Introduction
Management is a concrete way of planning and making decisions, it addresses the future that managers want for their companies, it should be noted that it constitutes a locomotive that drags the train of the company's activities (administrative process), such as planning, the organization, the provision of personnel, the direction and the control, is therefore a continuous process that reflects changes in the environment and that each company must adapt to them, in addition, in this process specific and measurable goals must be established, with limits realistic and achievable time frames.
Without a plan, today's manager cannot lead the company, nor know how to organize his staff, his resources, he cannot confidently lead or expect others to follow him, they have no chance of achieving goals, nor do they know when and where to go. deviated from the path.
Planning and measuring effectively are two actions that are closely linked and which is vital in management. In an increasingly complex and changing environment, it is important to focus our efforts on what really adds value and allows us to differentiate ourselves from our competitors. Jeremy Hope (Management 2000, p, 13) said, service activities like design, marketing, and customer support now provide most of the value.
For this, it is important to establish the appropriate mechanisms to ensure the alignment of our resources with the objectives of the company, and to have an effective management tool that offers us timely and relevant information on the results of our management.
Description
What should we do for the company that sells the most?
Management requires reflection, in the short, medium and long term, on a given project. In the development of management, we can define the objective to be achieved and it is where all the necessary mechanisms are implemented to achieve it, orienting all efforts in the same direction.
Implementing a plan includes the definition of the strategic framework –which is made up of the organization and the direction of the company “the strategic triad”.
In the operational field, there are no defined action plans that contribute to the competitiveness and performance of personnel, so it is necessary to implement it based on the definition of Action Plans. These are the concrete actions that must be carried out to achieve the objectives and therefore to ensure success and compliance.
The planning process is one of the management systems that a company must create, if it wants to work with efficiency, effectiveness and effectiveness, it is not only an important instrument to manage, it is one of the resources through which management can create a shared vision. of what the company can become.
General analysis
How to start?
This process contributes to forming a business culture, the very fact of instructing the process when none had been used before, indicates to the members of the company that things are changing, the process comes alive and the company is embarking on a program of professionalization, since this approach provides direction, the staff meets goals, and is motivated to face any type of difficulty that may arise. It involves analyzing the environment of the company, in order to assess future opportunities and threats, it consists of formulating objectives and establishing goals as precise plans in order to achieve them.
The plan must be effective and not only cover external opportunities, but also internal ones, the final goal is to formulate the future course, that is, how does the company plan to compete in the market ?, and thus compete effectively and meet its long-term mission
That is, the strategy is what gives realism to a plan, since it constitutes the art of directing a set of operations aimed at achieving a goal, since the strategy refers to the procedures that must be established to reach goals and targets. Three levels must be pointed out:
Corporate level: This is formulated by senior management to monitor the interests and operations of the company, and are made up of multiple lines.
Business level: Refers to the administration of the interests and operations of a particular line, it aims to determine what position the business should take in its market and how it should act, given its resources and market conditions.
Functional level: In this strategy managers are in charge of a function, for example, production, marketing, in order to put into practice the strategies of the business unit and therefore those of the company.
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Why do it?
The business foundations are the guiding principles of the organization's actions, elements from which the organization's management is structured, also because they express the interest in the growth and development of people. Jeremy Hope (Gestión 2000, p, 61) mentioned, “Many second wave companies have become highly competent in the design and delivery of products and services with high quality and reasonable prices”
The work of Management is complicated, demanding and has a special touch, which is why managers must exert great influence to achieve an adequate level of efficiency and productivity, while the degree of effectiveness is given by personal effort, to which must have the ability to choose and apply methods or techniques that are appropriate for a given situation.
Managers must fulfill and develop basic functions that affect daily work such as:
Interpersonal Relations: By virtue of being the visible head of the company, and being the representative of formal acts or the liaison of various departments.
It is Informative: Because it constitutes being the disseminator of information, and the valid interlocutor.
It is decisive: since it is the most difficult and delicate role, which it is called upon to fulfill, since it must distribute the resources of the company.
Skills also play a role and these have to do with the intellectual part, in that it has to analyze and interpret and solve problems that are complex.
Interpersonal relationships: have equal importance at all levels because they are related to the operational aspects of the company.
In order to expand these concepts a little more, the resources should not be forgotten, which can be tangible as well as intangible, since from which the objectives of the company can be met.
As Eric Flamholtz would put it, managing corporate culture, as all organizations have a culture that is nothing more than a set of shared values, beliefs, and norms that govern the ways in which staff are expected to run the business. daily.
Implementing a Management model will allow this company to project itself into the future, control changes, adapt to market conditions, and seek ways to channel continuous improvement in the company.
Why do it?
The practices and managerial roles are determined to create and maintain competitive qualities in the personnel that work in the organization, maintaining the Drucker line, which suggests “making ordinary people do extraordinary things”.
Plan: that is, establish a global objective that brings together the actions of all employees. Example. How many units must they produce, in order to meet a goal or otherwise set longer-term goals which can vary from one to five years.
Organize: be aware of the tasks that must be done, that is, establish the relationships that must exist between the different jobs.
Staffing: filling vacancies in order to develop the jobs required by the organization.
Leading: knowing how to provide adequate motivation and leadership in order to bring encouragement and a spirit of achievement and cooperation.
Control: stay alert and check that things are going according to plan.
This process or cycle is the one that managers must fulfill in companies, since this keeps them busy, as well as the roles they must assume.
Each company must evaluate its own strategic plan and determine if it is being used effectively. If the management process is not generating the desired results, then the process should be changed or improved. Ken Blanchard (Entrepreneur in a minute, p, 163) mentioned, to keep the balance between results and relationships, the following aspects should be considered: ideal service, service culture, kindness, receptivity, empowerment.
If you opt for a strategic plan, the first step is to evaluate the future opportunities of the company, as well as to analyze and define the type of business of the company, understand what its markets are and what customers need.
By analyzing competition in an objective and well-reasoned way, this constitutes a prerequisite and essential for competitive success, since we must make an analysis of the trend or exploration of the environment in the economic, political, legal and cultural fields., because they can influence the future of the company.
The next step is to evaluate the company from the point of view of the market, product and service, resources, operating systems, administration and business culture.
The third step is to prepare a management plan, also known as a strategic plan or strategic development plan, based on the exploration of the environment and the evaluation of the organization. (Mission, results of the sectors, objectives, goals, plans of action).
The Mission and Business Foundations describe what the company's business is. The Company Vision describes what the business of the future should be. Visions appeal to emotions. They describe the future in terms of metaphors, symbols, and feelings. A Vision is a very powerful image that draws people to it, just as light attracts insects in the dark of night.
No matter how extraordinary our plan is, if your progress is not regularly evaluated, the plan will fail if you are rushed to change. People prefer to work on those things that are important. If no one asks about the progress of the plan, people will perceive that the activities derived from it are not important. The monitoring process is perhaps the most important step at this stage.
The next step is to prepare the budget, that is, to take the general plan into financial language, and lastly, the management review, a procedure by which the performance of the organization is evaluated.
When to do it?
Effective follow-up evaluations require the process owner to bring all necessary supporting information to the meeting. The basic aspects of the business must be evaluated first.
The use of management indices is one of the important premises since these will allow you to remain vigilant of all the processes within the company. These indicators are aimed at evaluating all processes, and clearly define their behavior, while at the same time constituting a fundamental element in decision-making, they serve to improve internal and external customer expectations. Let's talk now about the perspectives of the company, which we can define as:
Competitive perspective: set of indicators that allow measuring the competitiveness of the business, by analyzing the variables related to the behavior of the sector, the bargaining power of suppliers and customers, the threat of substitutes, the intensity of competition and barriers to entry and exit from the business or each of the sectors. Therefore, they are indicators of permanence, growth and profitability of the business.
Financial perspective: set of indicators that allow the organization's performance to be measured against its owners in terms of profitability, solidity, and especially the added value it generates.
Internal perspective: Understood as the set of indicators that measure the efficiency and effectiveness of internal processes, in terms of the value it generates by facilitating the organization's performance vis-à-vis the market and the customer.
Perspective of human talent: Refers to the set of indicators that measure the processes of continuous improvement and incorporation of learning from the organization, translated in terms of creativity and innovation in response to the market and growth of the organization.
According to Koonts / O'Donneli, the strategic approach is the act of building a bridge between the present situation and the desired future.
Generally all these aspects will be behaving as expected and therefore this part of the monitoring process should be relatively quick; you don't need to spend too much time on things that are going well. On the other hand, if the performance of a basic aspect of the business exceeds the expected boundaries during the period evaluated, the owner of the process must describe the situation and the actions taken to solve the problem and prevent it from reoccurring.
After reviewing the basics, progress should be evaluated towards achieving the futuristic goals. This assessment should be done by comparing what was expected to be achieved against what was actually achieved. Any deviation should be thoroughly analyzed until its root cause is found.
Based on the understanding of the root cause, the implications for the future should be discussed until agreements are reached on the expected results in the period contemplated until the next follow-up.
As time progresses, it may become obvious that the original goals are not going to be achieved. This may be caused by changes in the business environment that may require changes in plans; or also for the fact of having underestimated the required resources. If this occurs, the monitoring process should be used to document the changes instead of recreating a new Strategic Management. Doing so will prevent it from being unnecessarily modified or neglected because it no longer reflects the current situation.
Menguzzatu and Renua, comment in their book "The Strategic Management of the Company" that the analysis of competition between companies can be carried out from two perspectives. On the one hand, the competition that takes place between companies located in the same strategic group. On the other, the competition developed between companies belonging to different strategic groups, and thus be able to carry out this analysis where it is necessary to identify the existing strategic groups.
When we come across the related topic, technology influences a great deal of pressure towards the competitiveness of current businesses or companies, which face continuous challenges to shorten production cycles, improve product quality, reduce costs, be more flexible., and all this only in order to stay afloat.
Donal Maclean in his article on Technological Advances and Strategic Alliances states that innovation management is at the center of most organizations today, both at a strategic and operational level.
Based on what has been said today, we must understand competitiveness as the ability of a company to systematically maintain comparative advantages that allow it to reach, sustain and improve a certain position in its environment.
Competitiveness has an impact on the way of proposing and developing any initiative of the company, which is obviously causing an evolution in the business and entrepreneur model.
The comparative advantage lies in the ability to manage the resources, knowledge and attributes, etc., that the company has, and that its competitors lack or that they have to a lesser extent what makes it possible to obtain higher returns than those of their opponents. The use of these concepts supposes a continuous orientation towards the environment and a strategic attitude.
On the other hand, the concept of competitiveness makes us think of the idea of "excellence", that is, with characteristics of efficiency and effectiveness.
An organization, whatever its activity, if it wants to maintain an adequate level of competitiveness in the long term, must use sooner or later a process of "strategic planning". The function of this process is to systematize and coordinate all the efforts of the units that make up the organization aimed at maximizing overall efficiency.
To better explain such efficiency, consider the levels of competitiveness: internal competitiveness and external competitiveness.
Internal competitiveness refers to the organizational capacity to achieve the maximum performance from the available resources, such as personnel, capital, materials, ideas, etc., and the transformation processes. When talking about internal competitiveness comes the idea that it must compete against itself, as an expression of its continuous effort and improvement.
External competitiveness is oriented towards the elaboration of achievements by the organization in the context of the market, or the sector to which it belongs. As the reference system or model is foreign to the company, it must consider the exogenous variables that are in the environment such as, the degree of innovation, the dynamism of the industry and economic stability, to estimate its competitiveness in the long term. term.
Once you have reached a level of external competitiveness, you must prepare to maintain your future competitiveness, based on generating new ideas and products and in this way seeking new opportunities in the market, because:
- Competitiveness means achieving a sustainable benefit for the company. Competitiveness is achieving constant quality improvement and innovation. Competitiveness is strongly related to productivity, so investments, like human resources, have to be fully integrated, since they are of equal importance.
The world is undergoing a process of accelerated change and global competitiveness in an increasingly liberal economy, a framework that requires a total change of focus in business management. Porter (Competitive Advantage, p, 51) mentioned, "A company gains a competitive advantage by carrying out these strategically important activities cheaper or better than its competitors"
In this stage of change, companies seek to increase their productivity rates, achieve greater efficiency and provide quality service, which is forcing managers to adopt participatory management models, taking the human element as the central basis, developing work as a team, to achieve competitiveness and adequately respond to the growing demand for optimal quality products and services at all levels, which in turn are more efficient, faster and of better quality.
Today the role of knowledge has changed markedly due to the new concepts associated with the information society and the new knowledge-based economy.
Discussions
In an increasingly complex and changing environment, it is important to focus our efforts on what really adds value and allows us to differentiate ourselves from our competitors. For this, it is important to establish the appropriate mechanisms to ensure the alignment of our resources with the objectives of the company and to have a more effective management tool that offers us timely and relevant information on the results of our management.
John Kao says that this is the era of creativity because companies are increasingly forced to reinvent themselves, in part and in their entirety, to achieve growth.
These are the concrete actions to be carried out to achieve the objectives and therefore ensure success in complying with the strategic framework. The strategic approach process is one of the management systems that a company must create, if it wants to work effectively, it is not only an important instrument to manage, it is one of the resources through which management can create a shared vision of what the company can become.
The plan must be effective and not only cover external opportunities, but also internal ones, the final goal is to formulate the future direction of the company, that is, how the company plans to compete in the market, and thus compete effectively and meet its long-term mission.
The planning process must necessarily be a collective process, in which a large group of capable minds participate, allowing them to reach a competitive position. The quality will be in an objective of, where the improvement will be linked to the demands of the clients. It has been said that quality is the most proven strategy to improve productivity, while it is the most important factor to win customers, since you can compete only with quality, which must be present in all processes.
The main goal is to accelerate the improvement in performance, which means that strategies are established to satisfy the different interest groups, where by the way the continuous improvement in the processes are factors that are of great importance.
The ability to learn to change within the imperatives of the environment is nothing more than responding quickly to changes. Change must be a constant within the organization, and it must be managed with skill and effectiveness, that is, administrative techniques will be implemented, which will be related to the strategies formulated, as well as to the business culture which Today they are essential to successfully manage change in the environments in which you have to operate.
On the other hand, Knowledge Management is the new trend generating Competitive Advantages, this is reflected in the fact of improving processes and reducing costs. That is, more efficient by making fewer mistakes.
The main problem surrounding knowledge management is the lack of knowledge on the part of most companies, now the potential that can be generated with an effective model of knowledge management.
Knowledge Management is a cultural change that affects the organization, people, processes, technology and whose final value or result is clearly reflected in the income statement. It is important to see that there are a large number of companies, especially in developed countries, that have applied internal knowledge management to their business processes, and some have even incorporated the organization's intellectual capital into the income statement.
Today we are in the first phase of the knowledge age. These intellectual assets are the ones that are going to differentiate the value of a company giving a greater added value in its market price.
Knowledge Management is people-oriented, as it facilitates communication and relationships and allows creating a new challenge for organizations, the state and society; It is a support process based on the dissemination of knowledge that is created within an organization and allows having sufficient bases to innovate and transform the entire macroeconomic context.
Knowledge management involves acquiring, using and improving knowledge to achieve the development of the organization, creating an environment that allows sharing and transferring it among workers so that they can use it instead of rediscovering it, this is how Rodolfo Faloh sees it, in an article written for the scientific and technological information magazine volume 6, No. 2, 2001. Knowledge management, since it emerged in the early 1990s, has become a hot topic in circles. of management, as it is considered as a management focus of the future. The world economy has changed dramatically, borders are no longer limiting the production process, because geographical distance no longer isolates us from international competitors.Ignoring what happens in the environment is like persisting in swimming out of the water, and ignoring what we think and feel about it, is like denying the reason for our own existence.
According to Peter Drucker, in knowledge-based companies, it is the productivity of the individual worker that makes the system productive. In the traditional team of workers the individual serves the system; in a team of knowledge workers the system has to serve the worker.
On the other hand, it indicates that collaboration is considered the key to competitive success and partnership is the hallmark of leadership. The development and adoption of new technologies is not a simple matter of improving new hardware, but is a complex process of introduction and continuous improvement of corporate software. Practices and processes that have yielded benefits in the past are preserved, and are only altered if there is no other choice. Therefore, contrary to the wisdom of tradition, success does not always cause success.
Porter has provided some basis for dynamic theoretical models: Innovation is to be treated as a continuous process, and not as a means of going from one ordered state of equilibrium to another.
Elaine Monkhouse, Chris Pierce, comment that there are more and more supporters that innovation will be the competitive tool of the future, and that excellence driven by the movement towards quality will be a necessary condition for the survival of business, and its license of operation. As the pace of innovation increases, the challenge for managers does not come solely from product and process innovation. Perhaps the only source of sustainable competitive advantage is strategic innovation, creating a combination of actions unthinkable in another era.
If the current conditions of the country are observed, regarding the economy and business competitiveness, it will be seen that in many companies there is a lack of research on current management techniques that have been developed by businessmen and academics at the national level. as international.
Jeffrey Lickson, comments in his book, that the scientific method is a very important tool that helps us obtain quality. Continuous quality improvement involves a series of experiments, designed to study important aspects of our work process, which have an influence on what we produce for our clients.
And finally, Peter Drucker notes that: Qualified personnel is qualitatively different from less qualified personnel. It is true that those who work with knowledge constitute a minority of the population, but they are quickly becoming the most unique and numerous group, and they are already the greatest creators of wealth. The success and, to tell the truth, the very survival of any business will depend more and more on its personnel and knowledge.
recommendations
Where to start
Ensuring the future of the organization is to guarantee employment, it requires that people become the key to the business, therefore a solid formation of group consciousness at all levels will guarantee the development of the organization, non-competitive organizations will not they have a future and those that are prepared will survive.
If the objective is to survive, managers, workers must unify efforts as a way to be competitive, that is, people must be willing to cooperate, collaborate, do things better, implement new improvements, under the new concept of organization based on integration. and interaction of people.
In order to be able to sell more, the implementation of a quality system is convenient because the company works in synchrony, subject to the specifications and quality standards that have been previously established, that is, that the human resource uses the tools that allow them eliminate errors and thus ensure the quality of services, it should not be forgotten that the objective of this is to provide satisfaction to clients, since the client is the highest judge of quality, this constitutes the best opportunity to to be able to sell more and, incidentally, improve the company to face globalization
The success of organizations depends on the way the company is managed and the treatment of human resources, people are the key to the business; for this reason, they must be integrated into a motivating project, one that delights and that they feel like their own.
The manager's mission lies in the adequate treatment of human resources as a way to ensure the future, this implies specific training for all people, at all levels, based on the treatment of resistance to change and providing solid training of group consciousness.
Technical training is not enough: it is necessary to have plans for personal growth and interpersonal relationships as a way of guaranteeing the development of organizations and their subsistence. Non-competitive organizations have no future and cannot expect to continue in the market.
The changes are constant and they happen more and more quickly, the decisions that are made today cannot serve tomorrow, so the people's resistance to change is the great enemy of the company, which is forced to make the changes. they are necessary to be competitive and survive.
Conclusions
The main challenge facing society is the continuous improvement of the organizations that comprise it.
Human resource management contributes to improve the development of organizations.
To carry out their role, personnel departments need to meet multiple objectives that are sometimes conflicting. (Due to lack of human resource cooperation and training, this occurs in countries such as Ecuador, where I have noticed this, but not in others where there are already references that have bet on human resources as the axis of development, and have managed to reach higher levels within the RH administration).
It is necessary to face the social and personal needs of the organization, these objectives can be achieved through diverse personnel activities, focused on maintaining, using, evaluating and maintaining an effective workforce, that is, developing qualities and skills such as: communication, to making decisions, attitude to work, oral communication, good judgment, maturity, habit to work and finally interpersonal relationships.
Adequate training of human resources so that they perform a good job, which will lead to perfection in the position they occupy.
It cannot be ignored that there is a growing illiteracy in workers, as well as the aging of the workforce, it should be noted that in my country Ecuador we still suffer from these evils, and it is necessary to highlight what Peter Drucker says: “do that ordinary people do extraordinary things ”with preparation and dedication I think that this thought can be achieved for emerging countries.
Finally, in my view of the proper use of human resources, it has to do with leadership and even more so with its creativity, it takes patience and it is necessary to think about how to develop it, in private institutions you can do more things than in private institutions. Public institutions, in the latter it is time to work more with this resource since in a certain way they are already part of the workforce, and there is no other way than to adapt and get involved with this element that is part of the institution, moving forward is the subject to in order to develop human resources, and that this leads us to improve and achieve what is planned.
Epilogue:
Human resource development (Singapore):
Given the absolute lack of natural resources, since even drinking water is imported from Malaysia, Singapore has depended almost exclusively on the talent and skills of its population for its economic development. In this context, education and training have been the basic pillars of the economic success of this small nation.
Singapore's strategy for human resource development has been guided by three basic principles: First, educate each individual to their full potential. Second, develop a workforce that responds to the needs of any industry worldwide. And third, the training and updating must be continuous. Karl Albercht, a specialist in management and pioneer of the new service economy, has already said it, "excellence in service is only possible when the satisfaction of customer expectations has been exceeded."
General bibliography
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