A Testimonial from Wagas Khalid.

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Dear Dr. David,

My name is Waqas Khalid. I am from Pakistan. My affiliation is with the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan (ICMAO). I feel extremely fortunate to have read this book in my hand “Strategic Management: A Competitive Advantage Approach, Concepts and Cases” 16th edition. I loved reading the book. It is so interesting that it engulfs one’s mind and never let him/her get bored due to real corporate words and interesting examples. This masterpiece in my hand is the epitome of your excellence. God bless you. Live Long. Regards.

A Testimonial from Phillip Tindall, FMU School of Business (BBA) Graduate from Spring 2018.

Many business school graduates in today’s world – the world of big data, advanced A.I., and supercomputers in nearly every pocket in America – have a hard time finding a place in the workforce after earning an expensive degree. I believe this occurs because these individuals are often armed with more than enough theoretical knowledge but lack empirical skills. Today, it is easy to associate every bit of revenue and cost with a certain activity. This information is tracked and the return on investment is measured for each activity. Using data analysis to make decisions or using things like key performance indicators to measure production make it necessary for every position to create and show value. The Strategic Management process can assist in achieving this. The value comes from the knowledge that can be gained and subsequently used in the business world. It acts as a guidebook on how to apply skills learned throughout business school in real situations. If more business graduates had this empirical value-added capability taught in Strategic Management, they could much more easily find employment.

The Francis Marion School of Business helped me to enter the workforce equipped with tools that could empirically benefit an organization from day one. We learn about the term competitive advantage in Strategic Management, the capstone class of the School of Business. Dr. Fred David’s textbook says competitive advantage “can be defined as any activity a firm does well compared with activities done by rival firms, or any resource a firm possesses that rival firms desire.” If we, as Francis Marion students and alumni, replace the term “firm” in this definition with “person” or “individual,” we hold a major competitive advantage in the knowledge and skills earned in the Strategic Management class. Strategic Management uses all business disciplines – economics, finance, managing information systems, accounting, marketing, management, and any other – to build a more useful approach in problem solving. Some of the applicable tools taught by Francis Marion are how to efficiently manage a firm’s organizational structure, how to identify and take advantage of a firm’s competitive position in a marketplace, how to optimize strengths and weaknesses regarding a firm’s financial position, and many more. These tools can be used to effectively present ideas to management or create a clear roadmap for the internal stakeholders of an organization. One core idea that Dr. David’s Strategic Management course teaches us is that a company must first identify three things about itself: core values, the vision statement, and the mission statement. The core values are your company’s “foundation,” a perfect description for their place in Strategic Management. These values don’t change and they indicate the most fundamental characteristics of a company. The vision statement is “who you want to become” as a company. The mission statement describes “what is our business.” When I graduated from Francis Marion and got my first job away from home and near the nation’s capital, I first began to try to identify these three things. I wanted to introduce the Strategic Management process I had learned at Francis Marion. The discussions were meaningful and helpful internally; an indirect benefit was that the conversation of Strategic Management bubbled up to high-level management in the organization. This helps get buy-in from different departments because the core values are something any key member in a company should be able to intimately relate to. Without this buy-in, the Strategic Plan risks being incomplete or less effective than possible. The vision statement indicates to everyone a path forward and solidifies the buy-in from step one. The mission statement helps articulate key areas to start gathering important data about your company. “The secret to getting ahead is getting started. The secret to getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one” (Mark Twain). Everyone knew we needed a business plan but that, especially for a computer engineering company, can be a daunting task. Francis Marion teaches you a process that helps break business planning down into concise, actionable, and manageable tasks.

With abundant input from as many internal stakeholders as possible and interest created in the possible benefits of Strategic Management; you can use the very practical Excel template created by Forest David to aid Francis Marion’s capstone course. Those individuals with a deeper understanding of business may be able to understand and parse the data in table form but the Excel spreadsheet helps create visuals that someone with any level of business acumen can comprehend. I’ve been able to use these tools to first paint a clear picture of my company and its most relevant surroundings. The next step was to formulate a plan to match up my organization’s internal strengths with the external opportunities in the marketplace, among many other things. At this point, we are implementing and evaluating our Strategic Plan. The company I work for has been thriving in the tech industry since 1989 but this process has added great value to our organization. The existing business could be compared to a reliable car. Now it can be fine-tuned, and we can drive on a more cohesive path forward. The managers will have the ability to allocate their resources in a more efficient manner. In addition, every team under those managers can become more fluid. Adam Grant hosted a Ted Talk where he said the following statement regarding innovative thinkers, “you don’t have to be first, just different and better.” Strategic Management can help isolate and identify what is different about an organization – or the competitive advantage it holds. It can help an organization understand where they are currently thriving, but more importantly, how they can become even better. Francis Marion gave me the tools to assist an already successful company to do new things and expand the reach of something I believe in. I’ve been lucky enough to find a career where I can apply the knowledge I gained through my education at Francis Marion within the first year of starting the job. I report directly to the CEO where we often discuss strategy. I have been fortunate enough to have weekly meetings with the VP of HR to plan our future organizational structure. We’ve increased our new software license sales drastically. We’ve changed our license agreement and offerings to optimize key metrics. We will be able to use that increased revenue to continue expanding existing business and to enter into new markets. I believe we will continue to use this Strategic Management process to help us develop a successful and sustainable path moving forward.

Someone can be passionate about any industry they choose and Francis Marion will equip them with the tools to enter that industry. The customer accounts I manage are in a variety of industries: medical device, telecom, robotics, military and aerospace, finance, high assurance, transportation, process control, and software defined radio. One customer is the largest defense program in the world. One is in the supply chain for manufacturing semiconductors. One is a producer of superyachts. Our products are in a variety of highly technical markets. This Strategic Management process can be used to help answer the most important questions about any of these industries, customers, or product markets. Someone can want to work for any company in the world or work towards any cause in the world and these tools will be applicable. Someone may want to be an entrepreneur, they may want to work for the largest company on the S&P 500, or they may want to work for a non-profit – the knowledge they could gain from Francis Marion can be the catalyst to propel them to their dreams.

– Phillip Tindall
Email: philliptindall@gmail.com