The concept of management has acquired special significance in the present competitive and complex business world. Efficient and purposeful management is absolutely essential for the survival of a business unit. Management concept is comprehensive and covers all aspects of business. In simple words, management means utilising available resources in the best possible manner and also for achieving well defined objectives. It is a distinct and dynamic process involving use of different resources for achieving well defined objectives. The resources are: men, money, materials, machines, methods and markets.
The management is an ability to establish vision and direction in order to influence/ direct others towards a common purpose and empower and inspire people to achieve results or success. Although, processes and procedures play a part, management is all about commanding interest and inspiring trust on people, getting things done, having a vision and uniting teams, providing creative freedom in individual, etc.
Nature of Management
(i) Universal Process: Wherever there is human activity, there is management. Without efficient management, objectives of the company can’t be achieved.
(ii) Factor of Production: Qualified and efficient managers are essential to utilization of labor and capital.
(iii) Goal Oriented: The most important goal of all management activity is to accomplish the objectives of an enterprise. The goals should be realistic and attainable.
(iv) Supreme in Thought and Action: Managers set realizable objectives and then mastermind action on all fronts to accomplish them. For this, they require full support form middle and lower levels of management.
(v) Group activity: All human and physical resources should be efficiently coordinated to attain maximum levels of combined productivity. Without coordination, no work would accomplish and there would be chaos and retention.
(vi) Dynamic Function: Management should be equipped to face the changes in business environment brought about by economic, social, political, technological or human factors. They must be adequate training so that can enable them to perform well even in critical situations.
(vii) Social Science: All individuals that a manager deals with, have different levels of sensitivity, understanding and dynamism.
(viii) Important Organ of Society: Society influences managerial action and managerial actions influence society. Its managers responsibility that they should also contribute towards the society by organizing charity functions, sports competition, donation to NGO’s etc.
(ix) System of Authority: Well-defined lines of command, delegation of suitable authority and responsibility at all levels of decision-making. This is necessary so that each individual should what is expected from him and to whom he need to report to.
(x) Profession: Managers need to possess managerial knowledge and training, and have to conform to a recognized code of conduct and remain conscious of their social and human obligations.
Process of Management
Management as a process to emphasize that all managers, irrespective of their aptitude or skill, engage in some inter-related functions in order to achieve their desired goals.
Management process/functions involve 4 basic activities;
- Planning and decision making
- Organizing
- Leading
- Controlling
1. Planning and Decision Making – Determining Courses of Action
Looking ahead into the future and predict possible trends or occurrences which are likely to influence the working situation is the most vital quality as well as the job of a manager.
Planning means setting an organization’s goal and deciding how best to achieve them. Planning is decision making, regarding the goals and setting the future course of action from a set of alternatives to reach them.
The plan helps to maintain the managerial effectiveness as it works as a guide for the personnel for the future activities. Selecting goals as well as the paths to achieve them is what planning involves. Planning involves selecting missions and objectives and the actions to achieve them, it requires decision-making or choosing future courses of action from among alternatives.
In short, planning means determining what the organization’s position and the situation should be at some time in the future and decide how best to bring about that situation. Planning helps maintain managerial effectiveness by guiding future activities.
For a manager, planning and decision-making require an ability to foresee, to visualize, and to look ahead purposefully.
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Organizing – Coordinating Activities and Resources
Organizing can be defined as the process by which the established plans are moved closer to realization.
Once a manager set goals and develops plans, his next managerial function is organizing human and other resources that are identified as necessary by the plan to reach the goal. Organizing involves determining how activities and resources are to be assembled and coordinated. The organization can also be defined as an intentionally formalized structure of positions or roles for people to fill in an organization.
Organizing produces a structure of relationships in an organization and it is through these structured relationships that future plans are pursued. Organizing, then, is that part of managing which involves: establishing an intentional structure of roles for people to fill in the organization.
It is intentional in the sense of making sure that all the tasks necessary to accomplish goals are assigned to people who can do the best. The purpose of an organization structure is to create an environment for best human performance.
The structure must define the task to be done. The rules so established must also be designed in the light of the abilities and motivations of the people available. Staffing is related to organizing and it involves filling and keeping filled, the positions in the organization structure.
This can be done by determining the positions to be filled, identifying the requirement of manpower, filling the vacancies and training employees so that the assigned tasks are accomplished effectively and efficiently.
The managerial functions of promotion, demotion, discharge, dismissal, transfer, etc. Are also included with the broad task “staffing.” staffing ensures the placement of the right person at the right position.
Basically organizing is deciding where decisions will be made, who will do what jobs and tasks, who will work for whom, and how resources will assemble.
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Leading – Managing, Motivating and Directing People
The third basic managerial function is leading. The skills of influencing people for a particular purpose or reason is called leading. Leading is considered to be the most important and challenging of all managerial activities.
Leading is influencing or prompting the member of the organization to work together with the interest of the organization.
Creating a positive attitude towards the work and goals in among the members of the organization is called leading. It is required as it helps to serve the objective of effectiveness and efficiency by changing the behavior of the employees. Leading involves a number of deferment processes and activates.
The functions of direction, motivation, communication, and coordination are considered a part of leading process or system. Coordinating is also essential in leading.
Motivating is an essential quality for leading. Motivating is the function of management process of influencing people’s behavior based on the knowledge of what cause and channel sustain human behavior in a particularly committed direction. Efficient managers need to be effective leaders.
Since leadership implies fellowship and people tend to follow those who offer a means of satisfying their own needs, hopes and aspirations it is understandable that leading involves motivation leadership styles and approaches and communication.
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Controlling – Monitoring and evaluating activities
Monitoring the organizational progress toward goal fulfillment is called controlling. Monitoring the progress is essential to ensure the achievement of organizational goal.
Controlling is measuring, comparing, finding deviation and correcting the organizational activities which are performed for achieving the goals or objectives. Controlling consist of activities, like; measuring the performance, comparing with the existing standard and finding the deviations, and correcting the deviations. Control activities generally relate to the measurement of achievement or results of actions which were taken to attain the goal.
Some means of controlling, like the budget for expenses, inspection records, and the record of labor hours lost, are generally familiar. Each measure also shows whether plans are working out.
If deviations persist, correction is indicated. Whenever results are found to differ from the planned action, persons responsible are to be identified and necessary actions are to be taken to improve performance. Thus outcomes are controlled by controlling what people do. Controlling is the last but not the least important management function process.
It is rightly said, “Planning without controlling is useless”. In short, we can say the controlling enables the accomplishment of the plan. All the management functions of its process are inter-related and cannot be skipped.
The management process designs and maintains an environment in which personnel’s, working together in groups, accomplish efficiently selected aims.
All managers carry out the main functions of management; planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling. But depending on the skills and position on an organizational level, the time and labor spent in each function will differ.
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