If you are an entrepreneur, or you run a business, you will know that management is responsible for coordinating and integrating the set of productive factors that make up the company, and especially the team that works in it.
In addition to this, this role must allow the generation of new resources, not only tangible but also intangible, for example, worrying about stimulating the accumulation of knowledge by employees, so that they become increasingly more effective and with greater skills; improve the company's technological equipment, consolidate its brand image, etc.
This task is so important that management has come to be identified with the creation of intangible resources.
A Japanese manager said: «We have been working hard on modernizing both what is visible and what is not. Plants and machinery can be purchaseds with borrowed money, but intangible assets cannot be purchased. “We have put a lot of effort into building an organization, developing human resources, standards, a cost accounting system, not to mention technology and brand image.” (Nomura Management School)
Management, then, has to do with the allocation, coordination and mobilization of the resources that any organized activity has. Thus, we are going to encounter managerial tasks anywhere in the company or organization, although they will have different content and different ways of functioning. Thus, the manager of a business, the supervisor who is in charge of operators, the sales manager of a company, a captain of a ship, the president of a multinational, occupy with different degrees of responsibility and breadth management positions in the institutions where they work.
to) Planr, that It consists of deciding in advance what you want to do in the future and what means will be used to achieve it. It materializes in plans of very different types, from those that try to prefix the future situation of the company in the coming years, to those that determine the exact number of types of products that will be produced in the next week.
b) Organize, consiIt involves designing the organizational structure, that is, the most stable pattern of relationships between the members of the company. Its simplest but incomplete expression is the organization chart.
c) Lead, integrating within this structure the individuals who are going to work in it, and ensuring that they guide their behavior in the appropriate way towards achieving the objectives of their organization or unit. To do this, it must deal with the recruitment, selection, training and assignment of people to positions. However, the company cannot rely on its members to voluntarily behave appropriately. The design of an adequate reward system is a first step in trying to harmonize the interests of everyone; It will also be necessary to influence the behavior of others, that is, to exercise leadership.
d) Control, with The control aims to verify that the company's behavior remains within the previously established limits and, if not, take measures. It is a complement to planning, since it aims to ensure that what we committed to do in advance is fulfilled and, if not, that the appropriate corrections are made to make the events adapt to the plans.
In summary, through the planning process, the objectives and means to achieve them are established, information that is essential to design the organizational structure capable of carrying them out (organization) and select and motivate the appropriate personnel (leadership). Finally, control verifies the degree of compliance with the plans and identifies those responsible thanks to their knowledge of the organizational structure.
The managerial work of the entrepreneur then takes on a wide range of facets and requires, therefore, skills and knowledge of a very diverse nature. Specifically, we can distinguish three main types of skills:
1. Techniques: Managers must possess technical knowledge, that is, the ability to handle specific methods and techniques in their areas of activity (e.g. production scheduling methods, investment analysis, etc.)
2. Interpersonal: They also need human knowledge, since the manager must spend a lot of time interacting with other people, to motivate them, to explain to them what is expected of them, how they can contribute to improving the company's results.
3. Conceptual: The entrepreneur must have the ability to conceive the organization as a whole, as well as its relationship with the environment. Thus, they must be able to analyze a complex problem, identify its most important elements, as well as the interactions that exist between them; They then need a long-term vision with an integrative capacity.
