Dear Madam,
Re: Management Consultancy Report in Respect of Your Firm Amanda Smith
The consultancy has carried out an analysis and comprehensive evaluation of your firm and arrived at a number of observations that need to be brought to your attention in the immediacy of time. In addition, this report contains a number of recommendations that the firm ought to pursue in the interest of its own survival and strategy in pursuit of business. In our analysis and recommendations, we were guided by managerial theory, scientific and strategic models and as well as experience gathered and observed throughout in the industry over time. It is regrettable to announce that your managerial approach was professionally inappropriate and can only be described as incompetency. You failed to perform even the most basic managerial tasks. It should be appreciated that you might have intended to avoid micromanagement, embraced delegation, division of labour and specialisation all in good faith. However, you should note that from a managerial perspective, the manager ought and should be in charge.
It is our analysis that you failed to execute your roles in relation to management practise. One, you committed too much to the workforce without exercising the necessary oversight roles that would have facilitated coordination, control and feedback analysis. You relied on the assumption as to competence. This assumption was incredulous given that it is your acquaintance, Lisa, who conducted the hiring and gave her own recommendation which you relied upon. In addition, you made the fallacious assumption that your personnel especially the accountants as they were qualified and experienced, their work output was perfect and required no supervision or review. This was against the general managerial approach where employee work needs to be evaluated and the performance appraisals carried. Related to the performance appraisal was the low key way in which you introduced your organisational motto and mission statements. It ought to be appreciated that organisational motivation, awareness as to objectives and the overall oversight of the employee work needs to be pursued more actively and with the full participation of the top management. The failure to develop a comprehensive organisational plan, feedback system and a coordinated control approach was also identified. Your firm operated more on the premise of faith, trust and expectations that each employee shall discharge her roles competently and religiously without need for supervision. This assumption was simplistic and could be credited for the adverse performance. In the same light, the firm lacked comprehensive training, appraisals, and employee-employer engagements, among others that would have worked for the proper integration and continued growth of both the firm and its employees. The division of labour was too independent so that the employees ended up working and posting work on individual levels even without a correlation among each other. This can be credited for the adverse output as discharged by some of the accountants. It is not lost on us that clients had indicated a higher threshold of dissatisfaction earlier but you failed to pursue corrective action. This situation would later consume the better part of your time as you concentrated on righting the wrongs and correcting the errors and the expense of continued client base expansion.
In summary, it is the contention of this report that you failed as a manager in controlling, planning, organising and leading the firm in pursuit of its overall objectives. In the same breadth, it is this report’s view that your reading of micromanagement was too restrictive as to prevent you from appreciating its benefits. You also failed to exercise professional scepticism, a principle required of all managers and especially accountants with a training in auditing.
In light of the aforementioned limitations and professional lapses, this report recommends as follows. The management need to develop a comprehensive organisational design and structure that takes consideration of the following: precise adherence to the mission statements and overall objectives, a coordinated or grouped approach to work where at least any work conducted by any of the professional accountants is peer reviewed, a structure that provides for control, oversight and regulation of employee performance and a definite performance appraisal systems with definite outcomes for the information derived from it. In the same breadth, it is the recommendation that the place of control in relation to executing the firms operations be made more specific and pronounced. In that regard, control process needs to start at the initial operational inception. This process would be futile in the absence of comprehensive planning. Planning entail forecasting, accurate prediction and timely decision making models. In this vein, it is recommended that the organisational design and structure be facilitative of a comprehensive plan, with proper budgeting and time slots allocated to assignments. In addition, resource utility should be maximised in pursuit of meeting quality standards expected within the stipulated deadlines. In addressing the logistical headache, the firm’s management must structure work into timeslots and ensure weighty assignments are conferred more time and resources.
In the foregoing, it would be inevitable to introduce a client customer relationship department that would address any client complaints and requirements. In a bid to reduce errors and mistakes, the work output must not only be reviewed, but errors that find their way to the final output already delivered to the client should attract penalties. This is expected to raise the standard of output and ingrain in the workforce an efficiency attitude and approach to work. In addition, the firm must develop a clear way forward for mitigation of errors and the overall development of the firm brand image. It is incumbent upon the management to introduce new incentives to the clients, engage the clients who have experienced poor services from the firm and deposit explanations that would at least justify the poor services.
Finally the management must recognise the role of management lies not in delegation and resource mobilisation alone, rather it lies in controlling, planning, organising and leading the firm in its entirety. To this extent, the manager must maintain a grip of the firm, be aware of any developments and play an overall oversight role. This ought to be distinguished from micromanagement which is against division of labour and delegation. In the new managerial era, information is power and the more the management knows both internally and externally, the more it stands to pursue an informed and professional decision. This would cushion the firm from shocks and disappointments due to incompetence, poor work delivery and unnoticed disregard of professional dictates at the workplace. Just as the management shares the good performance of the firm, so should it be ready to bear the responsibility of poor performance.
Management Consultant.
References
Abraham, S. C. (2012). Strategic Planning: A Practical Guide for Competitive Success. New York: Emerald Group Publishing.
Bloom , N., & Reenen, J. V. (2010). Why Do Management Practices Differ across Firms and Countries? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 203-224.
Davenport, T. H. (2006, January). Competing on Analytics. Havard Business Review, 84(1), 98-107.
Harfield, T. (2009). Strategic Management and Michael Porter: a postmodern reading. International Journal of Strategic Management, 1-14.
