Business
Analysis of the application of management concepts
The functions of management that are discussed as concepts include planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling organization’s resources including humans. These concepts are in place to assist organizations achieve their goals.
Planning is mainly used by organizations in choosing the most appropriate goals as well as identifying the best courses of action for reaching the goals in the best ways. Managers will involve themselves in different planning steps and activities during their work in a bid to achieve the goals of the organization. Some of the activities involved in planning include conducting an examination of the internal and external environments of the company so as to discover its weaknesses, strengths and emergent opportunities and threats. Others include determining the goals that should be pursued by the organization, choosing tactics, strategies, and operational plans useful for the achievement of the goals of the company and allocating resources for the organization for use in pursuing the company’s goals ( Ghuman & Aswathappa, 2010).
The beginning of plan is with the understanding by the management of their operational context. The managers begin the process of planning by examining the operations of the company. As with regards to internal factors, the general assessment of the internal environment of a firm starts by putting focus on the strengths and weaknesses of a company. Strengths of a company may include technological patent, holding a large market share, spirited workforce or protection from the government. This can be in the form of legalized monopoly or other competitive limits. A creative research and development and a powerful force in sales are other forms of strengths for the organization. Weaknesses include any company operations that are managed poorly. This can include production quality, accounting and control sales as well as bad reputation. On the external environment, a company has to confront opportunities and threats that it will encounter in the course of its operations. The operations of a company can be affected by legal and political forces, social trends, economic conditions, technological changes and competitive forces. Any of these factors can generate opportunities for the organization. An economy that is healthy and growing translates to increased sales for the company. Threats include emergence of competitors with more advanced technologies or if companies merge to build more powerful forces.
Organizational goal determination
Goals and objectives are normally established by company managers at three levels. These include strategic, tactical and operational levels. Strategic goals are those goals that are long term and sweeping targets that a company pursues. Some of the most common strategic goals include market share, innovation, productivity, profitability, physical and financial resources, performance and development of a manager and social responsibility. Tactical goals have more immediate impacts and are set in such areas as production, quality control, marketing, sales, accounting, finance, information technology, human resource and research and development. They offer guidance to managers in a variety of areas. Meanwhile operational goals are those that represent the day to day performance targets for the company. They include production quotas, sales, quotas, paper work, daily reports completion, and flow of raw materials processing ( Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2013).
All these levels share two key concepts. These are effectiveness and efficiency. It is through efficiency that the productivity of resources for an organization is established. The performance of an organization or efficiency is based on how well managers develop and plan their strategies of meeting goals. In a nuts shell, efficiency is the art of doing things the right way with minimal resource wastages. On its part, effectiveness means doing the right things. This implies that a company can put its efforts towards the achievement of those goals that will be responsible for the company’s growth, survival and thriving.
Plan creation
Goal development generates the creation of plans for achievement of the outcomes. A strategy is a bunch of decisions regarding the right goals for pursuing, actions to take and the best ways to utilize resources towards the achievement of these goals. Meanwhile, tactics are the plans that back strategies. The implementation of tactics always occurs at the functional level in such departments as accounting, production, research and development as well as human resources. Operation plans involve the direct activities performed by an organization daily like routine updating of websites, ordering inventory and creation of work schedules. They help in ensuring that the supervisors together with the employees have a clear focus on their responsibilities. The executives also use operational plans as part of their implementation strategies and tactics (Khosrow-Pour, 2010).
Resources allocation
This is the last part of the planning process and it involves determining the right way to obtain the necessary resources for manufacturing products and services for the company and deciding the number of the resources that will be required for accomplishing the goals of the company. This also includes the cost of resource purchase and paying the salaries of employees and assessing competition and determining the market place of a product. Programs for planning can be complex and challenging since managers operate under uncertainty umbrella ( Rai, 2013).
Organizing
Organizing is the process through which authority relationships and tasks are organized for allowing people to work together towards the achievement of the organizational goals. The role of the manager in organizing includes the determination of the best way for resources organization. Organization consists of three key tasks including departmentalization, creating an organizational structure and job design. Job design is the determination of the actual tasks to be carried out, the employees to execute them and the criteria for selecting these employees and put them on the job. Departmentalization involves the organization of people into various collections or departments where tasks fall together such as marketing, accounting, and production ( Information Resources Management Association,, 2014).
Organizational structure creation occurs when the management identify the level of responsibility and influences of every of the different groups or individuals. Organizing often involve evaluating and designing organizational systems and processes for work initiation and determining if there are any changes that need to be made. Many organizations aim at creating organizational structures. This is a formal task system and relationships reporting that coordinate the members’ activities in order for them to work together for the achievement of organizational goals. Organizational structure determines the manner in which resources for the organization can be utilized in the most appropriate ways for creating goods and services. Organizational design is the process through which managers make certain choices for the organization that end up in the specific organizational structures for their use ( Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2013).
Staffing
Staffing are all the activities involved in the recruitment, selection, training, evaluation, compensation and disciplining of employees within any organization. Contemporary managers use staffing as a preeminent function. Organizations of today sometimes rely on their managers for recruiting, evaluating, selecting and hiring of employees rather than the human resources department. In the past, human resources department was the one solely responsible for employee hiring and management. This latest move has ensured that mangers assume more responsibilities and become more accountable for hiring successful and effective employees. It is the mangers who bring the team together ( Information Resources Management Association, 2014).
Leading
Leading involves all the activities such as motivation, energizing and coordinating individuals and groups to work towards the achievement of the organizational goals. Managers lead through offering explanations for a clear organizational plan to employees for them to accomplish certain functions after which they energize. This is followed by facilitating the employees for each of them to understand his or her part to be played in helping the organization in achieving its intended goals. Coordination of people and skills by managers require personality, persuasion skills, authority, communication skills and influence for the creation of harmony amongst all employees within an organization. Managers also encourage, support and mentor employees to be valuable in assisting the organization achieve its goals. Apparently, a committed and motivated workforce can only be maintained by an effective leader. A manager who is effective should be cool, calm and collected.
A leader must always be willing to listen and open to suggestion from his peers and employees as well as mentoring them. With this type of leadership, the commitment of employees to the organization will be strengthened and as a result, the overall objectives and goals of the organization will be met. This way, managers will be able to influence others in order to ensure that things are done the right way. Leaders who are effective prepare their employees for a change and provide for them a future guide. Since leading involves setting goals, employee motivation and employee growth determination, it qualifies to be the most critical function for the organization’s success.
Control
Control is a key concept in organizational management. It helps in the establishment of accurate measurement and application of monitoring systems for evaluating the success rate of organizations in terms of goal achievement. Control systems offer standards for monitoring and assessing resource use and quantity and quality of productivity. The success rate of effectiveness at the strategic, operational and tactical levels is assessed using control systems. Apparently, these systems are available throughout the entire organization. They include production planning, financial control, authority and budgets. There are four steps involved in the process of standard control. The first step is to institute and evaluate the standards that are set in the process of planning. This is followed by performance measuring at the strategic, tactical and operational levels and then comparing performance outcomes with the set standards before making decision ( Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2013).
Performances that are successful should be rewarded while those that are unsuccessful should be corrected. An essential aspect of control should be monitoring. This is because the best laid out plans for management might not necessarily work out the way they were planned to. Therefore, the concept of controlling allows managers to infuse monitoring as a way of ensuring that goals are met. Managers must institute ways of improving performances if standards set are not being met. The control process has its key component that involves the ability to accurately measure performance and regulate the effectiveness of organizations. It is incumbent upon mangers to determine the exact goals to be measured.
References
Ghuman, K., & Aswathappa, K. (2010). Management : concept, practice and cases. New Delhi : Tata McGraw Hill.
Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E. (2013). Strategic management : competitiveness & globalization. Concepts and cases. Mason, OH : South-Western Cengage Learning.
Information Resources Management Association,. (2014). Crisis management : concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications. Hershey, Pennsylvania (701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Hershey, Pa., 17033, USA) : IGI Global.
Khosrow-Pour, M. (2010). Global, social, and organizational implications of emerging information resources management : concepts and applications. Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference.
Rai, A. K. (2013). Customer relationship management : Concepts and cases. New Delhi: PHI Learning.
