Business administration

p BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

2007

Business Administration is a discipline of how best one is able to manage a firm . There are practitioners of this discipline who practice management as a profession and thus are professional managers . As doctors practice medicine , managers practice management . The only difference between professional managers and other professionals is that while the latter must possess a formal degree in their discipline , a professional manager need not have a formal degree or education in management . He may have learnt the necessary skills and gained competence from his

experience . The second characteristic of a professional manager is that his primary concern is the organization or the company with which he works . This is true whether the manager works for a private or public sector or a multinational company whether he is the executive director or the personnel manager reporting to the executive director . The professional manager always has his company 's overall perspective in his mind and all his actions are guided by the company 's objectives

The most important characteristic of a professional manager is that he is responsible for performance . Managing involves collecting and utilizing resources (money , men , materials and machines ) in the most optimal manner for achievement of some pre-determined objectives or results . It is the professional manager 's responsibility to utilize resources to produce the required results . Responsibility and performance are the key words in defining a manager 's role . Performance implies action , and action necessitates taking specific steps and doing certain tasks . A manager is expected to do the following work to produce results

PROVIDING PURPOSEFUL DIRECTION TO THE FIRM

A manager has to , first of all , set objectives which the firm must achieve . Objectives provide the direction in which the firm must move Having decided upon the objectives , the manager must constantly monitor the progress and activities of the firm to ensure that it is moving in the desired direction . This is the first and foremost task of every manager

The top management team will be very actively involved in this task through the process of defining the mission and objectives for the entire organization . It becomes the duty of the manager while reporting to the top manager , to see that the actions of the people who work in the department are in the desired direction . As a manager it is his task to prevent all such actions which takes his company away from the direction set by the top management

All actions and decisions must be evaluated on the basis of their contribution towards achievement of the company 's objectives . The objectives or direction once set will hold good for all times to come or that any movement away from the current line of production or activity is always undesirable may not stand to the test of time . The key point is that all movements and actions must be consistent with achievement of the objectives . To ensure consistency it is important that the manager carefully thinks through each alternative course of action...