SAS is the largest privately held software company in the world, and the 14th largest overall. The company's CEO, Jim Goodnight, has turned customer loyalty and employee satisfaction into an art and because of his business model, SAS has an employee turnover rate of 2-3% while the rest of the industry's rate is around 20%. Goodnight believes many executives are too obsessed with short-term number-based managements. With their eyes only on the short-term, they fail to recognize long-term opportunities such as research and development, employee and customer longevity, and education for the next generation. I think that the main reason we are currently in a recession is for these exact reasons; too many CEO's and managers work in the short-term and don't look at the long-term consequences of their actions.
Jim Goodnight actually believes in his workers and values their creativity and opinions. He thinks of employees as his primary and does anything in his power to keep bringing them back day after day. This ideology is a change from most companies that make the news where employees are just used as tools for profit and I think that upcoming business leaders can learn a lesson from Goodnight's actions. Does anyone else agree with his business model? Or does this only work because Goodnight is running a privately held corporation that doesn't have to worry about shareholders? Could this same model be applied to a public organization focused more on profit?
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Daniel Changelon
I really respect Jim Goodnight for his low turnover rate. I feel that most companies now a days don't appreciate their employees. Most focus purely on customer survive and they don't realize how unhappy their own employees are. Your employees are always representing the company and when they are unhappy it looks poorly on the company.
ReplyDeleteWhen talking about long term vs. short term i agree that most companies work in the short term and it is important to look in the long term. Clearly the model that Goodnight represents works extremely well simply for the fact that the company is the largest privately held software company
Brian Gabriel