This Chris from Apex Management Consultants and our company has been providing consultancy to different small and medium sized organizations since 2008. I have thoroughly studied your organization that how your firm started from one person and have grown up to 5 employees. However with the passage of time, your firm grew in size and customers but it failed to make sure that every customer was satisfied. I am writing you this letter to highlight the issues that you are facing in managing your business and then I will relate these issues with the four most important functions of management; planning, organizing, leading, and controlling and then I will give you some recommendations that can be helpful in improving your business.
I have identified following concerns and issues in how you are managing your firm:
a. One of the problems that can be highlighted in how your firm is in how you are managing the overall business. Although, the company has hired three experienced accountants but still the progress of these accountants need to be checked, but this has not been the case. The company did not plan things appropriately but just wanted to increase their number of customers and revenues.
b. The company also lacked the ability to organize things properly. The company has been focusing on gaining more customers regardless of making sure that their work would be completed within the deadline. This lead to serious problems at the time, when tax were to be filled.
c. Company also did not give any give any incentives to motivate employees that would have encouraged them to complete their tasks.
d. The company lacked a proper manager that could have plan things, organize all the work, lead from the front to deal with the issues and control the overall work and functions of the business.
All these problems lead your company to a situation where the company instead of expanding was forced to shrink as you were forced to lay off one of the accountants. Moreover, it looked as if in the near future you would fire another accountant. Management has been defined as the act of getting people together in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization within the available resources (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy, 2006). Management has four functions; planning, organizing, leading and controlling (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy, 2006) and the problem can be identified by analyzing each of these functions separately.
1) Planning
Planning is the first function of management and it means to plan things and to set objectives of what has to be achieved. The function of planning is to set goals for the business and to develop the mission and vision statement of the business. The mission statement shows the direction and the specialty of business whereas the vision statement provides information regarding the business that where it wants to be in the future. This is the most important function that cannot be overlooked by the management as other functions of the business are dependent on this function (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy, 2006). It is important to have a shared mission and vision, however in your organization it looks as if the long term objectives have been set, but there are no short term goals or objectives on how these long term objectives need to be achieved.
2) Organizing
The second function that follows planning is organizing. This function of organizing is a combination of human and financial resources to achieve what has been planned. This function is important after planning as this function focuses on assigning duties and responsibilities to personnel and to put the plans into action (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy, 2006). Communication also plays a vital role in this function as it clarifies the roles and responsibilities of the employees and the task that will be performed by everyone in the organization. This is the function of management where the skills and expertise required by the job is matched with the employee and then jobs are assigned accordingly. Although, the company has been successful in increasing its customers and each accountant has been provided with specific area to target, but it is important to coordinate with each other and make sure that things are organized and would be completed on time. As work has not been organized properly, therefore it has lead to such a problematic situation.
3) Leading
The next function of management is leading. Through this function the management is able to influence the employee to achieve the goals of the business. Leader always assist the employees in accomplishing the organizational goals. Leader motivates employees, leads from the front, helps them in their tasks, and all these things help in improving the performance of the employees (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy, 2006). This function of management plays an essential part to eliminate conflict between the personal goals of the employee and the organizational goals. The leader needs to motivate each employee and make sure that they are able to accomplish their tasks accordingly however the ability to lead the overall tasks assigned to each individual has been missing in the organization.
4) Controlling
The last function of management is to make sure that the company’s performance is up to standards to meet the goals of the business. By this function, the management is able to track potential problems that could lead to failure at the end. This function of management focuses on comparing the actual performance of the business with the planned performance. It is a continuous process as it keeps checking the performance timely and takes corrective actions if the performance is below the standards set by the business (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy, 2006). If the company had proper controlling function then it would have been able to identify whether employees would be able to reach their deadlines or not. Although, there were weekly meetings but if the progress of each of the accountants was asked then such problems would not have been created.
It is important for any business to prepare small objectives in order to achieve its mission. Mission is a long term objective and one cannot achieve long term objectives without having small and short term goals. In order to improve the overall business and help you in how you can turnaround your business before it is too late, we have come up with following recommendations that might be helpful:
1) If the business wants to grow, then it is important to satisfy the existing customers before attracting new customers. If the existing customers are not satisfied and company is focusing on attracting new customers then it will lead to a situation where it will be difficult for the company to attract new customers.
2) Instead of expecting the employees to know the work, they should be properly and timely trained so that their expertise could be used in order to achieve the goals and objectives (Price, 2007). It is essential to provide the know-how of the business to employees and to increase the efficiency.
3) There should be some motivation for employees to perform better and they should be rewarded for improved performance (Price, 2007). This will help the business to accomplish its goals and objectives. Motivation is not only related to rewarding employees with financial incentives, but employees can be motivated through non-financial incentives as well (Bratton & Gold, 2009). For instance, acknowledging the work that employees have performed within the time can be helpful in motivating them.
4) The performance of employees needs to be checked on a regular basis (Bratton & Gold, 2009). It is important for you (Amanda) or Lisa to routinely check the progress of the employees to make sure that each employee is working appropriately and they would complete their tasks within the time given to the clients. This can also help in increasing the performance of the company as problems of each employee will be identified at the spot rather than at the end.
5) Co-ordination and communication within in the firm should be encouraged as it will help in solving the problems (Bratton & Gold, 2009). Due to lack of co-ordination and communication among employees the work has not been completed within the time and the reputation of the firm has been in danger.
6) Being overly ambitious is one of the mistakes that you have made. The business got so carried away that ultimately resulted in failure of the business. It is important to understand how much work can be completed by each individual and then work should be taken accordingly.
7) It is important to not do miss-commitment with the client as it can ruin the reputation of the firm.
I have provided an analysis of the issues that your company is facing as well as I have tried to relate the problems with the four most important functions of management; planning, organizing, leading and controlling and then I have suggested my recommendations that can be helpful for your company to turn the business around. If you have any questions then you can always get back to me.
Regards
Chris Martin
Apex Management Consultants
List of References
Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2009). Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice, 4th edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gomez-Mejia, R., Balkin, D., and Cardy, R. (2006). Management: People, Performance, Change, 3rd edition. New York, McGraw-Hill.
Price, A. (2007). Human Resource Management in a Business Context, 3rd edition. London: Cengage.
