Posts Tagged ‘Business’
Considering Freight Cost For Your Business
There are many aspects to operating a successful business that should be considered to ensure that your business keeps its head above water and actually thrives in today’s economic environment. This is especially the case when your company depends upon other companies in order to ensure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. For example, perhaps you are a company that specializes in less than truckload shipping to your clients. In order for you to be as successful as possible in this regard, you would need to consider the freight quote that was given to you or any type of quote that you were giving to other companies if you are providing the shipping. If you were to skip this vital step of the process, it is possible that you will quickly be outdone by your competition and lose clients as a result.
Another thing that needs to be considered is the type of software that your company is using to handle paperwork. Although many companies are now using an off-site service and working in the cloud, there are still plenty of companies that like to have control of their own paperwork and run them on their own servers. There are many different software solutions that are available, such as Stardoc that can help you to keep track of the paperwork and to make sure that it is available at a moments notice. Having this type of software solution at your disposal will also help to cut down on the physical papers that you are using in your business and make the entire operation more streamlined.
Group Dynamics
Group dynamics portrays how a group should be structured and conducted. It encompasses the dynamics of interaction patterns within the group, the subtle and not-s-subtle pressures exerted by group members, the manners in which decisions are made in the group, how work gets done and member’s needs are met. Understanding these group dynamics will enable managers to completely harness the synergy of the group members.
Individuals join groups for security social relationships, affiliation, leadership etc. These are numerous types of groups. The important among them are primary groups, secondary groups, formal groups and informal groups. Primary groups are small groups enough for face-to-face interaction, having a feeling of commandership, loyalty and a common sense of values among its members. Coalitions are very relevant to organizations. Coalition is group of groups.
Ethics of Business Relationship
Relations with competitors should be governed by basic ethics and the rules of fair play rather than by the ethics of self-defense and warfare. Unethical competition turns rivalry into a ruthless battle.
Such competition is often done in many ways, e.g., harming a competitor by interfering with his production and distribution, encouraging labor disputes and work stoppages as well as boycotts of a competitor’s products, hiring away of key employees or use of market power to move the competitor’s products out of the market, extorting, bribing and the granting of discriminatory advertising allowances or brokerage fees, price-cutting, making disparaging statements about the competitor’s products or quality, etc. What is needed is that an ethical businessman must resist the temptation of retaliating against the rival, for such unethical attacks destroys confidence in business and introduces chaos in place of order; and substitutes tricks for real competence and leads to a weakening of all human ideals.
The correct solution is to secure through combined efforts such regulations as are necessary to protect honest businessmen.
Organization
Organization implies not only a purpose or a set of purposes but a form appropriate to carry on the activities to achieve the objectives. The greater the range of activities of an organization, the more complicated, and specialized does its structure become. It is the organization which carries on the activities of life by means of parts or organs more or less separate in function but mutually dependent. As the business enterprise grows, the separation and definition of functions increase but the oneness of the whole is nonetheless important.
Organization forms the backbone of the management because without its proper care at higher, middle and lower levels of administration, it may be practically difficult and or impossible for any management to run smoothly. Organization is not an end in itself, but a means to the end of business performance and business results. A sound organization contributes greatly to the continuity and success of the enterprise.
Importance of Co-ordination
Combination of Labor: With work divided and assigned to the members of an organization, their activities are grouped together, forming operations; and operations are arranged to establish systems and procedures. From a structural point of view, this grouping of activities results in units, departments and divisions of an organization. The basis for this grouping of activities may be the skills of the workers, the tools and machinery used the nature of the product, the materials employed, or some other elements. Whether it is logical or not, there is always some reason for the arrangement of tasks in a work place.
Co-ordination: This all-inclusive principle emerges because of the need in every organization for the integration of activities and the coordination of individuals and group of individuals performing their tasks. Co-ordination is achieved through leadership; in the structural sense, it involves the fixing of responsibility and the delegation of authority. It establishes controls which provide for an efficient scheduling and performance of activities.
Business Objectives
No business firm is completely static, like a building or a machine with stationery framework and standard parts that may be replaced from the ready stock or got from outside. Instead shift in demand, in competition, and in other external forces call to continuous adaption, and the ambition and drives of executives within the company keep it evolving. And as changes are made in one part of the company, compensating adjustments are needed in other parts. Consequently, each company should be thought of as a dynamic, integrated entity. Each of these business entities develops character and an individual personality of its own. This personality is shaped, not only by physical resources and technology, or financial inputs but also by some basic objectives which may be set for it by the top management. Objectives are the ends towards which enterprise activities are aimed the end points of planning.
Features of Business Policy
Policies are common proclamation of ideologies for the accomplishment of objectives which provide as a guide to action for the administrators at different levels. In other words, they are a wide path along which the subsidiaries move towards their goals. Policies have a chain of command, i.e., for each group of goals at every level of administration, there is an equivalent set of policies. For instance, fundamental overall business policies strong-minded by the vital management the corporate administrative polices single-minded by the top management, departmental and divisional polices strong-minded by their executives and sectional policies determined by the middle executives, etc. right up to the first line managers.
The policies delimit the area within which a decision is to be made and ensure that the decision will be consistent with and contribute to the objectives. However, they do allow some discretion on the part of the man on the firing line, otherwise, they would be mere rules. Too much discretion in matters on policy may prove harmful to the accomplishment of organizational objectives. Hence it is generally within limits. The amount of discretion allowed depends upon then policy, which in turn reflects the position and authority in the organization. In most policies, the discretion area is very broad, but in others, it is extremely narrow.
Business Policy
Policy making is one of the essential things of business planning. They provide perfect guidelines to take important decisions in business. It also business people to achieve business objectives. While objectives are a goal or an end to be sought, policies are a general rule of action or guideline which helps in attaining the goal. The objectives set a long-range target; a policy provides guides which assists the company in achieving this target.
Policy does not tell a person exactly what to do but it does point out the direction in which to go. Familiar policies are summed up in these statements. “We sell only for cash and allow liberal discount there on. “Our motto is to serve the customers in all possible ways in matters of quality, price, weight and contents”. In each instance, some important aspect of a recurring problem has been singled out, and a guide established for dealing with it.
Methods of Making Business Planning Effective
The management at different levels should take measures to make the business plan effective due to the possibility of limitations. These measures include:
i) Establishment of co-ordination between long-terms plans and short-term plans
ii) Bringing co-ordination among all the departments in the organization in formulating and implementing plans.
iii) Formulating a comprehensive plan linking all the departmental plans with the corporate level plans.
iv) Giving proper attention to the departmental level plants.
v) Ensuring the commitment and involvement of all managers at all levels in the organization.
vi) Train and develop the managers in analyzing and understanding external environment, formulate the plans effectively.
vii) Foresee the environmental changes; feed the information forward to all the levels in the organization.
viii) Ensuring effective team work and empower the mangers to formulate effective plans.
Limitations of Business Planning
Though the top management formulates the business plans, sometimes they fall in producing results due to the uncertainties in the implementation stage.
The limitations of the business planning include:
i) Implementation of the strategic plan should be pre-planned and based on detailed action. Many times managements fail to monitor the implementation process.
ii) Some managers are reluctant to formulate objectives for their departments or jobs.
iii) Managers are sometimes afraid of failure, to achieve business plans.
iv) Managers fail to integrate the plans of their departments or jobs with the organizational/company plans.
v) Some managers do not have required skills to understand and analyze the external environment
vi) Forecasting often becomes misleading due to wrong premises.
vii) Mangers due to their deficient and inherent nature, fail to plan efficiently.
viii) The uncertainties in the environment, makes the business plan in efficient.
ix) Inter-group conflicts: Inter group conflicts and inter-departmental conflicts are the other important limitations of business plan. These limitations are also due to
. Lack of understanding about the objectives of the firm
. Lack of constructive approach to objectives
. Different values and personalities of individual managers
. Competition for scarce resources.
. Built-in conflict between a young manager and an experienced manager.
