Academic Integrity: tutoring, explanations, and feedback — we don’t complete graded work or submit on a student’s behalf.

Group Work Managerial Functions: Planning. Organizing, Leading, and Controlling

ID: 410461 • Letter: G

Question

Group Work Managerial Functions: Planning. Organizing, Leading, and Controlling Procter & Gamble (P&G;) is America's leading manufacturer of household products (Degen 2012). It was instituted by William Procter, an Irish candle manufacturer, who launched Procter & Gamble's operations in 1837 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The general emphasis of the firm is innovation in product development. It is the first manufacture to conduct direct sales in 1919 and is currently the largest product advertisers. It has over 250 brands of products in the world market. The firm's core values include leadership, people, ownership, integrity, trust, and passion for winning. Procter & Gamble has 24 products with more than $ 1 billion dollars in net sales. The purpose of this paper is to define and describe managerial functions and provides a brief summary of the activities in reference to the four managerial functions at Procter & Gamble. Strategic planning is the process by which organizations make plans and decisions that are focused on the long-range performance (Lewis, Goodman, Fanot & Mitchlitsch, 2007) Organizations perform this function through the use of a comprehensive strategic plan which is basically the general direction of the organization. Strategic planning is management process that is done in four phases strategic analysis, strategic formulation, implementation of strategy, and evaluation and control. These phases are linked so that there are avenues for feedback between any two phases. Strategic analysis involves the assessment of the organization's mission in relation to both the internal and external environments (SWOT analysis). Strategic formulation is the design of strategy and tactics; implementation is the daily routine operations while evaluation and control is the assessment of the routine operations to ensure that they are in line with the mission of the organization Organizational design is an important aspect of the organizing function. Organizational design is a plan for the arrangement and coordination of activities for the purpose of realizing its mission through achievement of goals and objectives. General design of an organization is determined by three dimensions: organizational structure, integrating mechanism and locus of decision making. Functional structure, divisional structure, matrix structure and network structure are the four forms of structure. Leadership is the social influence of processes in an organization. It is a process and a responsibility and not a title, position or privilege (Lewis, Goodman, Fanot&Mitchlitsch;, 2007). It is an observable, learnable and understandable skills and practices accessible to nyone, everywhere in the organization (Procter&Gamble;, 2012). It is the indirect ability to fluence people and inspire them to pursue activities that contribute to the achieveme e mission of the organization. Leadership process involves formulating organizationa sion, designing strategies for achieving vision and communicating strategies at all levels ganization so that it is clearly understood and adopted.

Explanation / Answer

Q1) Planning is one of the four managerial functions which involves defining goals and designing strategies to achieve the goals for short-term and long-term. It also involves determining the budget and resources to achieve the goals. Planning is done at organizational strategic level by the senior management.

Q2) Organizing is the process of distributing or allocating resources by assigning roles and responsibilities to them based on the action plan developed. It involves setting a clear direction for the employees to work towards the strategic objectives.

Different types of organizational designs include -

1. Functional structure - This design is centered around the basic functions of an organization which include purchasing, production, customer service, marketing, finance and accounting etc.

2. Project structure - This design is centered around independent project teams consisting of cross-functional team members working towards specific objectives and targets.

3. Matrix structure (mix of project and functional) - This is a mix of project and functional structures.

Q3) Leading is a managerial function which involves connecting and communicating with employees to motivate them towards achieving the objectives while ensuring any issues they face are resolved in time. It also involves helping the employees improve their productivity.

The three characteristics of leadership include -

1. Commitment towards the firm and its goals

2. Communication and interpersonal skills

3. Decision making capabilities

Q4) Controlling the one of the management functions which involves evaluating the results achieved by the firm to the goals set based on which the necessary corrective and controlling actions are taken in case of any deviations.

The different types of control used in managing organizations include -

1. Proactive control

2. Concurrent control

3. Feedback control

Q5) Each of the four management functions have different scopes and though they are used on a continuous basis, they occur at various stages of the firm's business starting with goal setting to course correcting, Hence, the functions are different from one another though there can be a overlap at times.