This is the basic stuff to help you understand the business world and your workplace. Business is all about profit - do you know what profit really is and the different ways to calculate it? What about how the ways in which a company is financed can affect the company culture? I'll tell you. And I'll help you understand how the business strategy shapes just about everything else about a company. Also, I'll give you an introduction to the way some companies are organized so you can understand the difference between Sales and Marketing, for example.
Lastly, the internet is changing whole industries for better or for worse and I'll point out some trends to expect over the next ten years that may affect the business you are in.
BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY - WAIT A MINUTE! I know this stuff sounds boring. I know you don't care. But this is important. Think of it as getting a 'mini-MBA'. I'm not trying to turn you into an finance wizard, but there is some basic stuff here that may help you understand why your boss is waiting until the start of the next budget cycle to hire additional people, or how the company can have a giant stock price but still be losing money. Or why partnerships go crazy trying to collect on their invoices at the end of each quarter.
I once gave a talk to 200 members of the IT dept of one of the world's largest biotech firms. Not a third of them knew anything about the process of drug development. That's not right. By understanding business in general and your company specifically, maybe you'll understand the otherwise inexplicable things the organization seems to do. Or maybe management is just insane - but you'll be able to decide.
