioned to offer the first of its kind five minute MBA. I was encouraged by the Russian and Portuguese Translators reported and understand the difficulty faced by companies that must deliver customer and investor value. The goal is difficult, but many companies, like Fortune’s Most Admired, have succeeded at keeping both groups satisfied.

While all this was going on, we put our Japanese Translation professionals to work to determine the characteristics required for business success. The Japanese translation team put forth the idea that successful businesses hire highly talented people at all levels. They stressed the importance of having executives who are excellent strategic planners, managers who effectively motivate others and make appropriate decisions, and front line workers who know their jobs and do them well. The Japanese Translators also indicated that successful organizations develop strong relationships with external suppliers, customers and other stakeholders. Finally, the Japanese indicated that successful companies have sufficient capital to execute their plans and support their operations.

And thus we have proven our point that an MBA course could be designed in fifteen minutes and delivered for free in five minutes to whoever reads this far.