BusinessBecause:全球MB

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　　文/田燕 英文翻译/Sunny Li
　　中国有句俗语：三个女人一台戏。而正在英国伦敦，有三个女人，则织了一张“网”——BusinessBecause.com。
　　Business school news、networking and jobs，这几个英文单词印正在BusinessBecause.com的LOGO下面，简单、直接的表明了这家网站的中心业务：商学院的新闻、人脉和工作。
　　就像一个全球MBA信息的供应商，BusinessBecause围绕MBA，提供各种网络社区服务，用全英文的专业的视角，向全世界的读者介绍各类MBA招生、就读与就业信息。
　　三个女人一张“网”
　　Maria Ahmed是BusinessBecause的联合创始人，也是她提出了构建BusinessBecause.com的想法。
　　Maria曾是一位采访新兴市场的财经记者，“当时，我的老板正在剑桥大学的Judge Business School任教，我给他当助手。”正是这样机缘，让她有机会结识很多MBA的学生。
　　“这是一个特别的群体，他们很聪明、有胆识，经历丰富，他们给我留下了十分深刻的印象。”Maria发现，他们还有一个共同的、有趣的特点，就是都处正在自身转型期。
　　凭着财经记者的商业敏感度，Maria有了一个大胆的想法：做一家专门的网络杂志，去报道他们的故事，让他们正在网络上分享自己的经历和经验。没有时间、地域的限制，让交流更顺畅，信息最大化，最终形成资源整合。
　　Maria把这个想法告诉了自己牛津大学的同学Kate Jillings。“这个想法棒极了”，正在投行工作的Kate意识到这是一个十分好的项目。当时Kate也正正在申请MBA，她发现，很多媒体只关注和报道一些顶尖商学院，例如：沃顿商学院、哈弗商学院等，但是其它学校，特别是亚洲和欧洲一些很好的商学院却鲜少有人关注报道。
　　“商学院的学生、老师虽然互相认识，但缺乏可以正在网长进行互动的便捷平台，更别说正在全球范围内的互动了。”16岁就开始创业，并已创立5家公司的Kate，认为这绝对是一个潜力宏大的新兴市场，并决定和Maria一起开始这场“冒险”。
　　创业，团队很重要。“我们很幸运能正在创业早期就遇到公司的另外一个合伙人Sian Morley-Smith。”Maria介绍说，Sian是伦敦帝国理工大学的毕业生，曾正在Accenture公司担任多年的管理顾问。
　　Maria、Kate、Sian这三个各有所长的女人，开始为了共同的目标而奋斗。
　　MBA全球互动
　　万事开头难。当时还是全职的Maria和Kate，利用业余时间做了市场调查和商业企划，找了网络开发团队，几个月后，网站初见雏形。
　　当然，也到了面临抉择的时候。Maria和Kate最终选择了辞去工作，全身心的投入创业。2009年7月，BusinessBecause.com诞生了。
　　BusinessBecause.com是一个为全世界的MBA学生、猎头、申请人和商学院搭建的网络平台。
　　“我们有特定的市场受寡，刚开始，我们通过打电话来向他们推荐我们的网站，碰了很多钉子，有很多‘冷电话’。”Maria说，让人们接受一个新事物确切不容易。
　　但BusinessBecause有杀手锏。各个商学院可以正在BusinessBecause上建一个自定义的学校展示主页，可定期报道学校的学生及课程的相关信息，最吸引人的是，这一切都是成立正在一个全球信息共享的网络平台上。
　　换句话说，任何一个想申请MBA的学生，都可以通过BusinessBecause看到其互助商学院的最新信息。对于商学院来说，这将有助于他们正在全球范围内吸引生源。
　　如今，BusinessBecause与全球超过20家商学院开展了正式互助，拥有20000会员，每月有超过100000的访客。
　　“随着会员数的不息删长，我们也将与时俱进，为他们提供更多服务。”Maria介绍说，现正在删加了商学院招生动态、向学校推荐优秀生源、每周为会员发送业内一周最新新闻等功能。最近，BusinessBecause还特别开发了“MBA工作板块”，打通学校、学生与企业的沟通渠道。
　　“MBA工作板块”将会对BusinessBecause的赞助学校的学生免费开放，其余的会员也只需求花9美元/月，就可以获得网站每天更新的面向全球MBA的工作及实习信息。
　　进军中国市场
　　数据显示，近几年，中国“MBA热潮”不减，报考人数以平均每年20%以上的速度飙升。2013年参加全国MBA联考，或以GMAT(世界通用商学院录取考试)成果，申请国内MBA院校的考生将突破100万。
　　如此庞大的市场，BusinessBecause自然相当重视。“现阶段我们与上海交通大学的上海高级金融学院、中欧国际工商学员以及香港中文大学都有正式互助，我们认为这是一个不错的开始。”
　　不只如此，BusinessBecause还专门雇佣了懂中文的员工，其中一位是搜索引擎优化专家，帮其打理中国的新浪微博和人/人网的网络社交平台。
　　根据英国高等教育调查公司QS发布报告显示，2011年至2012年间，中国内地的MBA雇佣数量上升了20%，预计2013年会继续上升35%。
　　因此，正在最新的“MBA工作板块”里，BusinessBecause与几家中国地区招聘全职MBA、实习或者短期项目的猎头公司展开了互助，以满足中国企业的招聘MBA的需求。
　　“当然，BusinessBecause也会和美国和欧洲的一些猎头公司互助，正在市场上寻找优秀的中国毕业生。”Maria暗示，正在全世界范围，MBA的需求正在2012年也上升了12%。
　　今年下半年，BusinessBecause还筹划正在北京举办一场MBA入学酒会。“正在伦敦、洛杉矶和拉戈斯，我们都曾举办过雷同行为，十分受MBA学生和申请人的接待。”Maria也希视能通过北京的行为，与远正在中国的年轻职业人士删加互动与了解。
　　2012年，BusinessBecause的营业额30万英镑，今年则筹划达到50万英镑。并行将开发另外一个网站——www.engineeringbecause.com，面向世界前100强工程科名校的学生，给他们正在全世界范围内提供交流互动的平台，也给全球的猎头及企业了解这些学生的机会。
　　未来，BusinessBecause还想找一家大型、有革新精神的猎头、教育或传媒公司互助，面向各种专业客户群，创建出一系列网络社区平台，以满足不同的职场人及毕业生的需求。
　　英文稿
　　BusinessBecause: Global Networking for MBAs!
　　As we say in China: three women together can perform a play. In the UK, three women have built a global professional network for the business school world called BusinessBecause.com.
　　The company’s strapline is “Connecting people before, during and after their MBA.” In practioce, BusinessBecause.com offers members daily business schools news, networking and jobs.
　　The site, which has 20,000 members, connects MBAs, recruiters, MBA applicants and business schools globally.
　　Three women and one “net”
　　Maria Ahmed is the co-founder of BusinessBecause, and came up with the idea initially.
　　She used to be a business journalist, covering finance in emerging markets. “My boss was teaching at the Judge Business School in Cambridge University; and I was helping him out,” she recalls.
　　Because of her job, she got to meet many MBA students. “They were all very bright, ambitious and well-travelled, and I was super impressed with all of the MBAs I met!” says the Oxford University graduate, who also found out another interesting side of MBAs – they are all in a transitional period of their lives.
　　Inspired by her business journalism experience, Maria came up with a bold idea: create a professional online magazine to cover the stories of global MBAs, and give them an online platform to share experiences.
　　Maria told her Oxford University classmate, Kate Jillings, this idea, and Kate was immediately hooked. Though she was a marketing director at an investment bank at the time, Kate was applying to business schools herself, and failed to find quality coverage of schools outside the top ten (Harvard, Stanford etc), or business schools in Asia and Europe.
　　“Students and professors at business schools lack effective online platforms to communicate with each other, especially on a global scale,” says Kate, who has been an entrepreneur since the age of 16 and has built five businesses.
　　She realised that there was potentially a massive market for BusinessBecause, so she decided to team up with her friend Maria for an epic business adventure.
　　For any start-up, a good team is crucial. “We were lucky to meet the third partner in the business, Sian Morley-Smith, very early on,” says Maria. Sian is an Imperial College graduate and a former management consultant at Accenture.
　　So Maria, Kate and Sian, three women with backgrounds in marketing, journalism and consulting embarked on a journey to build the world’s first network dedicated to MBAs.
　　MBA global interaction
　　Everything is hard in the beginning. Because of the commitments to their full-time jobs, Maria and Kate had to use evenings and weekends do the market research and draw up a business plan. It also took them a few months to find web-developers to build the first website.
　　A few months later decided to quit their jobs so they could concentrate. And in July 2009, Businessbecause.com was finally born.
　　“We didn't have a big marketing or travel budget so we had to let the community know about us by making a lot of cold calls, to set up interviews with students and sales meetings with business schools,” Maria says. It takes time to persuade anyone to accept a new and ambitious concept.
　　But BusinessBecause.com brings something unique: it offers business schools the chance to create a profile on the website and the a member of the network. BusinessBecause.com also regularly writes story coverage for each school, including fun, interesting interviews with admissions directors and alumni.
　　Anyone who wants to apply for an MBA can go to BusinessBecause.com to look for information on top business schools, compare MBA rankings, research MBA scholarships, and connect with students and alumni at the schools they are interested in.
　　As of now, BusinessBecause partners with 26 global business schools with an impressive 20,000 plus registered members. The websites draws 100,000 monthly visitors.
　　“As our members have grown and the website has improved, we offer a lot more,” Maria says. BusinessBecause has added a weekly member bulletin summarising business school news and admission updates to its members. Most recently, an “MBA Job Zone” was launched to connect students and recruiters.
　　The new “MBA Job Zone” will be free to access students at BusinessBecause partner schools, and anyone else can pay US$9 a month to access fresh MBA jobs and internships every day and connect with recruiters.
　　Opening the Chinese market
　　The MBA market is getting hotter and hotter in China. Statistics show that the number of Chinese MBA applicants is now growing 20% on a yearly basis.
　　In 2013, more than 1 million people in China will take the GMAT exam.
　　BusinessBecause is not to overlook this booming market. “We currently partner with the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance at Jiao Ting University, the China Europe International Business School and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which is a great starting point,” Maria says.
　　The BusinessBecause team includes Chinese speakers to take care of Chinese marketing and SEO, as well as promoting the website on popular Chinese social media platforms such as Sina Weibo and RenRen.
　　A report from QS, a British higher education research company, suggest that the hiring rate for Chinese MBA graduates increased 20 per cent between 2011 and 2012, and the year 2013 is expected to show a more significant 35 per cent increase.
　　BusinessBecause is working closely with several recruiters in the Greater China area who hire MBAs for full-time, internship or project roles through the website’s “MBA Job Zone”.
　　Globally, the number of MBA jobs has grown by 12 per cent. “We also work with recruiters in the US and Europe who are looking for Chinese hires,” Maria says.
　　In the second half of 2013，BusinessBecause is planning to organise an MBA admissions party in Beijing, to engage with the country’s young professional community.
　　The company’s MBA admissions party are always a hit - similar events have been successfully staged in London, Bangkok, Lagos and San Francisco, among many others.
　　In 2012, BusinessBecause had a turnover of 300,000 GBP, and they have an ambitious target of 500,000 GBP this year.
　　They have developed a second website, www.EngineeringBecause.com, to connect engineering students from top 100 undergraduate engineering schools worldwide with job opportunities and recruiters.
　　In the future, BusinessBecause would like to partner with a bigger, innovative recruitment, education or media company, to build a series of niche networks catering to different professional and alumni groups.
　　出色对话：
　　创业初期的启动资金从哪来？
　　Raising money - we started trying to raise investment but it was very time consuming and was distracting us from growing the business, so we relied on our own savings. Kate sold her flat and I moved back in with my parents (luckily they live in London)!
　　创业过程中遇到的最大的难题是什么？
　　There have been different challenges at different times, but the biggest one overall has probably been finding competent, affordable web developers.
　　有没有特别印象深刻的谈判？
　　Probably with a client who had just arrived in London from very far away - he fell asleep during the meeting! But he still renewed.
　　一般您会如何向未来互助伙伴或您的客户来介绍businessbecause？
　　We visit business schools, host events, present at conferences, and reach out to as many people in the business school world as we can, every day. A lot of it is through word of mouth - clients value nothing more than a positive recommendation from a peer.
　　正在英国，女性的创业环境如何？
　　It doesn't make much difference whether you're male or female. The UK is not the easiest country in which to start up as an entrepreneur - that's a challenge for everyone!
　　您认为女性创业具有哪些优势？
　　I think we're better at resolving conflicts. Also I think there are still higher financial and professional expectations for men, which would make it harder for a man to take a risk and start a business like ours.
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