Strategic Plan for Seidman College of Business
Context For Planning
In spring 2015, a year-long strategic planning process was initiated at the Seidman College of Business. The timing of this process was in alignment with the GVSU five year strategic planning process. At Seidman College, two task forces (Mission, Vision, Values and Strategic Planning) were created to lead the review/revision of the College's mission and the development of a five year strategic plan. The two groups had some common members and worked together to ensure alignment. In September, 2015 a seven-member team attended a five-day Strategy Forum workshop at the Anderson Center for Management and Leadership Development. During the Forum, the team developed a draft strategy utilizing the following tools. - Industry Analysis (Porter's 5 Forces) - Competitor Analysis - Balanced Scorecard Currently Seidman College does not have a vision statement. The mission statement facilitated by the Mission, Vision, Values Task Force was voted on by Seidman faculty and was included in our AACSB Accreditation Continuous Improvement Review (CIR) report in October of 2016 at which point the Mission, Vision, Values Task Force concluded their work. Meanwhile the Strategic Planning Task Force evolved into the ongoing Strategic Planning Committee which had the charge of implementing against the strategic plan created by the task force. Based on feedback received by the CIR Review Team, Seidman was guided to make revisions to the mission statement to clarify our geographic focus and distinctiveness. This work was done by the Strategic Planning Committee during 2017 and a revised mission statement was approved by faculty and staff and included in our CIR2 report in October of 2017. AACSB accepted the revisions as part of the reaccreditation notice received in January 2018. The original Seidman Strategic Plan identified 13 strategic priorities over a five year period. The idea that each priority would have a groundwork phase (one or more years), an active work phase (1 year) and a continuous improvement phase (ongoing) was a great concept that was not panning out in practice. In fact some the groundwork phase was not envisioned and in practice requires project work to accomplish which increases the list of active projects (what we now call initiatives). Also, some initiatives take multiple years to accomplish which was also not captured in the original five year plan. These lessons were learned through the experience of implementation over the 2016-17 Academic Year. During this year, the Strategic Planning Committee worked on six strategic initiatives as outlined in year one of the 5 year plan. In order to help ensure an effective process, the committee adopted project management tools - project declarations for all initiatives and piloted use of A3's on certain initiatives as a way to manage and communicate progress on the projects. The Dean's Office created a new webpage (https://www.gvsu.edu/seidman/resources/) where any member of the Seidman faculty and staff could access information about our strategic plan and ongoing efforts to implement against that plan. At the close of 2016-17, the Strategic Planning Committee created summaries of each completed initiative and provided that information to the campus both at a college meeting and also on the new resource website. In preparing for the 2017-18 Academic Year and in consideration of the lessons learned following the first year of implementation of the strategic plan, the Strategic Planning Committee determined that in fact the 13 priorities could be grouped into five main areas for work: - Increase Professional Development Opportunities in Support of Mission - Develop Distinctive Curriculum - Attract/Retain/Support Students - Grow/Strengthen Engagement with Businesses and Community - Build the Seidman Brand These five strategic priorities represent the revised focus of Seidman's Strategic Plan. Each year the Strategic Planning Committee works with the Dean to identify the key initiatives (projects) to work on in the coming year in order to advance these strategic priorities. For 2017-18, 10 projects were selected, and the Committee reached out to Seidman faculty and staff to work on these initiatives while the Committee turned their attention to refining and completing a Balanced Scorecard for the College. Ultimately the Balanced Scorecard will integrate our Impact Measures and will guide our assessment of progress against our strategic plan and also will inform the selection of future strategic initiatives in order to advance our five strategic priorities. For our 2017 reporting, please be aware that our measure are in flux and there will likely be revised more significantly for 2018 reporting once we have baseline measures in place.
Mission
Seidman develops business talent that contributes to the economic growth of West Michigan and the Great Lakes region. Through the exchange and application of knowledge with a global perspective, our students learn to make informed decisions, act ethically, and take initiative. Our distinctiveness is grounded in strong community collaborations, applied scholarly contributions, innovative approaches to learning, and a supportive environment.