Principles of Management

Keywords: managing environment change, management business environment

“Managers work in a dynamic environment and must anticipate and adapt to challenges.” With regard to the above statement, discuss the role of the new-age manager by taking an example of any Indian organization.

Approach any small size company in your city, contact the HR manager and get details of the organization structure with names. Then chalk out the main functions of the top management, middle management and supervisory management with respect to that company and discuss their roles and responsibilities.

Part a

Manager is a person who runs the business on established lines and often maintains the status quo. He is the product of change who runs an existing venture, takes no risk. Manager is an employee and is dependent on the owner. The reward of the manager is the salary which is fixed and regular. In small firms, the owner himself acts often as the manager.

Management refers to the on-going coordination of the production processes involving activities like planning, decision making, controlling and performing actions at an administrative level.

Role of a manager:

• Supervise and manage the overall performance
• Achieving business and organisation goals, vision and objectives
• Analysing and developing strategies for improving quality and quantity.
• Identifying problems, creating choices and providing alternative course of action
• Working out compensation and rewards.

Business Environment

Business does not operate in a vacuum but in an environment. Business environment consists of the totality of factors which are external to, and largely beyond, the control of individual business firms. Environmental analyses involves corporate planners monitoring the economic, governmental, and market settings to determine the opportunities for and threats to the environment. The business environment can be divided into two parts:

Micro- environment- it refers to the firm’s internal conditions i.e. within the organisation. It mainly involves competitors, investors, suppliers, employees, creditors, govt. agencies.

Macro-environment- it refers to the conditions external to the organisation like govt. policies, competitors strategy, international scenario etc. this environment involves:

Economic environment

Politico-legal environment

Socio-cultural environment

International environment

Natural environment

Technological environment

DYNAMICS OF THE ENVIRONMENT

The modern age is characterised by changing external conditions making for a more complex, uncertain, and sometimes a turbulent environment. Over a period of time markets for particular goods and services have undergone phenomenal changes- music cassettes threatening the market for discs, detergent powders that of washing soap, cooking gas ovens replacing the use of traditional ovens, television and videos threatening the movie film industry, computers replacing manual office operations, diesel and electric locomotives replacing steam engines, and so on. These changes have been partly occasioned by economic, social and technological advances; partly these are also the outcome of industrial R & D and entrepreneurship. Along with the dynamic socio-economic conditions, business firms have also come across problems and threats of increasing competition, rapid obsolescence of machines and equipment’s, changing customer tastes and preferences, govt. intervention in the market processes through legal enactments and administrative measures, restrictions on free enterprise, cost and price inflation, militant trade unionism, and growing public demand for socially responsible behaviour of management. To deal with the dynamic nature of environmental conditions, management firms has to have a systematic effort to analyse and predict the changes.

Impact of environment on business:

The economic environment has the most significant influence on business because business itself is a economic institution. Reforms in industrial and fiscal policies have led to growth of new businesses such as venture capital funds, mutual funds, etc. Indian firms have become more vulnerable to competition from multinational corporations.

Political and legal environment provide the framework for functioning. No business succeeds without the support of public opinion. The supportive political climate has made Bangalore and Hyderabad as the hub of information technology firms. Multinationals and foreign direct investment have come to India in a big way due to removal of controls over foreign exchange.

Social and cultural changes have led to demand for reservations in jobs for minorities and women, equal pay for equal work etc. Pepsi’s cola lost market share I some countries where the company’s slogan ‘come alive’ translates as ‘come out of the grave’, in local language.

Thus business has to interact with the environment continuously. Environment provides inputs to business which in turn offers outputs to the environment. Different forces create both threats and opportunities for the business. Positive changes help business firms to improve efficiency and grow. For example: Liberal policy towards foreign investment has created new opportunities for foreign multinationals.

NEW AGE MANAGER

In many organisations, employees know more about their work than their managers. This reality should force organisations that still cling to the old, top down style of managing to recognize that many employees today are very capable of managing themselves.

Today we talk of managing one’s boss, and of having relationships with strategic partners, suppliers and customers.” Management is much more than what managers simply do to get work done through employees. Today, we can manage ourselves, our time and many other activities that don’t require one to have a formal managerial role or even to manage people.

Role of the “manager” is only a particular application of management, not the whole story of managing. Moreover, employee engagement, especially with respect to innovative knowledge workers, cannot become a reality until we move beyond our industrial-age definition of a manager.

In modern, post-industrial organizations, all employees need to manage. Self-managing teams use complex systems to help them manage their own work, and precise performance measures are openly accessible. Knowledge workers don’t need to be told what to do, and often, they know better than their managers.

Taking an example form an Indian organization, Mr. Pritesh Chothani, brand manager of Sprite is a great example of a new age manager. He has an experience of 4 years and 5 months in the marketing industry and has an expertise in Marketing and business development- FMCG and consumer durables. He is a young urban professional and has an ideology of bringing some contemporary ideas in his brand marketing, Sprite. He is not just the brand manager, but is also a inspiration and a motivator to work with.

This summer Sprite has come up with a totally new idea for its series of ads to be aired on television. Pritesh Chothani knew the dynamic environment in which he is operating and the fierce competition in the beverage industry. Thus he needed to think totally out of the box. He knew that the target customers are mainly youngsters, college going students and as every brand is now trying to target youngsters, he followed suit and came up with a series of ads with a theme University of Freshology: In this, they have created a hypothetical university of freshology. In this, there is a professor who teaches the younsters how to deal with difficult situations like, “How to handle difficult questions of mom and dad.”

The basic purpose behind these ads is to attract the youngsters towards drinking Sprite and increase the market coverage in the beverages segment.

Thus, Pritesh Chotani, as a new age manager performs following roles:

He understood the dynamics of the environment which is nowadays the most necessary condition to stay in the market, i.e. about 60% of the Indian population is now youngsters, thus in order to capture the market share, he has to target young consumers.

He did a SWOT analysis of his brand Sprite, and thus came to know that competitors in this segment are many and thus he knew that he needed a contemporary outlook to maintain a standing of his brand in the market.

He not only act as a team leader for his marketing group but also inspire and motivate them to work efficiently.

He created an environment of trust, cooperation, and believed in decentralisation of authority and gave the team members some autonomy to make decisions.

Conclusion

The only thing constant is change. In the corporate world change means change in environment, change in roles, responsibilities, differences in opinions, changes in organisation structure, changes in policies etc. These dynamic changes are necessary to keep up with the industry standards. Thus the role of a manager has to change keeping in view the changes in this dynamic environment otherwise the company may lose its identity in the market.

Part b

I visited Krishak Bharti Cooperative Ltd. (KRIBHCO), A-10, Sector-1, NOIDA – 201301 to meet the HR Manager or Chief Vigilance Officer ( Mr. A.K. Gupta). KRIBHCO, a premier Cooperative Society for manufacture of fertilizer, deemed to be registered under Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act-2002, was promoted by the Govt. of India, IFFCO, NCDC and other agricultural Cooperative societies spread all over the country. KRIBHCO has setup a Fertilizer Complex to manufacture Urea, Ammonia & Bio-fertilizers at Hazira in the State of Gujarat, on the bank of river Tapti, 15 Kms from Surat city on Surat – Hazira State Highway. I asked frequent questions and got the basic framework of the organisational structure as follows:

Chart1: Organisation Structure of KRIBHCO

KRBHCO has adopted the policy of decentralised management, whereby, broadly marketing and production are operating as a separate profit centres. Even in the marketing, each state marketing organisation is working as separate profit centres. In view of this, it is essentially important for the imcumbent heading the personnel function of the organisation to take utmost care of uniformity in personnel policies and practices. This is a project organisation which consists of horizontal organisation units to complete projects of long duration. The main functions of the top, middle and supervisory level followed at KRIBHCO are as follows:

Figure1: Functions of the levels of management

OBJECTIVES at KRIBHCO

To increase the capacity of urea installed and to maintain the market share

To ensure optimum utilisation of resources

To diversify into power and LNG terminals

The top level functions at KRIBHCO are mainly to make strategic decisions about wheather to

invest in a project

increase the quality and production of fertilizers

set more fertilizer plants

to set up another fertizer complex in remote regions

The basic functions at the functional level manager i.e. middle level at KRIBHCO are:

Exercise line authority over the subordinates.

To set production targets of urea, ammonia and bio fertilizers

Ensure efficiency in operations

Determine who will perform the specific tasks

Evaluate the performance

The various sections under the personnel and administrative department are:

Industrial Relations and Policy Section(IR)

Human Resource Development Section

Recruitment and Establishment Section

Administrative Section (ADMN.)

Leagal Section

Welfare Section

Various roles and responsibilities that has to be followed by the management for the better functioning and profitability of the organisation are:

The role of the top management is decisive in nature and can be summarized as follows –

Top management gives the mission statement, visions, goals, objectives and broad policies of the enterprise.

It basically gives the basic guidelines for preparation of budgets, procedures, schedules, plans, rules, policies, regulations etc.

They appoints the executive for middle level i.e. departmental managers.

They control the activities of every department and if any deviations occur, it coordinates and then gives feedback.

Role of middle management is functional in nature and is as follows:

Execution of plans in accordance with the guidelines.

They make plans for the supervisory level.

They help the top directors with the recruitment of supervisory level and also facilitates decision making.

Coordinate the activities within the department.

Evaluate performance of the low management

They are also responsible for inspiring lower level managers.

Lower level is also known as operative level of management. It consists of supervisors, foreman, section officers, superintendent etc. In KRIBCHO, operative level has a huge role to play because it involves large production processes of urea, ammonia and bio- fertilizers. Thus the main activities include:

Assigning of tasks.

Instructions for day to day targets of production

Check on quality and quantity.

Communicate problem of workers to the higher levels

They supervise & guide the sub-ordinates.

Providing training to the workers.

They arrange necessary materials, machines, tools etc for getting the things done.

They prepare periodical reports about the performance of the workers.

They ensure discipline in the enterprise.

They motivate workers.

They are the image builders of the enterprise because they are in direct contact with the worker