WELCOME TO MANGEMENT -TITBITS
Management
Effective utilisation and coordination of resources such as capital, plant, materials, and labour to achieve defined objectives with maximum efficiency through planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling is MANAGEMENT.
Organization
An organization may be broadly defined as a group of people who work together using a variety of resources such as money, materials and machines, and performing relevant tasks in order to achieve particular goals which they could not achieve working on their own. In most situations, successful organizations do not achieve their goals by chance but by following a deliberate process called "MANAGEMENT".
There are various ways of looking at the MANAGEMENT process:
1.The Traditional Viewpoint of Management focuses on what managers do. It is generally accepted that they perform the following four functions:-
Planning: This involves defining organizational goals and proposing ways to reach them.
Organizing: This is the process of creating a structure of relationships within the organization that will enable employees to interact with one another, to interact with managers and to carry out management's plans and meet its goals.
Leading: This involves communicating with and motivating others to perform the tasks necessary to achieve the organization’s goals.
Controlling: This is the process by which a person consciously monitors performance and takes corrective action. In the control process, managers:
set standards of performance
measure current performance against those standards
take action to correct any deviations, and
adjust the standards if necessary.
2.The Behavioural Viewpoint of Management emphasized the importance of understanding human behaviour and of motivating employees toward achievement
This perspective was developed over three phases: early behaviourism, the human relations movement, and behavioural science
3.The Systems Viewpoint of Management recognises that an organisation is an association of interrelated and interdependent parts or sub-systems. A business organisation is what might be called a "system" made up of many "sub-systems" such as employees, teams, departments, divisions, subsidiaries, who all need to work together to achieve the organisation's goals. The organisation also has to interact with various external "systems" such as suppliers, customers, shareholders and government agencies, for example. A manager with a systems view of management will only make decisions after identifying and analysing how other managers, departments, or customers might be affected by the decisions.
4.The Contingency Viewpoint of Management is illustrated in Figure 1. It evolved as a result of managers finding that applying either the traditional viewpoint of management, or the behavioural viewpoint of management, or the systems viewpoint of management in all situations on their own, did not work. The underlying principle of the Contingency Viewpoint of Management is that different situations require different practices. The Contingency Viewpoint really means "it all depends". The Contingency Viewpoint recommends using the other three management viewpoints, namely the Traditional, the Behavioural and the Systems Viewpoints, independently or in combination, as necessary and appropriate, to deal with various situations. Managers are required to determine which of these three approaches is likely to be more effective than the others in a given situation.
Managements by functions:
1.Human Resource Management: This functional area is concerned with the following tasks and responsibilities:
formulating a personnel policy which is consistent with the overall strategic plan for the organisation as a whole;
training and development of employees
remuneration of employees
formulation and implementation of a labour relations strategy
interacting with trade unions
organisational behaviour issues such as
motivation of employees
leadership
corporate culture
organisational structure
individual behaviour and group behaviour
affirmative action (managing diversity in the workforce)
productivity
2. Purchasing Management: This functional area is concerned with the following tasks and responsibilities:-
procuring and making available all necessary raw materials, parts, machinery, stationery, vehicles, furniture equipment and services that the other functional areas of the organisation may need.
the key requirement is that the right supplies of the right quality are acquired at the right time at the right price.
3. Production Management: This functional area is concerned with the following tasks and responsibilities:
establishing world class standards of manufacturing and service within the organisation
choosing the manufacturing process
layout of factory, machinery and equipment
quality control
4. Information Management: This functional area is concerned with the following tasks and responsibilities:-
financial accounting
cost accounting
collecting, storing and releasing information by means of a computerised management information system.
5. Marketing Management: this functional area is concerned with the following tasks and responsibilities:-
transferring ownership of the products and services provided by the organisation, to the customer
identifying target markets
identifying the needs and wants of the target market
designing and developing products and services to meet the needs and wants of the market
promoting the products through advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relations
pricing the products
distributing the products through a combination of retailers, wholesalers and other distributors.
6. Financial Management: This functional area is concerned with the following tasks and responsibilities:-
raising, allocating and controlling the finances of the organisation in terms of specified return on investment, liquidity and solvency objectives.
the investment decision - determining the type and quantity of assets needed by the organisation
the financing decision - determining the appropriate financial structure for the organisation in terms of share capital and debt capital.
the dividend decision - determining how profits should be distributed.
