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There are a number of important advantages one earns with a business administration degree that can serve well in a start-up company. While it might seem that a formal business education doesn’t necessarily lend itself to every type of business, the truth is that the benefits of academic study are more often derived from the depth of the subject matter rather than the specifics.

One of the key areas of study that finds use in any business context is accounting. An important related topic is statistics. These two academic fields will give any business graduate a solid understanding of numbers and how they relate to business plans, information processing and the process of monitoring and managing the growth and health of a company.

If you are considering a business administration degree, here are some things to consider.

Research

The accomplishments and techniques used by other entrepreneurs and the stories of their businesses as told by the numbers are some of the most important subjects a business degree holder will ever study. Every company tells a story whether it is a success or a failure. Every company goes through a recognizable life cycle, something insightful students will soon realize many companies share. Seeing the patterns in the data is one of the things a curious business student will achieve.

Having experience with this information and the knowledge of how previous entrepreneurs utilized it can be extraordinarily powerful in crafting a viable business plan: The document that will make or break any start-up company.

Relationships

The study of business administration is the study of the relationships between other subjects. Every business degree holder must understand history, mathematics, psychology and politics and must be able to recognize how those academic subjects relate to the successful establishment and growth of a company in a modern economy.

The days of combining a simple grasp of economics and a few accounting classes into just enough understanding to get through the first few years of a start-up are long gone. Companies launching today are up against a trillion dollars’ worth of precision marketing designed by proven and incumbent brands with astronomical advantages in distribution.

Business leaders have to understand both the big picture and the details.

Sales and Writing

Good business education will focus like a LASER beam on both sales and writing. The ability to communicate with the written word is an absolutely indispensable skill in the modern economy. The ability to sell well enough to adapt business knowledge to any occasion goes hand in hand with talent in communication. When these two halves work together, they form the foundation for company leadership that can find success in nearly any environment.

What a good salesman knows is that more sales can solve most problems. Anything that advances a company’s sales prospects should become its top priority. The converse is also true. Fewer sales are the path to bankruptcy.

Formal education is vital to any business leader’s prospects. Knowing how to write well, sell confidently, understand the relationships between various academic subjects and where to apply the lessons of the past are powerful skill sets that will serve any start-up company positively.