Management

Part 1. Managing a business

Management is the art or practice of managing a business, money, products, and all the people employed by a company. In other words, management is a set of activities directed at an organization’s human, financial, physical, and information resources, with the aim of achieving organizational goals in an efficient and effective manner. In this case, “efficient” means “ using resources wisely and without unnecessary waste”, while “effective” means “doing the right things”. The golden rule of successful management can be summed up in the following words: “The system works well as long as we don’t have any exceptions.” Successful management is getting things done through “others”, that is through the manager’s immediate subordinates.

The chart below shows the four main functions of management.

The word “management” is also used to denote the people who are in charge of a company or an organization. Although large organizations typically have a number of levels of management, the most common view considers three basic levels: top, middle and first-line managers.

Top managers (president, vice president, chief executive officer (CEO), managing director) make up the relatively small group of executives who control the organization.

Middle managers (plant manager, operations manager, division head) make up the largest group of managers in most organizations. The company usually requires that a middle manager (should) implement the policies and plans developed by top management.

First-line managers (forman, supervisor, office manager) typically spend a large portion of their time supervising the work of operating employees.

Managers of different levels may work in various areas within a company. In any given firm, there may be marketing, operations, administrative, and other kinds of managers at all three levels. The diagram below indicates how managers within an organization can be differentiated by level and area.

Top

managers

Middle

managers

First-line

managers

Areas of management

Part 2. Product management (marketing)

No business firm can do without product management which is actually marketing and marketing management. The manager has to draw up his marketing plan before his business plan and product development. Marketing is concerned with foreseeing and expecting the needs of customers and directing the flow of goods and services from producers to customers. Marketing is much broader than selling, it includes a wide range of business activities. Marketing is the management function which organizes and directs the presentation and distribution of goods and services in the manner best designed to benefit the producer, the distributor, and the public.

The marketing manager of a company is responsible for product management, i.e. for various ways products are sold to customers. These ways for getting the products to customers who will buy and use them are usually known as distribution channels (or channels of distribution): 1) direct distribution or selling, 2) catalog(ue) sales, 3) wholesaling, 4) selling through sales representatives (reps), 5) selling to retailers, 6) selling through computer systems.

Marketing consists of the four Ps: providing the customer with the right PRODUCT at the right PRICE, presented in the most attractive way (PROMOTION) and available in the easiest way (PLACE). The four Ps are called “marketing mix”.

The key concept of marketing is PROMOTION.

Most firms are marketing-oriented, they focus on customers’ interests in their planning. But there are firms which are still production-oriented, they focus on production of a few specific products - perhaps few of these products are available on the market and competition is not intense.

The marketing concept was first accepted by consumer products compa-nies such as General Electric and Procter & Gamble. Competition was intense in some of their markets and trying to satisfy customers’ needs more fully was a way to compete effectively with rival products.

Successful planning of marketing strategies requires that marketing managers (should) gather and analyze information they need to make decisions. In some companies a marketing information system (MIS) is set up by marketing specialists. To get better decisions some MIS systems provide marketing managers with a decision support system (DSS).

Many marketing managers are usually isolated in company offices from potential customers. It is just not possible for managers to keep up with all the changes taking place in their markets. It is really important that they (should) rely on help from marketing research. In fact, continued improve-ments in research methods are making marketing research information more dependable. Most large companies have a separate marketing research department to plan and carry out research projects.

Date: 2015-01-12; view: 1575