Management is a process in a way. The management process involves repeating traditional functions to achieve business objectives. The term process means" a circle of events. It starts at a point, ends, and begins at the first point.
Explaining management as a process
The traditional functions are planning, organising, directing, and controlling humans and other resources. The management process begins from the planning stage and continues to the last function which is controlling. Then it begins with planning and so on.
This process makes it easy to manage resources most efficiently and effectively. Managers during planning decide on their objectives and goals. Then a plan is prepared in the form of a forecast and a budget to meet the goals and objectives respectively.
Next, business resources (human, material, machine, and finance) need to be organised and coordinated. Here the efforts of the resources are made to align with the objectives and goals of the entity.
After this, management will direct the resources toward the attainment of the goals. Direction includes ensuring that the right skills are used at the right time. If humans as a resource lack the needed skill, the manager may decide to train them or employ people with the skill. When machines are faulty, a replacement or a major repair can be done if it is feasible.
The final management process is controlling. By controlling we mean evaluating actual performance against plans. Recall that the first process is planning, followed by organising and directing. Managerial control evaluates whether the actual task is in alignment with the budget and forecast.
A difference between them is referred to as variance. Controlling means that the manager will have to examine the causes of the variance and take corrective actions to prevent them in the next process.
Why is management as a process important
If the management team complies with the management as a process, then the following benefits will be ensured
Aligning the company's goal with the individual’s
When managers follow management as a process, they can align the company's goals with employees’ efforts. Each staff member has personal career goals they want to achieve. Therefore, managers need to observe these. Then align them with management objectives.
Reducing the cost of output
When a particular process is used often it becomes unique to the organisation. As a result, it will be easy for managers to reduce the cost of output while maintaining high quality.
Aids problem-solving
The management team can easily go back to the drawing board, to see where there are issues and solve them accordingly.
Ensure proper planning and monitoring
Of course, management as a process ensures proper planning of resources. Then, it evaluates the planned goal against the actual goal. After taking corrective actions with regard to the variance, monitoring is done to ensure that such variance does not arise again.