Strategic Management Science

The term Management Science is used to describe a scientific approach to management. Management science is multifaceted:

- Skill in management science helps the manager to analyze decision situations, prevent problem situations from arising, identify new opportunities, and add dollars to the bottom line.

- Many global firms now have management science functions although the function is not always known as "management science". "Decision Technologies", "Decision Sciences", or "Operational Research" are some other names used. Some firms have very large "Management Science" functions: SABRE Decision Technologies formerly a division of American Airlines is now a separate company, SABRE Technology Solutions, employing several hundred management scientists and providing management science services to American Airlines and many other organizations.

- Management science is also an industry made up of hundreds of firms and individuals who provide management science services to business, government, and individuals.

- Management science is also an academic discipline where many leading-edge ideas in management first appear. This discipline insists that ideas be theoretically sound or proven effective (unlike many other areas where new concepts, often expressed as buzz words, appear and disappear according to the rumblings of the "Guru-of-the-Month"
Strategic Management Science recognizes that management science is a source of competitive advantage which, under the right conditions, can be sustainable over a long period of time. Firms that are good at management science can create a cost advantage over their competitors. Many documented cases exist where this cost advantage is hundreds of millions of dollars.

Here is a quotation from Francisco Eizmendi Jr., who was President of San Miguel Corporation, The Philippines. San Miguel brews beer and bottles Coca Cola throughout south-east asia.

"Operations Research plays a big role in the five-year .. approximately one billion dollar expansion and modernization program that we launched in 1987. Under the program we have built 22 manufacturing plants -- we would not have dared to undertake the expansion at all without Operations Research. In our strategic planning meetings every year, whenever a division or business unit manager presents a project, we always make sure that Operations Research has gone through the proposal.

.. San Miguel's Senior Management appreciates the vital role of Operations Research in attaining our corporate goals, and in implementing the strategies that enable us to achieve adequate growth and satisfactory returns for our various stakeholders."

Other CEOs of major corporations appreciate the role that management science plays. Daniel Elwing, President and CEO of ABB Electric

"management science is not a project or a set of techniques; it is a process, a way of thinking and managing"

Both ABB Electric and San Miguel Corporation have effectively used management science to create and sustain a strategic advantage.

Strategic Management Science, Incorporated is your portal to understanding more about the use of management science strategically. This may involve learning some essential skills that all managers need to have in their tool bag, or achieving an understanding of how management science skills can be mobilized to create advantage for the firm (to the disadvantage of the competition).