How to Prepare for Business Section of GK?

Business Awareness is a vast and varied topic within GK. Unlike other topics, this cannot be easily pigeonholed into either static or current as it is a clear combination. Business is a very important topic in most entrances for management courses such as DU’s BMS or the one conducted by the Symbiosis University. A grasp on some of these theories at this stage will build the foundation for a career in the business management field. Unlike a lot of other segments where the focus remains on India and India’s international affairs, in business a substantial global portion gets included

Students preparing for this topic must prepare on the following topics in detail:
• Major mergers and acquisitions across the globe, the new identities created, important personalities and valuations.
• CEOs, Founders or Directors of top global or national enterprises; global firms with Indian or female leaders get maximum traction.
• Presidents or Chairpersons of nationalized organizations or boards.
• New appointments in regulatory bodies or nationwide forums.
• Important business summits, their venues and conclusions.
• Taglines of business brands.
• Logos of business brands though this is easier to administer at online papers than pen-and-paper ones.
• Advertising agencies and their key clients.
• Brands and their mother companies / conglomerates.
• International bodies / credit rating agencies and their Indian subsidiaries.
• Supranational bodies, their heads, headquarters, purpose and year of formation.
• Business cartels and their members.

In order to prepare for this segment, students would be well-advised to divide it into static and dynamic components. The former will involve economics based theories which one can run through from any standard GK books such as Manorama or Pearson’s. For the specific business portions, reliable internet sources must be the best guide. A run through of major global conglomerates must be made to look into their brands and subsidiaries. For mergers and acquisitions, a Google Alert could be the best tracker. An alert titled “mergers and acquisitions in 2016” will provide the best of stories. Taglines and logos too can be studied from any standard publication yet that alone will not suffice. A more holistic approach would be to look at any list and then dedicate oneself towards viewing advertisements specifically for a few days. This will bring about the convergence factor where the student will get a 360 degree learning from all the angles. A year round preparation must involve daily reading of any dedicated business paper such as Business Standard or Economic Times. Dedicated business magazines such as Forbes for global events or Business World for national ones also help. For certain exams where business is of moderate importance, reading of the business section of any nationalized newspaper will do. In addition one can always go through business news on channels such as ET Now or NDTV Profit.