Management
Chapter 1: Managing and performing
Managing in a competitive world
4 ongoing challenges:
context is important for businesses and there will always be competition
1. Globalization
- Interaction and integration of people, firms and governments
- Well-known enterprises are global, with offices and production facilities all over the
world
- Company’s talent can come from anywhere change of workforce role of expats
- Effect on both small and large companies
2. Technological change
- Web 1.0 (mid-1990s – early 2000s): on-line data consultation, ‘reading’, dot.com
companies and crisis
- Web 2.0 (2005-2015): interactive, more user-friendly, consulting and sharing, social
media start-ups
- Web 3.0 (2015-…) = Web 4.0 (today): real time, mobile applications, cloud
computing, artificial intelligence, IoT
The internet provides a: marketplace, distribution channel and information & networking
point
Benefits:
- Driving down costs and speeding up globalization
- More efficient decision making
- Online information flows and learning processes
3. Knowledge management
- The strong idea translated into innovation (ex. Entertainment, advertising, software,
pharma, sharing economy,…)
- Knowledge workers: use and create knowledge and information to develop ideas,
and to signal and solve problems
- Knowledge management: finding, unlocking, sharing, and capitalizing on the most
precious resources of an organization, to convert ideas into innovation (people’s
expertise and skills, vision/creativity/wisdom, relationships through networking and
collaboration
4. Collaboration across boundaries
requires good communication between departments, divisions and other units of the
organization. Companies may capitalize ideas of people outside of the organization.
,Managing for competitive advantage
staying ahead of the competition by doing better than your competitors at doing valuable
things => delivering long-term performance!!
Ex: the best managers and companies deliver on multiple performance dimensions
Success drivers of performance:
1. Innovation
the introduction of new technologies, processes, goods or services
A firm must:
- Adapt to changes in consumer demands and to new competitors
- Be ready with new ways to communicate with customers and deliver products to
them
- Innovate or die, products don’t sell forever
2. Quality
is a function of characteristics of goods or services with the aim of excellence
From:
- Emphasis on attractiveness
- Minimal defects
- Long-term reliability
First, quality check after product completion. Next, eliminate defects
To:
- Preventing defects before they occur = long-term quality. The goal is to have zero
defects in the manufacturing
- Emphasis on quality already in the design-phase = total quality management
- Continuous improvement
Cooperation, commitment, proactivity and creativity in solving problems
3. Service
- Giving customer's what they want or need and when they want it
- Continually meeting the needs of customers to establish mutually beneficial long-
term relationships
- Making it easy and enjoyable for customers to experience or to buy and use
products
4. Speed
- Fast and timely execution, response, and delivery of result
,5. Cost competitiveness
- Keeping costs low
- Relevance? To achieve profit maximization and offer attractive prices to consumers
6. Sustainability
- Minimize the use of polluting, nonrenewable and nonrecyclable resources
- Improve social conditions
- Focus on the long term
The 4 functions of management
management entails: working with people and other resources to achieve organizational
goals efficiently and effectively
Effectiveness: realizing the goals
Efficiency: realizing goals with minimal use or waste of resources = making the best use of
money, time, materials, and people
1. Planning: delivering strategic value (of good/service delivered to client)
- formulating goals
- developing strategies to achieve the goals
- the better you meet goals, the higher the value will be
2. Organizing: building a dynamic organization
- assembling and coordinating human, financial, physical, informational, and other
resources, needed to achieve the goals
- hiring of people, job descriptions, specifying responsibilities, allocating resources
3. Leading: mobilizing people
- stimulating/motivating people to be good/high performing
- communicating and connecting with people
- in and across teams, departments and divisions
- solving problems
4. Controlling: learning and changing
- monitoring performance
- everything is according to the plan
- making necessary changes
- feedback: continually learning and changing, so goals can be achieved
, Performing all 4 management functions:
- a typical day for a manager is not neatly divided into 4 functions
- days are fractioned and spent dealing with interruptions, meetings and
troubleshooting
- good managers devote adequate attention and resources to all 4 management
functions
Management levels and skills
1. Top-level Managers (Strategic) => long term
senior level, Top Management Team, General Management (CEO, CFO, COO, CIO)
2. Middle-level Managers (Tactical) => short term
translating corporate goals into business until targets. Daily operations/entrepreneurial
and innovative ideas
3. Frontline Managers (Operational)
supervising production. Liaising managers and non-management employees
What managers do
Decision Roles Informational Roles Interpersonal Roles
Entrepreneur: searching for Monitor: seeking internal Leader: staffing, developing,
new opportunities and and external information for and motivating people
starting new projects managing the organization
communication center
Disturbance handler: taking Disseminator: transmits Liaison: maintaining a
corrective action during information among network of outside contacts
crisis and other conflicts employees integrating and that provide information
integrating perspective and flavors
Resource allocator: Spokesperson: speaking on Figurehead: performing
providing resources for behalf of organization about symbolic duties (ex. Events)
taking major decisions plans, policies, actions and
results
Negotiator: representing
the organization
Must-have management skills
1. Technical
ability to perform a specialized task involving a particular method or process
2. Interpersonal and communication
people skills, ability to lead, motivate, communicate, building social capital and
emotional intelligence