Managerial Methodological Novelties (Part II)

Transcription

1 Managerial Methodological Novelties (Part II) Ion VERBONCU The Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania Abstract The management is one of the most important factors of making the Romanian organizations efficient, its economical and social performances being dependent to the methodological, decisional, informational and organizatorical performances. The key role in obtaining these performances belongs to the managers, involved directly in exerting the management processes, meaning fundamenting, adopting and applying of managerial decisions. The managerial tools and the methodological elements used in running of complex managerial initiatives, inclusively in promoting and using them represents, with no doubt, the fundamental combination of the managerial, economical and commercial success of any organization; proper knowledge and operationalization of the most adequate systems, methods and techniques of management provide a favorable answer to the question HOW DO WE LEAD? This is why, in the following pages, we approach some of the most representative managerial tools from the profit centers based management and dashboard to the job description or decisional-informational description which sustain the idea that the managerial methodologization is the most facile modality of amplifying the efficiency and effectiveness of the managers work. Keywords: managers managerial tools, competitivity, efficiency, effectiveness, 1. The promoting and using methodology The methodological scenario of promoting and using the profit centers based management comprises more steps, whose follow up is compulsory for ensuring the success of this managerial tool. setting up the fundamental objectives A first step is destined to determination of the company s fundamental objectives, of whose achievement depend both its present and especially its future. As examples, we mention: the increase of profit with a specific ratio, performing investments in value of..., improving 32

2 the products competitivity by..., modernizing the management system until..., market penetration... etc. setting up the other objectives categories The degree of laying out of the fundamental objectives leads to the hypostasis of the profit centers based management: profit centers based management focused on team, characterized by the laying out of the objectives system up to the level of specific objectives profit centers based management, focused on individual, in which the objectives are set up up to the level of job, respectively of individual objectives. fundamentation of the compartments support for the achieving the objectives It is the case of the actions programs, terms calendars, instructions and, especially of the budgets, on whose ellaboration, launching, execution and follow-up is involved the budgets management, conceived and used in an evolved version. fundamentation and ellaboration of the company s general budget The budget is, with no doubt, the most important managerial tool in the economy of the profit centers based management. There are two hypostasis on which the budgets are fundamented, ellaborated, launched, executed, followed and analysed: at company level at administration centre (costs or profit factory, department, workshop, working team, compartment) level. The company s general budget comprises an objectives (fundamental and derived) chapter, an expenses chapter, an income chapter and another chapter of financial results. delimitation and dimensioning the administrative centres (costs and profit) The administration centre is a processual or structural component of the company, with high decisional and operational autonomy, which has its own budget. The delimitation and dimensioning of the administrative centres can be achieved by invoking one of the following criteria: processual structural-organizational economical labour processes nature Review of International Comparative Management Volume 8, Number 4, December

3 combination of these criteria fundamentation and ellaboration of the budgets at administration centre level launching the budgets budgetary execution; coordination and following up of the objectives achievement evaluation and analysis of results motivating the personnel depending on the degree of achieving the individual objectives, the degree of achieving the administration centres and the degree of achieving the company s objectives. 2. Novelties in promoting and using the profit centers based management The experience accumulated in the past years in using this managerial tool in some Romanian companies, as well as the research in this field, allowed us to evidence more novelty aspects presented hereunder. amplification of the areas of promoting and using it, from medium, large and very large sized companies to public institutions with professional bureaucracy (superior learning institutes, hospitals etc.) optimization of the reports between centralization and decentralization inside the organization, depending on: economical power of the company, market position, opportunities and threats of the national and international environment, organizational structure type, predominant management styles, organizational culture increase of the individual and group responsibilization degree, given by: amplification of the decisional and operational autonomy of the administration centres; setting up realistic and mobilizing objectives for all the actors of the work processes; transformation of the costs centres in profit centres by dimensioning the contribution to achieving the company s profit; reconsideration of the auxilliary and functional compartments, such as carrying out of managerial, economical, technical consultancy services etc. for the organizatoric subdivisions which generate economical substance; concluding management contracts between the company manager and the administration centres managers or contracts of carrying out services between various administration centres; 34

4 promoting the management contract inside the organization, which uses the profit centers based management, as juridical tool for responsibilizing the general manager and the administration centre manager, the first one - regarding the ensurance of the needed conditions for achieving the objectives, the second one regarding the obtained results vis-a-vis the planned results; promoting and using the carrying out services contracts between the technical services performers (maintaining and repairing the production equipments, supplying utilities), commercial services (ensuring and administrating the material resources, sales, marketing etc.), economical-financial services (book-keeping) on one side and the beneficiaries of these services, respectively the administration centres from the production area. It is thus set up a system of links of managerial and economical nature, with unfavorable impact to the order, discipline and rigurozity, required by the promotion of the profit centers based management. Let us not forget that any leading, whether of a company or of a nation s, degenerates in mediocrity and counterperformance if it is not clearly responsible towards a person for results (Peter Drucker, 1999). reconsideration of the managerial accountancy Ensuring a high processual and structural-organizational mobility, inclusively by enriching and enlarging the jobs effective modalities of diminishing or eliminating the silo effect specific to the bureaucratic organizations of mechanistic type. creating opportunities for managerial methodologization, global informatization of the company and outsourcing of services carrying out activities ameliorating the organizational climate and, in general, the organizational culture from the perspective of obtaining operational excelence at the administration centres from the production area level and, implicitly, of managerial and economica performances. promoting motivational mechanisms centered on performances imprinting of disciplinary order characteristics, rigurosity, which to facilitate the extension of the decisional and operational autonomy of the administrative centres, responsibilization of the managers and executants and obtaining performanes Review of International Comparative Management Volume 8, Number 4, December

5 promoting a new concept and a new management practice: business format. Projects management management system used in organizations with an evident innovative dimension and, in general, in organizations for solving of some complex problems, of strategic nature and with a pronounced innovative character, called projects is one of the most effective solutions to the multiple challenges of the integration in the European Union, linked to the valorification of the structural funds. From the company manager to the mayor, any manager must know the methodological characteristics of the projects management, such way being able to give pertinent answers to the multitude of problems that the organizations are confronting with. Methodologically, the promotion and using the projects management is run on basis of a rigurous methodological scenario, based on the following sequels: a. General defining of the project o Selecting the problem with project characteristics o Setting up the project objectives o Specifying the needed resources o Setting up the intermediary and final terms of realization b. Managerial defining of the project o Nominating the project manager o Setting up the project team (collective) configuration o Chosing the organizational variant of projects management (with facilitation, with individual responsibility, with majorstate, mixed) c. Economical defining of the project o Ellaborating the project budget d. Ensuring the cultural-organizational nature conditions o Working climate e. Precising the control modalities o of quality o budgetary (economical) o regarding the intermediary and final terms f. Realization of the project o Resource allocation o Obtaining the results o Running the analysis, harmonizing and creativity meeting g. Finalizing the project o Evaluating the results 36

6 o Causal analysis results-objectives o Dissolving the project team Novelties in promoting and using the projects management Extension of the use of this management system from industrial companies to public organizations (public institution, deconcentrated and decentralized, ministeries, national authorities or agencies etc.) involved in proportion initiatives, financed from within the country or by various organisms from the European Union; Promoting and using the projects management in the university scientifical research management (see the excelence research financed by the Romanian Government or the research contracts obtained through competition at CNCSIS level) where, the most spread organizational formula is represented by projects management with facilitation, variant which does not disturb too much the organizational structure of the institutions involved in the realization of such projects; Amplifying the responsibilization degree of the managers and executants involved in realization of the projects and, naturally, in valorification of some consistent financial funds destined to them; Flexibilization of the structural configurations of the organizations oriented to projects by the appearance and development of adhocratic structures in the situation of sporadical use of projects management for solving of complex, strategic, innovative predominant problems or by matrix-type structures in the case of the organizations that have more projects at the same time. Any complex managerial initiative must be sustained by a diagnostication of the organization or of the field in which change follows to be produced, on one hand, for identifying the managerial and economical viability potential and, on the other hand, for fundamenting some tacticalstrategical recommendations for amplifying it. Diagnostication, as management method, but also as organization s strategy fundament, involves, from the methodological viewpoint, steps and phases as follows: a. Preparation of the diagnostication Review of International Comparative Management Volume 8, Number 4, December

7 o establishing of the diagnostication type o setting up the diagnostication team o precising the methods for collecting, recording and processing of data o precising the time interval for which the data and information are collected and recorded o establishing of the indicators/values followed b. Investigating the organization o pointing out the tipological characteristics o constructive and functional particularities of the management system and its components o the economical-financial situation c. Managerial viability analysis o managerial viability analysis o economical viability analysis o positive and negative symptoms d. Strengths and the generating causes e. Weaknesses and the generating causes f. The managerial and economical viability potential g. Tactical-strategical recommendations for amplifying the managerial and economical viability potential Concerning the novelties chapter, we mention: Quasy-permanent rediscovering of the diagnostication in the debute (fundamentation) of each tactical-strategical approach initiated and run at company, economy, society level. The diagnostication must be treated as the abc of any manager s conscription, regardless of his/her hierarchical position in a structural configuration, as undisposable method used by managers in exercising the management processes. If we know how a diagnostication study is realised, we have over 50% chances to be in possession of pertinent information referring to what is happening in the lead field and to fundament the decisions on the causes that provoked disfunctionalities or positive deviations; The accent on determination of the managerial and economical viability potential, using mathematical models more and more sophisticated; Approaching mainly of global diagnostications, from which the partial and specialized diagnostications are starting ; 38

8 Using, more and more intense, of specialists (consultants) from outside the investigated companies for a more objective realization of the diagnostication studies; Extension of the diagnostication concept and practice, from internal to external, the SWOT analysis being self-evident in this regard; The more and more evident coupling of the diagnostication studies with the market studies, ecological studies etc., in the increase of the degree of fundamentation of the organization s future projection under the form of strategy of policy. At its turn, the dashboard, as management method, has double functionality: is an important modality of reengineering the informational system contributes decisively to the efficientization of the managers work. By content ensemble of pertinent information, referring to the obtained results in the lead field, presented in a synoptic form, preestablished the dashboard has more functions, in both of his constructive variants, complex or restrained: diagnostication function warning function control function decisional function Its operationalization involves a methodology based on: a. Conceiving of the dashboard o Establishing of the compartment or the involved specialists o Setting up of the tasks, competencies and responsibilities required for the achievement of the objectives o Precising the taskes, competencies and responsibilities of the compartments involved in the dashboard o Determining the informational requirements of the information beneficiaries o Precising the indicators and other modalities of expressing the objectives and results o Precising the modalities of vizualizing the information o Conceiving the informational models o Fixing of the informational fluxes and circuits for these models o Determining the informational procedures Review of International Comparative Management Volume 8, Number 4, December

9 o Establishing the periodicity for completing and transmitting the dashboard b. Completing and transmitting the dashboard o Each model is completed by the responsibles (specialists) nominated in this regard o Sending of these models is made from the bottom to the top c. Using the dashboard o Valorifying the sent information in fundamenting and adopting the decisions o Using the information for better informing the managers Even if the dashboard is one of the managerial tools, timidly used in the managerial practice of the Romanian organizations, we consider that also in this field there have been produced and will still be producing some significant changes, such as: Using with priority of the complex dashboard, which aims at all the processual and structural components of the organization Switching from the dashboard in manual version to informatical dashboard Causal grasping of the results obtained in the lead fields, compred with the assumed objectives Decissive dependancy of the quality of information on the vertical of the management system by the competency of the personnel involved in completing and transmitting the specific models of dashboard. The job description and the decisional-informational description are two other managerial instruments with direct impact on the managers work effectiveness. The second one, respectively the decisionalinformational sheet, can be ellaborated only in the situation that a rigurous job description exists, which to surprise reallistically the aspects regarding its description and requirements. From the methodological viewpoint, the job description is the result of a methodological mechanism rather simplified, as: a. Determination of the individual objectives o with cuantified expression o with uncuantified (qualitative) expression These will be the consequence of deriving the specific objectives. It is recommended to shape up the objectives system of the company, from which the individual objectives belong. 40

10 b. Precising the tasks needed for achieving the individual objectives In setting this up, there will be taken in consideration also the other processual components with superior degree of aggregation: attributions, activities and functions, each contributing to achievement of a specific type of objectives: organization in its ensemble function activity attribution task fundamental objectives derived 1 objectives derived 2 objectives specific objectives individual objectives c. Shaping the competencies (official authorities) circumscribed to the management job The official authority represents the decisional liberty of the job and, implicitly, of the job owner. In the context of the decisional system reengineering, a key role is played by judicious delimitation and dimensioning of the authority on hierarchical levels, for avoiding lacks of balance in loading the jobs. d. Setting up the job responsibilities The responsibilities are coming from the decisions adopted in accordance with the competencies circumscribed to the job and concretize in the responsibility for their consequences (results that follow to be obtained from the decisions application or the manner of obtaining them). Note: The three elements for defining the job (tasks, competences, responsibilities) must be balanced from the quantity point of view, in the sense that to each task it belongs a right to decide (competency) and a responsibility. This balance is evidenced by the organization s golden triangle. e. Job localization in the structural configuration of the organization There are mentioned: o the compartment where the management job belongs to o the hierarchical level where it is situated o the hierarchical weight o the organizational relations in which it is involved f. Setting up the job s requirements o the professional and managerial experience required by the job o professional training Review of International Comparative Management Volume 8, Number 4, December

11 o professional knowledge o professional qualities and skills o managerial knowledge o managerial qualities and skills o etc. g. Drawing up the job The novelties mention that: the central element of defining the job is represented by the individual objectives. They can be precised only in the conditions in which, at company level, there is an objectives system (fundamental, derived I and II, specific and individual) the tasks, competencies (official authority) and the responsibilities are delimited and dimensioned in such way that the golden triangle of the organization to be respected, thus to have a permanent quantitative correspondence between them at the job requirements chapter, there will be mentioned the elements that are linked to the professional and managerial competency imposed to its occupant (professional and managerial knowledge, qualities and skills) the job description will be updated once with the update of the budgets for administration centres (usually, monthly) Regarding the decisional-informational description, the ellaboration methodological scenario presumes: h. Determining the individual objectives o with cuantified expression o with noncuantified (qualitative) expression. These will be the consequence of deriving the specific objectives. It is recommended to shape up the objectives system of the company, from which the individual objectives belong. i. Precising the tasks needed for achieving the individual objectives In setting this up, there will be taken in consideration also the other processual components with superior degree of aggregation: attributions, 42

12 activities and functions, each contributing to achievement of a specific type of objectives: organization in its ensemble function activity attribution task fundamental objectives derived 1 objectives derived 2 objectives specific objectives individual objectives j. Shaping the competencies (official authorities) circumscribed to the management job The official authority represents the decisional liberty of the job and, implicitly, of the job owner. In the context of the decisional system reengineering, a key role is played by judicious delimitation and dimensioning of the authority on hierarchical levels, for avoiding lacks of balance in loading the jobs. k. Setting up the decisions that follow to be fundamented and adopted by the investigated manager The such delimited and dimensioned competencies permit the definition of the decisions that follow to be fundamented and adopted by the managers in various hierarchical hypostasis. There will be evidenced the main types of decisions in such way that the right to decide conferred by the occupied job to be valorified at maximum. l. Determining the informational needs Fundamenting and adopting quality decisions can be assured only in the conditions of valorifying of a set of pertinent and operatively sent information. That is why, precising the informational needs (requirements) of each management job becomes decissive in the economy of managerial reengineering. The above mentioned elements permit the completion of a model as presented hereunder: Decisional-informational description Job. Review of International Comparative Management Volume 8, Number 4, December

13 No. Individual objectives Tasks Competencies Decisions to be adopted Informational needs Obs. There cannot be invoked novelties in completing and using this document, since its use as managerial tools is still at the beginning. Summing up, we can affirm that promoting and using of a modern and evolved managerial tools, as well as approaching rigurous methodologies of conceiving, functioning and reengineering of management and each of its major components methodological, decisional, informational and organizational constitutes the most important modality of efficientizing the management and, on this ground, of intensifying the economical performances obtained in the lead field. The answer to the question HOW DO WE LEAD? well or bad decisively conditions the success of each manager, his business card. References 1. Nicolescu, O.,Verboncu, I., Popa, I., Ghid metodologic privind reproiectarea sistemului de management al organizaţiei, Bucureşti, Editura Olimp, Nicolescu, O., Plumb, I., Pricop, M., Verboncu, I., Abordări moderne în managementul şi economia organizaţiei, Bucureşti, Editura Economică, Verboncu, I.,.Ştim să conducem?, Bucureşti, Editura Economică, Verboncu, I., Zalman, M., Management şi performanţe, Bucureşti, Editura Universitară, Verboncu, I., Tabloul de bord, Bucureşti, Editura Tehnică, Verboncu, I., Popa, I., Diagnosticarea firmei, Bucureşti, Editura Tehnică,