A Sponsored by PSU Rector, Dr. Yamani, a Strategic Planning Workshop on Vision and Mission Development of the College of Business Administration was held in the university.

Covered by: Abdul Hamid Assawadi (CCIS) and Tariq Hassan (Taiful-Jame’ah newspaper)

A strategic planning workshop on vision and mission development of the College of Business Administration (CBA) was held in PSU on Monday Jan 28, 2008. A number of specialists in the output of higher education, PSU senior management, CBA faculty members, some CBA graduates along with some current students, in addition to a number of businessmen and employers from different sectors.

The workshop was held in the Prince Salman hall for meetings between 6:00pm to 9:45pm. It was started with a speech by the Dean of CBA, Dr. Mohammad Jebreen Al-Misher about the objective of the workshop and the importance of establishing strategic planning.
He said that we have an old vision and a mission for CBA since more than four years ago, and it need to be updated; because there is a lot of change in many matters of business. There are a lot of changes in the financial market and in the financial functions which are remarkable for consideration. We have to develop a new Vision and Mission in order to keep up with that. He added that, CBA’s focus in previous phases was on teaching, which is important, but CBA is now focusing on teaching with scientific research, and want to publish research work at the global conferences and participate in them.

Dr. Al-Misher talked about the importance of strategic planning, saying that the college should have certain plans to move out. Without strategic planning; the road map will not be clear. Although there may be some differences between the plan and the actual work, but at least you have some reference, and this is undoubtedly better than moving without planning. For example MBA program was part of our last plan; we know that we are going to start this program after the graduation of four or five batches of BA. This was actually done as planned. Unlike some other universities which started the master program even though they are still new; since their main concern was the profit. We move on a predetermined plan and when we have had the informed base and the capability to engage in the MBA program, we started it. Now we are thinking in the Ph.D. program since a long time, but we have not put it within the next plan since we are not ready yet for it.

Dr. Al-Misher pointed out that in order to develop a new vision and mission, we selected a number of specialists in the output of higher education, some CBA graduates and some current students, in addition to the PSU senior management, CBA faculty members, and a number of businessmen and employers from different sectors; because they know the university and know what is the market needs; as well as a number of representatives of the Ministry of Higher Education. These delegates were divided into four similar groups; each group included one of the businessmen, one of the PSU senior management, one of the professors, one of PSU graduates, one of the PSU current students, and one representative of the higher education.
Each of the four groups has been allocated a table to discuss the vision and mission of the college and come out with their suggested vision and mission.

Thereafter Dr. Suleiman Al-Hadheef, Chairman of Management Information Systems department of the Business Administration college, in King Saud University, and the expert in the formulation of vision and mission, and which has participated in the formulation of the vision and mission for a couple of institutions and companies, provided advice to participating groups showing them the meaning of the vision and mission and the method through which the new vision and mission will be developed.
In conclusion proposed visions and missions of the four groups were discussed together to formulate a single vision and mission for the College.

For a question about the difference between vision and the mission, Dr. Suleiman said that your vision means what you want to be after a period of time, while the mission is an answer to the question of why you exist in the community, the university mission; for example; can be like this: the university is found for teaching and graduating students at a high level of learning quality, and the vision may be what we want the university to be after a period of time, namely in the future.

In his reply on the interest earned by university and college students from the renewal of vision and mission, he said: every university should have a clear mission and a clear vision that should be known to the staff, whether students or professors or administrators; and hence; they should direct their efforts towards achieving the assigned vision and mission.

Asked what makes the vision and mission of a College better those of another, he said: There is no best and the worst in vision, but we must have vision and mission identical with the activities and efforts of the organization they were put for.

In his reply on a question about what the groups developed after four hours of exhaustive debate, and whether their views were identical, Dr. Al-Misher said: each of the four groups agreed on something, there are similarities among them, but their views are not identical, the four groups were having differences among them, and this is an advantage, we ought to take the best from the point of view of each group, and we are coordinating them and get out to deliver the final vision and mission, built on a strong and solid foundation, to be the vision and mission of the College of Business Administration.

Photos
Dr. M. Al-Misher, CBA Dean, in his welcome word	Dr. Suleiman Al-Hadheef, KSU, explains the Workshop roadmap	Dr. Yamani, Dr. Feda, and some of the attendance of the Workshop
Some of the attendance of the Workshop	One of the four groups discussing the new vision and mission	Another groups discussing the new vision and mission
Another groups discussing the new vision and mission	Another groups discussing the new vision and mission	Press Release Interview with PSU Rector, Dr. Yamani
Interview with Dr. Suleiman Al-Hadheef	Interview with Dr. M. Al-Misher