Among the professors, authors and authorities we find some controversy in determining the origin of the term "Control", however the vast majority agree in establishing that the word "Control" comes from the French control, which in turn comes from "contre role", that is to say "against the roll". "Roll" meant a roll of paper or papyrus that was a duplicate of the original. In medieval times, this second scroll was used to check the authenticity of the original. This method was called «against rotulus» in Latin (in French «role», and in Castilian «rollo», derived from rotulus), passing this into French as contrerôlle, which would later give rise to contrôle, with the current meaning of “ to inspect ”,“ to supervise ”, subsequently, the latter also derived controleur, who came to Spanish as comptroller,used in some countries to designate the official or office responsible for controlling public spending.
Now, according to the dictionary we have that Control is:
- Address or domain of an organization or system Domain that a person has of their own emotions, ideas or acts Examination or careful observation that serves to make a verification Place or venue where this examination is carried out Periodic examination that is made to a student to verify his level of learning and understanding the subject explained. Set of controls or buttons that regulate the operation of a machine, apparatus or system Action and effect of control. Checking, inspection, intervention; direction, command, regulation.Inspection or verification of a thing Periodic verification of the knowledge of the students Set of manual or automatic operations to monitor the state of a directed system in order to elaborate the command actions Office or dependency in which a thing is controlled Mastery or control of a person over something or someone A person's control or control over himself
Interesting, if we scroll through history we find that thanks to the booming boom that commerce took, far away, in the towns of Syria, Egypt and Phenicia, what we know today as single-entry accounting developed, allowing controls to be applied to public accounts.
And so, continuing our search through history, we find indications that accountability was used in feudal states from a distant time. Later, in the 15th century, with the increase in trade in Italian cities, what we know today as the accounting books to control business operations appears for the first time.
In this way, the Venetian monk and mathematician Fray Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli (better known as Lucas di Borgo San Sepolcro), forerunner of the calculation of probabilities, appears on the scene, who in 1494 developed and made available the famous double game, today the method or system of registration of operations most used in accounting, where he analyzed the economic fact from 2 points of view: departure and counterpart, thus leaving two terms known to everyone: duty and credit. The duty is to debit, in other words debit. The credit is to credit, pay, among other words credit.
Continuing with the journey, in the mid-eighteenth century, with the Industrial Revolution, we found a sudden increase in the number of machines required to satisfy the demand for industrial items, the processes becoming increasingly complex, however, despite everything From the single-entry accounting in Egypt to the great Industrial Revolution, it was not until the end of the 19th century that businessmen began to feel the need to design adequate systems for the protection of their interests.
Indeed, the notable increase in production and therefore the exponential increase in terms of the complexity of the business, the owners were unable to continue attending personally to the problems of production, marketing and administration, they were indisputably forced to think of some procedure, some system that allowed you to minimize error and even predict fraud, in fact it is when they become aware that all their attention was directed to the production and marketing phases and they notice the neglect of the administrative phases, thus arising the need for management control.
In this way, following the basic capitalist principle, "reduce expenses to earn the maximum with the least investment", curiously, control is born as a managerial function, a brilliant idea, to kill two birds with one stone, never thought to create a specialization, there was never thought of a real and true control over management, its objective was, and continues to be, the protection, at any cost, of the monetary part (capital) associated with the business; budget and finances at the top of priorities, everything else was and is in the second, third or fourth plane.
Well but let's continue, today despite everything, fortunately thanks to the evolution of the Administration, we can assure that control is a key and fundamental part of every administrative process, in fact, today we know that every company can have excellent planning, can Having an adequate organizational structure and efficient management, however, if you do not have an adequate management control system, you can hardly guarantee that your Strategic Planning will one day crystallize, and in any case, you can never guarantee that the quality to be achieved It will be what is expected.
Control is a symbiotic entity with planning (controlling without planning, it is an unimportant task, it is a simple fallacy, planning without controlling is simply playing Russian roulette) and is nothing more than a tool for continuous improvement, to add value, to facilitate delegation and teamwork, to protect the assets of the organization, to guarantee the crystallization of the objective, to guarantee the flow of information, to guarantee the well-being of a body called a company, control is simply an effective system feedback.
It is extremely easy to confuse the handling of information and projection with Control, because let me tell you that these elements together with a detailed analysis and direction are the essential ingredients to prevent and this, in turn, is the fundamental point of Control. Everything starts with Monitoring (using planning as a starting point, focuses on obtaining and analyzing information on management performance) and ends with Control (in a simplistic way corresponds to analyzing, planning, projecting and finally taking actions based on the information provided by the monitoring), basically consists of isolating, monitoring and protecting those details, those elements that could cause a greater impact in the achievement of Strategic Planning.These elements and / or details generally cross vertically, horizontally and diagonally a considerable number of Management in the organizational structure of any company and it is precisely here that the importance of Control is highlighted.
Unquestionably Control has been a headache, it has received different approaches and definitions, a considerable number of authors and authorities in their articles, essays, and books demonstrate this:
Some definitions
- Buró K. Scanlan: Control aims to ensure that the facts go according to established plans.Chiavenato: Control is an administrative function: it is the phase of the administrative process that measures and evaluates performance and takes corrective action when needed. In this way, control is an essentially regulatory process.Harold Koontz and Ciril O´Donell: It involves the measurement of what has been achieved in relation to the standard and the correction of deviations, to ensure the achievement of objectives according to the plan.Henry Fayol: The control consists of verifying if everything happens in accordance with the Plan adopted, with the instructions issued and with the established principles. Its purpose is to point out weaknesses and errors in order to rectify them and prevent them from happening again. Robert B. Buchele:The process of measuring current results in relation to plans, diagnosing the reason for the deviations and taking the necessary corrective measures.Robert Eckles, Ronald Carmichael and Bernard Sarchet: It is the regulation of activities, in accordance with a plan created to achieve certain objectives. Robins, control can be defined as "the process of regulating activities that ensure that they are being carried out as planned and correcting any significant deviation"control can be defined as “the process of regulating activities that ensure that they are being carried out as planned and correcting any significant deviation”control can be defined as “the process of regulating activities that ensure that they are being carried out as planned and correcting any significant deviation”
Some types of controls
Management
It is the highest level of Control that can be exercised in an Organization, it refers to the evaluation of all the administrative activities that are carried out at the different levels of the organizational structure of the company, it is a process that serves to guide management towards the organization's objectives and an instrument to evaluate it, acts as a bridge between the strategic global objectives and the local or specific objectives.
Its objective is to compare what is planned (depending on the hierarchical levels, it focuses on Strategic Planning, Corporate Planning, Detail Planning, Operational Planning) versus what is executed (it begins its journey from the lowest levels to reach the vice-presidency) and It covers all the different aspects of the organization: planning, investment strategy, budget, operations, purchasing, the quality system, projects, objectives, indicators, etc. etc.
After making the comparison mentioned in the previous paragraph, a considerable number of products will be obtained, the main one being the strategy that will be activated to solve the deviations between what is planned and what is executed, OjO, said deviation is only the tip of the iceberg, The strategy to be activated is not as simple as it is believed, it is necessary to analyze and study the origin or origins of said deviation (erroneous planning from the beginning? Communication failures and, therefore, noise and / or distortion in the information flow ?, ignorance or incorrect execution of the functions ?, problems in the competences due to lack of training ?, problems of attitude and / or aptitude ?, problems of definition of objectives ?, confusion in the role played ?, Organizational climate ?, Power conflict ?,Failures in the interrelationships ?, problems in the processes and / or procedures ?, problems at the level of the organizational structure ?, problems at the level of the indicators ?, etc., etc.).
Said comparison must necessarily be periodic, that is, the frequency of follow-up must be planned and, based on its results, the control will be activated. However, this frequency varies depending on the hierarchical levels within the structure and thus, as we go up in the organizational structure, the follow-up (comparison) periods will increase, for example: the checks at the lowest levels of the structure will be They will be held weekly, at the middle management level it will be monthly, at the top management level they will be bi-monthly and at the vice-presidency level it will be quarterly.
Unfortunately, in fact I am sorry for others, but a significant percentage of the bibliography associated with this topic identifies Management Control, explicitly or implicitly, exclusively with economic control, based on the advantage of homogeneity that monetary measures offer.. There are definitely many authors and authorities on the subject, who as a result of their myopia, fail to understand the importance of the knowledge worker, they do not fully understand that the company revolves around the human being, in fact, every company should revolve around the family, guaranteeing in this way, the psychological, physical and economic stability of the knowledge worker and therefore, by domino effect, the success of the company will be guaranteed.
Financial
It takes into account financial and accounting information, such as certain financial ratios, to assess the organization's ability to pay its debts and to have sufficient funds to finance its operating activity.
Financial forecasting begins with projections of sales revenue and production costs, the budget is a plan that establishes the projected expenses and explains where they will be obtained, thus the production budget presents a detailed analysis of the investments that will be required in materials, labor and equipment, to support the forecast sales level.
Financial Control is the phase after the implementation of said plans; When applying the monitoring and comparing what was planned versus what was executed, the control to make the adjustments of the case and guarantee the adherence to the plans and the timely modification of them, due to unforeseen changes.
Operations
Thanks to this control, all the main activities of the company are monitored and verified, ensuring that they are being carried out according to plan (short term). These activities are concentrated in the lower and middle levels of the organization.
Quality
Quality constitutes a global concept that not only applies to the product but to the entire manufacturing process, including cost, price and benefit control, supply management, delivery times and everything related to the product (training, training and work environment).
Thus, this control is a comprehensive process that seeks to ensure that the main activity of the company complies with the established quality standards. It is not only the simple verification of the quality of the finished product or service, but it also monitors and verifies both raw materials and intermediate processes.
Draft
As the Project Life Cycle progresses, the need for Monitoring and Control increases. Being a fundamental piece for making decisions (corrective actions, re-planning if appropriate or simply verifying that everything is going well), this is given to the task of keeping the different actors of the Project informed (Senior Management, Entities Functional and the Project Team) on the progress of the same, when comparing the planned versus the executed, becoming the ideal tool for optimizing the Project. Controlling a Project involves measuring and reporting the progress of those variables previously agreed at the pre-established control points, during the Project Life Cycle.
In this way, to be able to effectively carry out the Control tasks, it is required, as a minimum, to define the variables to be controlled with their frequency of checking and indicators, the team that will apply the monitoring with its level of authority, the range of decision and the team who will take care of the repair work.
