What does a company value more, time or money? The answer can be debatable, but one thing is for sure. Time is continually passing, and there is no stopping it. That is where management steps and does what it is supposed to do, manage time as efficiently as possible. But that isn’t the only job managers have to do. In the next few sections below, you will see why management is important and the top five functions of management in an organization.
To define management in the business world, it is the organization of activities of a company to reach defined objectives. This is usually accomplished by directors and managers who have the authority to make decisions in the company. In corporations, the board of directors or the chief executive officer (CEO) is usually in charge of management.
Why Is Management Important?
All organizations rely upon group efforts to achieve goals. And whenever two or more people are required to work together, management is necessary. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, management positions are projected to continue to grow by an average of 7% percent. If that is not enough reason to become a believer in management, maybe the reasons below will:
Accomplish goals – It is possible to accomplish goals without management, but it would be extremely difficult. With proper management, an organization is allowed to plan and balance their resources in such a way that every task is completed. This does not only relate to businesses, but it also applies to our lives.
Be more efficient – There are only so many hours in a work day, so it beneficial to make the most of it. The last thing a company wants its employees to do is to waste time. With good time management skills, companies are able to get as much work done as possible with the time given to them.
Make better decisions – The choices a business makes can make the difference between being successful to being a complete disaster. Therefore, making rational decisions is vital for a company if they want to do well. With good time management, they will have more time to weigh out the positives from the negatives in their decision making.
Earn more profit – When all of the other benefits mentioned above are met, it will usually equal to an increase of profit for the company. The most successful and profitable businesses in the world attribute a lot of it to their management skills
Five Functions of Management
There are more functions of management than the ones listed below, but these are considered the most important. Learning how to balance each of these is the key to effective management within a company. If you are focused too much on one function as opposed to another, the imbalance can impact both the employees and management.
Organizing
Organizing is the function of management which follows planning. It is a function in which the synchronization and combination of human, physical and financial resources takes place. All the three resources are important to get results. Therefore, organizational function helps in achievement of results which in fact is important for the functioning of a concern. According to Chester Barnard, “Organizing is a function by which the concern is able to define the role positions, the jobs related and the co-ordination between authority and responsibility. Hence, a manager always has to organize in order to get results.
A manager performs organizing function with the help of following steps:
Identification of activities - All the activities which have to be performed in a concern have to be identified first. For example, preparation of accounts, making sales, record keeping, quality control, inventory control, etc. All these activities have to be grouped and classified into units.
Departmentally organizing the activities - In this step, the manager tries to combine and group similar and related activities into units or departments. This organization of dividing the whole concern into independent units and departments is called departmentation.
Classifying the authority - Once the departments are made, the manager likes to classify the powers and its extent to the managers. This activity of giving a rank in order to the managerial positions is called hierarchy. The top management is into formulation of policies, the middle level management into departmental supervision and lower level management into supervision of foremen. The clarification of authority helps in bringing efficiency in the running of a concern. This helps in achieving efficiency in the running of a concern. This helps in avoiding wastage of time, money, effort, in avoidance of duplication or overlapping of efforts and this helps in bringing smoothness in a concern’s working.
Coordination between authority and responsibility - Relationships are established among various groups to enable smooth interaction toward the achievement of the organizational goal. Each individual is made aware of his authority and he/she knows whom they have to take orders from and to whom they are accountable and to whom they have to report. A clear organizational structure is drawn and all the employees are made aware of it.
Planning
Planning means looking ahead and chalking out future courses of action to be followed. It is a preparatory step. It is a systematic activity which determines when, how and who is going to perform a specific job. Planning is a detailed programme regarding future courses of action.
It is rightly said “Well plan is half done”. Therefore planning takes into consideration available & prospective human and physical resources of the organization so as to get effective co-ordination, contribution & perfect adjustment. It is the basic management function which includes formulation of one or more detailed plans to achieve optimum balance of needs or demands with the available resources.
According to Urwick, “Planning is a mental predisposition to do things in orderly way, to think before acting and to act in the light of facts rather than guesses”. Planning is deciding best alternative among others to perform different managerial functions in order to achieve predetermined goals.
According to Koontz & O’Donell, “Planning is deciding in advance what to do, how to do and who is to do it. Planning bridges the gap between where we are to, where we want to go. It makes possible things to occur which would not otherwise occur”.