Acknowledgments

To write this book I had to stand on the shoulders of many. My coauthor, Craig Fleisher, gave me so much support and understanding during my moments of crisis. My wonderful husband’s patience, nurturing, and understanding provided a safe space for me to work. My family and dear friends understood the many times I was not there for them while completing this book. To the many broad shoulders at FT Press, thank you for making this book happen and, to Jeanne Glasser, for asking us to do it again. We could not have done it without you.

Finally, I would like to thank my many clients and colleagues for the challenges and questioning that made me realize there had to be a simpler way to do business analysis without being left in a state of paralysis. I hope this little book provides you with the necessary tools to solve some of your problems.

—Babette Bensoussan

I would like to express my gratitude to my longtime coauthor and friend, Babette Bensoussan, for her thoughtful work toward realizing this book. I also want to thank my family members, friends, and colleagues for their patience and understanding while I was completing the book. My former outstanding BBA student and mentee Darby E. Chancey gets my special appreciation for being a great help with reviewing and adding useful ideas to several chapters, as well as BBA student Jason Grooms, my spring semester 2012 intern. I also want to thank individuals at several universities who have worked with and supported me. They include the Leicester Business School–De Montfort University (UK) and my good friend Dr. Sheila Wright, with whom I have supervised several doctoral students as well as numerous research projects, and Tampere University of Technology (Finland) and Professor Mika Hannula, who is Dean of the Faculty of Business and Technology Management. There I am a docent and also support students in the doctoral program. Jeanne Glasser and her efficient FT Press colleagues and staff have also been helpful throughout this effort. Last, but not least, I want to thank my outstanding colleagues at Aurora WDC, particularly Arik and Derek Johnson, who often have to put up with my working many late hours completing books like this one.

—Dr. Craig S. Fleisher

Many of the techniques described in this book were conceptualized by leading economists, financial and cost accountants, futurists, business professors, consultants, and other insightful practitioners or scholars. They often developed their ideas to solve pressing analytical problems they faced. We are grateful to these individuals for increasing our understanding of business, competitive, and strategic analysis. We have made a sincere effort to acknowledge the originators of these techniques in this book. Nevertheless, sometimes accurately making this acknowledgment can be difficult, such as when the technique (for example, SWOT) was quickly and widely accepted and came to form the commonly held body of knowledge underlying organizational decision-making.