Customer Reviews

The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8 Billion Employee-Owned Technology Company

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A great first person account of how a Level 5 leader (in the Jim Collins "Good to Great" tradition) formed a Great company and kept it Great for 35 years.
Once you read chapter 1 it is clear how Dr. Beyster lead his company from an idea to an $8 Billion science and technology power house, with his true commitment to people and excellence. But don't stop reading. Many business books talk about "people first" but Dr. Beyster achieved great success by "walking the talk". Though Employee Ownership a company of owners was created, a company that valued success and the employees were rewarded by that success. In addition, SAIC used a meritocracy to show its employees how there performance was valued not with a big cash bonus but with ownership of the Company. Offering the employee the chance to gain not just once from their contributions, but to gain as SAIC continued to increase in value over 35 years.
Dr. Beyster goes through each of the 12 principals used to build SAIC to a great company and shares an example of the principals at work. Well worth the read!

This is a clear, concise, and very readable book that makes the case for employee ownership as no other book ever has. It demonstrates clearly that when employees have an owneship stake, the bottom line is dramatically improved. Dr. Beyster's extraordinary account describes the events that brought the company he founded, and directed as its CEO, to over $8 billion in sales. Dr. Beyster shares his vision, his wisdom and counsel on his journey to founding and then sustaining one of the most successful corporations in America. Packed with example after example, year after year, the road to SAIC's pheonomenal success is clearly set out in the principles that guided the company to its success. You won't be able to set this book down, and will want to read it again.

Being a research scientist has taught me a lot about the scientific method. Reading the SAIC Solution has proven that the same method can be used to experiment with business practices. Dr. Beyster, the author, allowed entrepreneurs in his company to experiment with creating new divisions. Those that prospered within a division remained, and those that didn't meet their goals were re-allocated to more successful divisions. In almost all cases, these entrepreneurs remained with the company because they practically owned it. What an eye-opener to see how a scientist can transform into an entrepreneur. Even more surprising was to see that entrepreneur establish new business practices that helped grow an $8 Billion private, employee-owned company.

As an MBA graduate and an entrepreneur, I was astonished not only by Dr. Beyster's unique management principles but also by the company's financial performance. SAIC achieved an average compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33% and revenue growth every year for 30 years. Dr. Beyster tells the story of how an entrepreneur can transform the lives of thousands of employed entrepreneurs who were treated as partners in their privately held, employee owned company. He decisively shared ownership of the company based on each entrepreneur's contributions to the company's profits and utilized participative management to give each entrepreneur a say in the direction of their highly decentralized company.

What a wonderful story of how Dr. Beyster inspired a group of entrepreneurs into generating an annual revenue of $8 Billion and creating the 800 pound gorilla of employee owned companies. Thank you Dr. Beyster for sharing this with the world. We need more companies and entrepreneurs to follow your vision of how companies can be competitive and have sustainable growth.

Spending many years in the life sciences field with particular focus on new ventures, it has become clear to me how frequently new entrepreneurs are drilled with the concept of the necessity of venture funding to launch their ideas. It has become almost the standard of thought for many entrepreneurs. However, with the recent economic turmoil, it has also become a much more distant reality for many as investment money is becoming much more scarce.

In light of this, Dr. Beyster's book comes as a proverbial oasis in the desert offering advice, inspiration and hope by describing not only a unique method of funding and growing a company, but also a redefinition of the concept of a company. The employee ownership model that he used to grow SAIC to a company of 43,000 employees and 8 billion in annual revenue will likely become a driving model in the creation of new ventures. He has proven that the "culture" of a company can be much more than the particular choice of casual Friday--when employees feel connected to a company on both a personal and financial level, not merely as employees but as owners, many small visions come into alignment and collectively produce a strong unified driving force. Dr. Beyster's book is a road map for any aspiring entrepreneur and should become one of the standard manuals in any business education.

In the current economic climate, our country is facing a major challenge to restore a strong economy. The demand for new successful companies is drastically high but at the same time venture capital funding is extremely limited. Dr. Beyster's, The SAIC Solution, provides exactly what the title says, a "Solution". His eloquent account of building from the ground up an entirely employee owned company is just what today's entrepreneurs need to read.

I found reading The SAIC Solution very motivational. It gave me insights that were useful for creating a strategy and planning ahead. In a world where maximizing the short term stock price is the only guiding principle for some companies, Dr. Beyster gives good arguments to focus on providing better customer service than the competition, consentrating on creating the long-term value. Very rewarding reading!

The SAIC Solutions is a textbook for the How-to of Employee-Ownership. Most fascinating is that Robert Beyster, along with a team of other "Ivory-Tower" Scientists and Engineers, had the "Street-Smarts to develop the company to exceed $8 Billion in revenue with over 45K employees. Moreover, the SAIC Solution provides insider secrets and framework for building a sucessful employee-owned company with a business model geared toward governmental and corporate contract awards. Way to Go SAIC! - Andre V. Milteer, M.A.

Having completed both my PhD and MBA, I can attest that this is one of the most exciting stories of how a scientist can innovate in business, specifically in management practices.

If you are looking for ways to motivate and energize the most valuable asset to any company, the employees/partners, then this is a must read. It's a practical example of how anyone can utilize business practices, as discussed in this book, to create a workforce that is engaged and has higher productivity. Few companies today turn employees into partners, and even fewer companies see the wealth of investment that one's own employees can contribute to the company.