John Horsler is a business phenomenon. He has been a director of more than 40 different businesses, in both
manufacturing and service. His businesses have covered a wide span, from aerospace to automotive and yellow to
white goods, and ranged from start-ups to PLCs. John Horsler's Real-World MBA tells the dramatic story of his
meteoric business career and uses business models taught in business schools around the world to illustrate the
issues he has faced. As the story unfolds different business challenges occur. In some businesses cash was the major issue; in others lack of development was the problem - the business needed reinvigorating. There are lessons from real business situations: turnarounds, cash problems, development, buying, selling, merging, and closing companies. The businesses are generally SMEs (small to medium enterprises) and each situation is illuminated by an MBA model. Most case studies at business school use larger corporations such as Electrolux and Sony but many of us work in smaller enterprises and Horsler's story demonstrates that MBA tools are as useful, maybe even more so, in SMEs.
