Whereas the life expectancy of people is steadily increasing with time this is not the case for business. Today business life expectancy is decreasing and is touching all types of businesses. Join Dr Jim Goodnight, founder and CEO of SAS, the largest privately owned software company, speak on growing and sustaining the long-term enterprise. SAS, has been in business for three decades and has sustained a 10-15 percent growth during its lifetime.

Most people understand that the cornerstone to any sustaining business is maintaining the balance between the company, the employees and the customers. SAS not only understands this concept but has proficiently practiced it during the last three decades. To remain competitive a company must continually invest in innovative ways to reduce costs and increase productivity. It must work on retaining talent through strong employee relationship policies and it must engage the customer on a continual basis to understand their needs and remain relevant.

Understanding the individual components of perpetual business is not enough to create a substantiating business. To achieve longevity an organization must learn how to achieve balance between these components.

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Dr. James (Jim) Goodnight is CEO of SAS Institute, the world's largest privately held software company. Chief executive since the company's incorporation in 1976, Goodnight continues to focus on strategic planning for the global business, which provides software and services that enable customers to transform data from all areas of their business into intelligence. An accomplished programmer, Goodnight has authored many of the procedures that comprise SAS software.

In addition to this significant investment in technology, Goodnight also invests in people -- SAS employees and their families. The company's work environment is designed to nurture and encourage creativity, innovation and quality. Since the early 1980s, Goodnight has supported on-site childcare, health care and recreation and fitness centers. His commitment to these progressive work-life programs has earned SAS national recognition in publications such as The Wall Street Journal as well as Fortune, Fast Company, Business Week and Working Mother magazines.

A native of Wilmington, N.C., Goodnight holds bachelor's and master's degrees as well as a doctorate in statistics from North Carolina State University. He served on the faculty of NCSU from 1972 to 1976, and continues to serve as an adjunct professor. Goodnight is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, and has authored numerous papers on statistical computing.

Resources:

• Slides from this presentation (PDF)
• Software 2005 Conference Site
• SAS Site

This program is from the Software 2005 series.

For Team ITC:

• Description editor: Jim Alateras
• Post-production audio engineer: Paul Figgiani