“Companies fail when they become complacent and imagine

that they will always be successful. So we are always

challenging ourselves. Even the most successful companies must constantly reinvent themselves.

--Bill GatesChairman and Chief Software Architect

Microsoft

The Importance of Business Management

1.1

The Business World Today

• Constant change!– Technology– Society– Environment– Competition– Diversity

What is Management?

• The process of deciding how best to use a business’s resources to produce good or provide services– Employees– Equipment– Money

What is Management?• Auto industry managers

– Assembly line: schedule work shifts, supervise assembly of vehicles

– Engineering: develop new product features, enforce safety standards

– General: plan for the future– All organizations need

managers!

Levels of Management

• Senior management– Establishes the goal/objectives of the

business– Decides how to use the company’s resources– Not involved in the day-to-day problems– Set the direction the company will follow– Chairperson of the company’s board of

directors, CEO, COO, senior vice presidents

Levels of Management

• Middle management– Responsible for meeting the goals that senior

management sets– Sets goals for specific areas of the business– Decides which employees in each area must

do to meet goals– Department heads, district sales managers

Levels of Management• Supervisory management

– Make sure the day-to-day operations of the business run smoothly

– Responsible for the people who physically produce the company's products or services

– Forepersons, crew leaders, store managers

The Management Pyramid

The Management Process

• Three ways to examine how management works:– Tasks performed

• Planning, organizing, staffing, leading, controlling– Roles played (set of behaviors associated

with a particular job)• Interpersonal, information-based, decision-making

– Skills needed• Conceptual, human relations, technical

The Management Process• Planning

– Decides company goals and the actions to meet them

– CEO sets a goal of increasing sales by 10% in the next year by developing a new software program

The Management Process• Organizing

– Groups related activities together and assigns employees to perform them

– A manager sets up a team of employees to restock an aisle in a supermarket

The Management Process

• Staffing– Decides how many and what kind of people a

business needs to meet its goals and then recruits, selects, and trains the right people

– A restaurant manager interviews and trains servers

The Management Process• Leading

– Provides guidance employees need to perform their tasks

– Keeping the lines of communication open• Holding regular staff

meetings

The Management Process• Controlling

– Measures how the business performs to ensure that financial goals are being met

– Analyzing accounting records

– Make changes if financial standards not being met

Relative Amount of Emphasis Placed on Each Function of

Management

Management Roles

• Managers have authority within organizations– Managers take on different roles to best use

their authority• Interpersonal roles• Information-related roles• Decision-making roles

Management Roles

• Interpersonal roles– A manager’s relationships with people

• Providing leadership with the company• Interacting with others outside the organization• Senior managers spend much of their time on

interpersonal roles– Represent the company in its relations with people

outside the company, interacting with those people, and providing guidance and leadership to the organization

– Determine a company’s culture» Sears, Roebuck and Co.

Management Roles• Information-related roles

– Provide knowledge, news or advice to employees• Holding meetings• Finding ways of letting employees know about important

business activities

• Decision-making roles– Makes changes in policies, resolves conflicts, decides

how to best use resources• Middle and supervisory managers spend more time resolving

conflicts than senior managers

Management Skills• Conceptual skills

– Skills that help managers understand how different parts of a business relate to one another and to the business as a whole

– Decision making, planning, and organizing

Management Skills• Human relations skills

– Skills managers need to understand and work well with people

– Interviewing job applicants, forming partnerships with other businesses, resolving conflicts

Management Skills• Technical skills

– The specific abilities that people use to perform their jobs

– Operating a word processing program, designing a brochure, training people to use a new budgeting system

Management Skills

• All levels of management require a combination of conceptual, human relations, and technical skills– Conceptual skills most important at senior

management level– Technical skills most important at lower levels– Human relations skills important at all levels

Principles of Management

• A principle is a basic truth or law• Managers often use certain rules when

deciding how to run their business• Most management principles are

developed through observation and deduction

Principles of Management

• Deduction is the process of drawing a general conclusion from specific examples– Observe that employees in 15 companies

work more efficiently when their supervisors threat them well

– Deduce/conclude that a pleasant work environment contributes to productivity

– Conclusion becomes a management principle

Principles of Management

• Management principles are best viewed as guides to action rather than rigid laws

• If a principle does not apply to a specific situation, an experienced manager will not use it– Important to recognize when a principle

shouldn’t be followed– Being able to change and adapt is an

important management skill

Principles of Management• Do all employees

need to arrive at work at the same time?

• Do people who work in offices need to dress in a certain way?

Women and Minoritiesin Management

• In the last three decades, an increased number of women and minorities have joined the workforce– They’ve attained positions as managers in

companies of all sizes• Women and minorities now serve as the

CEOs of prestigious businesses– Avon, eBay, Lucent

Women and Minoritiesin Management

• White men still hold most senior management positions

• Glass ceiling: the invisible barrier that prevents women and minorities from moving up in the world of business– Steadily becoming a

window of opportunity!

Women and Minoritiesin Management

• Workers and managers must be sensitive to challenges presented by a multicultural workplace– Religious holidays that are

celebrated at different times throughout the year by Muslims, Christians, Jews and other religious groups