Prof. George Najjar

The Dean of Suliman Al Olayan School of Business at the American University of Beirut, Prof. George Najjar, made a special visit to Dhofar University on May 12 and 13, 2007, to follow up on the Strategic Planning process at DU. He invited Deans and key administrative staff to two days of workshops, at the outset of which he reported to them on the Board of Trustees members’ full support for the launching of the Strategic Planning process. The workshops were divided into two days of presentations, followed each time by discussion and advice.

On Saturday, May 12th, presentations were given by Deans or representatives from each of the three Colleges, as well as the Orientation Program unit. On Sunday, the presentations were given by representatives of the non-academic units within the University. The presentations were the result of weeks of meetings and discussions in all sections of the University, held in order to establish what their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats were, (using ‘SWOT’ analysis, a well known method of self-analysis for institutions). Each section had then gone further, to establish what their Key Performance Indicators (‘KPI’s’) and Key Performance Measures (‘KPM’s’) were. At the end of each presentation, Prof. Najjar, the Vice Chancellor Prof. Mohammed Faour, and the members of the Strategic Planning Committee gave constructive feedback.

The next step is for all those who produced reports to go back and strengthen them, adding essential elements to each point, and taking care to retain credibility, clarity and conciseness. Prof. Najjar will be returning at the end of June to hold workshops on the revised and strengthened SWOT analyses from each unit in the University before DU takes the next step in the forming of the five year Strategic Plan.