Journal Of Business Economics Management: Function And Effectiveness

Discuss About The Journal Of Business Economics Management.

Management is the processes of setting strategies for the organization through coordination of employee efforts and resources to achieve the desired goals.  Every organization exists on a set of objectives that have to be fulfilled to achieve sustainability of the organization. This is thus the process through which management gets activities done by linking the efforts of different departments within the organization. From the case study, the First Abraham’s Grocery Store has several stores that need to be managed to achieve the best results from each store (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, & Cardy, 2008). This essay analyses the case of the grocery store by focusing functions of management, a management approach that meets the needs of the store and how effectiveness and efficiency can be achieved in the grocery.

The process of management requires strategic thinking to align the organization in the desired direction. In management of the First Abraham’s Grocery Store grocery store, the following functions of management are used, planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Planning entails mapping out the steps that will be used to achieve grocery stores. Since the grocery has several outlets that work together and have to be organized then it means that management has to plan for all the stores and align them to the main office (Yukl, 2010). The activities that take place in the grocery store need to be executed in a way that focusses on achieving organizational goals. This process focusses on identifying the tasks required to achieve the desired goals and outlining how the tasks are performed and who needs to perform them. For example, in the case study, the role of planning to achieve the effectiveness of the grocery store and ensure customer satisfaction. This means that planning entails developing steps on how the activities in the organization will be achieved for business effectiveness (Bass, 2008). For example, since the grocery is known for quality meat and vegetables, plans that are put in place must address quality and future effectiveness of the grocery.

Schoemaker, Krupp, & Howland (2013) suggests that the organizing function is structuring, integrating and coordination of tasks within the organization to achieve the desired objectives. Through harmonizing the individual goals of employees towards organizational goals, organizing ensures that plans are executed to yield the expected results. This means that individuals are grouped together in different groups that are identified with the tasks assigned to these employees. For example, the grocery runs stores in four regions with 12 to 13 stores in each regions. Then the stores are managed by managers who ensure that employees carry out the tasks as expected. In each objective set, there are activities that fall within that line which require the input of employees. Such employees will be organized into such groups to ensure that the planned goals are achieved. Therefore, this function defines the role positions, jobs and coordination between different individuals in the organization. This is thus ways through which plans are achieved. To achieve plans well in the grocery store, there must be identification and grouping of work to be performed, defining the responsibility of each position, establishing of relationships positions and developing rules and regulations for employees to follow.

Planning

Leading is the process of influencing others to attain organizational goals. This means that the manager must make decisions that regard the issues that the organization is facing and at the same time communicate the decisions effectively for other to implement (Fairholm, 2009). The Grocery store has several stores that are managed by regional managers and stores managers. Each of the managers has the role of ensuring that the intended objectives of the store are achieved. This means that the leader has to coordinate the efforts of the area of command and ensure that teams achieve the desired goals. By leading, the different managers organize employees and ensure that organizational plans are achieved in the desired way. The role of the leader therefore is to identify organizational requirements and put proper strategies to ensure that employees are coordinated to achieve the desired plans.

The controlling function of management is used to check errors and take corrective action to ensure that the business processes stay on course to achieve the desired goals. This is the ability of managers to foresee problems in the organization and put mechanisms in place for controlling. This entails setting standards, measuring performance and correcting any deviations to achieve the intended goals (McNamara, 2009). For example, when plans are set and their objectives determined, then organizing and leading functions are used to ensure that the plans are running as expected. For example, in the case study, the store manager could foresee challenges in the sales of meat and decide to promote sales by use of coke products. This focusses on mitigation mechanisms to put everything in order.

The best management approach that suits the Grocery Store is Weber's bureaucratic approach where the organization is organized in a chain of hierarchy from top to bottom (Olsen, 2008). Each of the level of management has powers that increase as you go up the ladder. This is seen in the case where there is the main team of Bill and Doris and then a chain of 200 stores that are organized in four regions with each region having a management span of fifty stores. Then within each region there are four district consisting of twelve to thirteen stores each. Further, the store are divided into functional units of meat, grocery and produce who report directly to the district coordinator. This chain of bureaucracy allows each unit to function independently but report to a higher authority above it.

Organizing

Koybasi, Ugurlu, & Bakir (2017) suggests that the role of this structure is the specification of goals and formalization of organizational processes to avoid overlap. In this system, employees are required to be specialized in any three area of meat, grocery or produce where they work and report to the unit leader who reports to the district coordinator as the chain of command ascends up the ladder. However, the positions are impersonal and the decisions that leaders make in the grocery store are based on existing rules and policies rather than personal interests. The advantage of this system is that it offers specific goals and formalization. The role of goal specialization is to have specific guidelines for completion of tasks based on the allocated resources and the require timeframe. For the grocery store, efficiency is a value of quality management that ensures the grocery supplies the required quality of products for its customers.

Efficiency in an organization is seen in the relationship between inputs and outputs to denote how well an organization uses its profits while effectiveness is the ability of the organization to achieve the desired goals by performing at an optimal level (Jalham & Abdelkader, 2006).  Effectiveness can thus be measured from the relationship between employee performance and company profits.  The success of a leader is the ability to use effectiveness to achieve efficiency. The best way to achieve organizational efficiency and effectiveness is to work with human resources and tailor them to organizational goals. Through training and development, management can institute efficiency and effectiveness in employees by empowering them with skills for managing organizational processes to meet the required goals (Godwin, Handsome, Ayomide, Enobong, & Johnson, 2017). Since what matters is optimal performance, then it means that the best way to achieve this is through empowering employees with the resources that make them more effective and efficient.

The second way to create effectiveness in First Groceries is the use of quality management strategies as a way of ensuring that the products meet the needs of the customer. Since all business processes focus on the customers, quality management can be used to achieve the above concepts to ensure that the organization achieves efficiency and effectiveness in its business processes (Becker & Glascoff, 2014). Quality management focusses on product processes to ensure that they meet the required standards, by applying total quality management in all business processes, it becomes easy to increase efficiency and effectiveness since service quality and customer satisfaction are improved which makes it easy for them to satisfy customer needs.

Leading

Lastly, coordination between different departments and levels of the organization can be used to increase efficiency. Despite the nature of the organization, management needs to ensure there is proper coordination between different departments in each store for effectiveness (Lisinski & Saruckij, 2006). Each store needs to have an overall manager rather than having each unit manager reporting to the district manager. This will increase coordination of activities between unit leaders thus increasing effectiveness at work.

Conclusion

The major challenge that First Abraham Grocery Store has been facing is the coordination of activities within a single unit rather than the whole organization. Most activities in the grocery take place at the unit level, which means that coordination needs to be concentrated at the single store level to achieve effectiveness and efficiency which will lead to increased business benefits like customer satisfaction, service quality and improved profits. Overall store manager position needs to be established to ensure that activities are coordinated well to reduce tension among the three unit leaders.

References

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