Tag: Objectives

What is the Concept of Career Planning?
Concept of Career Planning; Career is viewed as a bunch or collection of jobs or positions. Generally, it describes an applicable career path within the structure of the organization. It shows the principal personnel development paths within the organization. The etymology of the term derived from the Latin word career, which means race. All the jobs, that are held together during one’s working life, constitute the career. It is also viewed as the sequence of positions held by an individual during his employment life. Edwin B. Flippo defined a career, as a sequence of separate but related work activities that provide continuity, order, and meaning in a person’s life.

The Concept of Career Planning: Definition, Objectives, Process, and Benefits.

A career may be viewed as the amalgamation of the changes in values, attitudes, and motivation an individual embraces, as he or she grows older. This constitutes a subjective element of the concept “career”.

Concept And Meaning Of Career planning:

Career planning is a process by which one selects career goals and the path to those goals. It involves a clear selection of career goals and career paths.
- Career goals: Career goals are the desired future positions an employee strives to reach as a part of the career.
- Career path: Career path is the sequential pattern of jobs during a career. It can cover 30 years or more until the retirement of the employee. It takes a long-term perspective of the job.
Career planning is a continuous process. HRM should facilitate it by providing career education, information, and counseling to employees for career planning purposes.
1. Career education: Career education increased employee awareness about career planning through a variety of educational techniques, such as:
- Workshops and seminars about career planning
- Memoranda and position papers about career planning
- Speeches about career planning
1. Career information: Career information provides information to employees about career planning. Such information can be available through Human Resource Information System. HR specialists can advise about career goals and alternative career paths.
2. Career counseling: Career counseling is done by professional counselors. They listen to employees and provide job-related information. They help employees to uncover their career interests. Employee self-assessment and environmental assessment are made during career counseling. Roles of HR Management in Organizations on Difficult Times. What is the concept of career planning?
Definitions of Career Planning:

A career may be defined as,

“A sequence of jobs that constitute what a person does for a living.”

According to Schermerborn, Hunt, and Osborn,

“Career planning is a process of systematically matching career goals and individual capabilities with opportunities for their fulfillment.”

Career planning is the process of enhancing an employee’s future value.

A career plan is an individual’s choice of occupation, organization and career path.

Career planning encourages individuals to explore and gather information, which enables them to synthesize, gain competencies, make decisions, set goals and take action. It is a crucial phase of human resource development that helps the employees in making the strategy for work-life balance. New Roles of Human Resource Management in Business Development.

Features of Career Planning and Career Development:
1. It is an ongoing process.
2. It helps individuals develop the skills required to fulfill different career roles.
3. Strengthens work-related activities in the organization.
4. Defines the life, career, abilities, and interests of the employees.
5. It can also give professional directions, as they relate to career goals.
Objectives of Career Planning:

The major objectives of career planning are as follows:
1. To identify the positive characteristics of the employees.
2. Develop awareness about each employee’s uniqueness.
3. To respect the feelings of other employees.
4. Attract talented employees to the organization.
5. To train employees towards team-building skills.
6. To create healthy ways of dealing with conflicts, emotions, and stress.
Benefits of Career Planning:
1. Career planning ensures a constant supply of promotable employees.
2. It helps in improving the loyalty of employees.
3. Career planning encourages an employee’s growth and development.
4. Discourages the negative attitude of superiors who interest in suppressing the growth of the subordinates.
5. It ensures that senior management knows about the caliber and capacity of the employees who can move upwards.
6. It can always create a team of employees prepared enough to meet any contingency.
7. Career planning reduces labor turnover.
8. Every organization prepares succession planning towards which career planning is the first step.
Career planning is the process by which one selects career goals and the path to these goals. The major focus of career planning is on assisting the employees to achieve a better match between personal goals and the opportunities that are realistically available in the organization. Career programs should not concentrate only on career growth opportunities. Practically speaking, there may not be enough high-level positions to make upward mobility a reality for a large number of employees. Hence, career-planning efforts need to pinpoint and highlight those areas that offer psychological success instead of vertical growth.

Career planning is not an event or end in itself, but a continuous process of developing human resources for achieving optimum results. It must, however, note that individual and organizational careers are not separate and distinct. A person who is not able to translate his career plan into action within the organization may probably quit the job if he has a choice.

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December 23, 2017
What are Objectives of Financial Management?
What are Objectives of Financial Management? with Describe Definition, Meaning, Nature and Scope!

Financial management is one of the functional areas of business. Therefore, its objectives must be consistent with the overall objectives of the business. The overall objective of financial management is to provide maximum return to the owners on their investment in the long- term. This is known as wealth maximization. Maximization of owners’ wealth is possible when the capital invested initially increases over a period of time. Wealth maximization means maximizing the market value of investment in shares of the company. Also learn, Definition with What are Objectives of Financial Management?

What are objectives of financial management? from Nageshwar Das

Financial Management means planning, organizing, directing and controlling the financial activities such as procurement and utilization of funds of the enterprise. It means applying general management principles to financial resources of the enterprise. In simple terms objective of Financial Management is to maximize the value of the firm, however, it is much more complex than that. The management of the firm involves many stakeholders, including owners, creditors, and various participants in the financial market.

Effective procurement and efficient use of finance lead to proper utilization of the finance by the business concern. It is the essential part of the financial manager. Hence, the financial manager must determine the basic objectives of the financial management. How to Explain Nature and Scope of Financial Management?

Objectives of Financial Management explain to the Simple point
- Profit maximization happens when marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue. This is the main objective of Financial Management.
- Wealth maximization means maximization of shareholders’ wealth. It is an advance goal compare to profit maximization.
- Survival of company is an important consideration when the financial manager makes any financial decisions. One incorrect decision may lead the company to be bankrupt.
- Maintaining proper cash flow is a short run objective of financial management. It is necessary for operations to pay the day-to-day expenses e.g. raw material, electricity bills, wages, rent etc. A good cash flow ensures the survival of the company.
- Minimization on capital cost in financial management can help operations gain more profit.
- It is vague:- There are several types of profits before interest, depreciation and taxes, profit before taxes, profit after taxes, cash profit etc.
December 19, 2017
Components of a Strategy Statement

What are Components of a Strategy Statement?

The strategy statement of a firm sets the firm’s long-term strategic direction and broad policy directions. It gives the firm a clear sense of direction and a blueprint for the firm’s activities for the upcoming years. The main constituents of a strategic statement are as follows:

Strategic Intent

An organization’s strategic intent is the purpose that it exists and why it will continue to exist, providing it maintains a competitive advantage. Strategic intent gives a picture of what an organization must get into immediately in order to achieve the company’s vision. It motivates the people. It clarifies the vision of the vision of the company.

Strategic intent helps management to emphasize and concentrate on the priorities. Strategic intent is, nothing but, the influencing of an organization’s resource potential and core competencies to achieve what at first may seem to be unachievable goals in the competitive environment. A well expressed strategic intent should guide/steer the development of strategic intent or the setting of goals and objectives that require that all of the organization’s competencies be controlled to a maximum value.

Strategic intent includes directing organization’s attention on the need of winning; inspiring people by telling them that the targets are valuable; encouraging individual and team participation as well as the contribution, and utilizing intent to direct allocation of resources.

Strategic intent differs from strategic fit in a way that while strategic fit deals with harmonizing available resources and potentials to the external environment, strategic intent emphasizes on building new resources and potentials so as to create and exploit future opportunities.

Vision Statement

A vision statement identifies where the organization wants or intends to be in future or where it should be to best meet the needs of the stakeholders. It describes dreams and aspirations for future. For instance, Microsoft’s vision is “to empower people through great software, any time, any place, or any device.” Wal-Mart’s vision is to become the worldwide leader in retailing.

A vision is the potential to view things ahead of themselves. It answers the question “where we want to be”. It gives us a reminder about what we attempt to develop. A vision statement is for the organization and its members, unlike the mission statement which is for the customers/clients. It contributes to effective decision-making as well as effective business planning. It incorporates a shared understanding about the nature and aim of the organization and utilizes this understanding to direct and guide the organization towards a better purpose. It describes that on achieving the mission, how the organizational future would appear to be.

Mission Statement

The mission statement is the statement of the role by which an organization intends to serve its stakeholders. It describes why an organization is operating and thus provides a framework within which strategies are formulated. It describes what the organization does (i.e., present capabilities), who all it serves (i.e., stakeholders) and what makes an organization unique (i.e., the reason for existence).

A mission statement differentiates an organization from others by explaining its broad scope of activities, its products, and technologies it uses to achieve its goals and objectives. It talks about an organization’s present (i.e., “about where we are”). For instance, Microsoft’s mission is to help people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential. Wal-Mart’s mission is “To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same thing as rich people.” Mission statements always exist at the top level of an organization, but may also be made at various organizational levels. Chief executive plays a significant role in the formulation of a mission statement. Once the mission statement is formulated, it serves the organization in long run, but it may become ambiguous with organizational growth and innovations.

In today’s dynamic and competitive environment, the mission may need to be redefined. However, care must be taken that the redefined mission statement should have original fundamentals/components. The mission statement has three main components a statement of mission or vision of the company, a statement of the core values that shape the acts and behavior of the employees, and a statement of the goals and objectives.

Goals and Objectives

A goal is a desired future state or objective that an organization tries to achieve. Goals specify in particular what must be done if an organization is to attain mission or vision. Goals make the mission more prominent and concrete. They coordinate and integrate various functional and departmental areas in an organization.

Objectives: Objective, in general, indicates a place where you want to reach. In organizational literature, it means the aim which an organization tries to achieve. Objectives are generally in plural form. Objectives are predetermined; they provide clear direction to the activities and results to be obtained from the planning process. Objectives must be SMART (Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely). Objectives must be clearly defined so that the works become goal-oriented and the unproductive and unsystematic tasks can be avoided.

Goals: A Goal is simply something that somebody wants to achieve. The synonyms of goal are aim, ambition, purpose, target and objective. Simply speaking, goal refers to the purpose towards which the efforts are made or endeavors are directed. A goal has a time-frame which is generally long term. So, it’s a long term plan.

At this stage, it is important to differentiate between the terms objective and goal, because the words, objective and goals seem to be synonymous, but, in fact, they are not. It does not matter much which word you call goal and which word you call objective if you are consistent in your own use and understand its relevance or applicability. However, if there are words in English that are confusing, especially to the students, objective and goal are the ones among them. It’s, therefore, important to understand them so as to avoid the confusion.

When you have something you want to accomplish, it is important to set both goals and objectives. Once you learn the difference between goals and objectives, you will realize that how important it is that you have both of them. Goals without objectives can never be accomplished while objectives without goals will never get you to where you want to be. The two concepts are separate but related and will help you to be who you want to be.

April 19, 2017
What is Strategic Management? Meaning and Definition

What is Strategic Management? Strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by a company’s top management on behalf of owners, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization competes. Strategic management can also define as a bundle of decisions and acts which a manager undertakes and which decides the result of the firm’s performance.

Here explains read and learn; What is Strategic Management? Meaning and Definition.

Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise and involves specifying the organization’s objectives, developing policies and plans designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision making in the context of complex environments and competitive dynamics. Strategic management is not static; the models often include a feedback loop to monitor execution and inform the next round of planning.

Michael Porter identifies three principles underlying strategy: creating a “unique and valuable market position”, making trade-offs by choosing “what not to do”, and creating “fit” by aligning company activities with one another to support the chosen strategy. Dr. Vladimir Kvint defines strategy as “a system of finding, formulating, and developing a doctrine that will ensure long-term success if followed faithfully.”

The corporate strategy involves answering a key question from a portfolio perspective: “What business should we be in?” Business strategy involves answering the question: “How shall we compete in this business?” In management theory and practice, a further distinction is often made between strategic management and operational management. Operational management is concerned primarily with improving efficiency and controlling costs within the boundaries set by the organization’s strategy.

Definition of Strategic Management:

Strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by a company’s top management on behalf of owners, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization competes.

The strategy is defined as;

“The determination of the basic long-term goals of an enterprise, and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals.”

Strategies are established to set direction, focus effort, define or clarify the organization, and provide consistency or guidance in response to the environment. As well as, Strategic management involves the related concepts of strategic planning and strategic thinking. It is analytical and refers to formalized procedures to produce the data and analyses used as inputs for strategic thinking; which synthesizes the data resulting in the strategy. Strategic planning may also refer to control mechanisms used to implement the strategy once it determines.

In other words, strategic planning happens around strategic thinking or strategy making activity. Strategic management often describes as involving two major processes: formulation and implementation of a strategy. While described sequentially below, in practice the two processes are iterative and each provides input for the other. Also, Strategic Management is all about identification and description of the strategies; that managers can carry to achieve better performance and a competitive advantage for their organization. An organization is said to have a competitive advantage if its profitability is higher than the average profitability of all companies in its industry.

Explanation;

The manager must have a thorough knowledge and analysis of the general and competitive organizational environment to make the right decisions. They should conduct a SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats), i.e., they should make the best possible utilization of strengths, minimize the organizational weaknesses, make use of arising opportunities from the business environment and shouldn’t ignore the threats.

Strategic management is nothing but planning for both predictable as well as unfeasible contingencies. It applies to both small as well as large organizations as even the smallest organization faces competition; and, by formulating and implementing appropriate strategies; they can attain sustainable competitive advantage.

It is a way in which strategists set the objectives and proceed about attaining them. It deals with making and implementing decisions about the future direction of an organization. They help us to identify the direction in which an organization is moving.

Strategic management is a continuous process that evaluates and controls the business and the industries in which an organization involve; evaluates its competitors and sets goals and strategies to meet all existing and potential competitors; and then reevaluates strategies regularly to determine how it has been implemented and whether it was successful or does it needs replacement.

What is Strategic Management? Meaning and Definition.

More things;

Strategic Management gives a broader perspective to the employees of an organization; and, they can better understand how their job fits into the entire organizational plan; how it co-relate to other organizational members. It is nothing but the art of managing employees in a manner that maximizes the ability to achieve business objectives. The employees become more trustworthy, more committed and satisfied; as they can co-relate themselves very well with each organizational task.

They can understand the reaction of environmental changes in the organization; and, the probable response of the organization with the help of strategic management. Thus the employees can judge the impact of such changes on their job and can effectively face the changes. Also, the managers and employees must appropriately do appropriate things. They need to be both effective as well as efficient.

April 19, 2017
Strategy

What is Strategy?

A method or plan has chosen to bring about the desired future, such as achievement of a goal or solution to a problem.

The art and science of planning and marshaling resources for their most efficient and effective use. The term is derived from the Greek word for generalship or leading an army. See also tactics.

A strategy is a high-level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the “art of the general”, which included several subsets of skills including “tactics”, siege craft, logistics etc., the term came into use in the 6th century C.E. in East Roman terminology and was translated into Western vernacular languages only in the 18th century. From then until the 20th century, the word “strategy” came to denote “a comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills” in a military conflict, in which both adversaries interact.

Companies now face increasingly turbulent, complex and threatening environments. In the past, they could succeed by focusing virtually all management efforts on running their day to day affairs as efficiently as possible. Although such focusing is still important, adapting the firms to changing environmental conditions have become an essential gradient for success.

The strategic management perspective highlights the significance of devoting more attention to analyzing environments and formulating strategies that relate directly to environmental changes. The ultimate purpose of strategic management is to help the organization increase its performance through increased effectiveness, efficiency, and flexibility.

A strategy is a way of doing something. It usually includes the formulation of an objective and a set of action plans for the accomplishment of the objective.

Strategic management may be understood as the process of formulating, implementing and evaluating business strategies to achieve organizational objectives. It is a set of managerial decisions and actions that determine the long-term performance of a corporation. It involves environmental scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, evaluation, and control.

The study of strategic management emphasizes on monitoring and evaluating environmental opportunities and threats in the light of corporation’s strengths and weaknesses.

Step 01: Analyze opportunities and threats or constraints that exist in the external environment.

Step 02: Formulate strategies that will match the organization’s strengths and weaknesses with opportunities and threats or constraints that exist in the external environment.

Step 03: Implement the strategies.

Step 04: Evaluate and control activities to ensure that organizations objectives are achieved.

It is important because the resources available to achieve these goals are usually limited. Generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). This is generally tasked with determining strategy. The strategy can be intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to its environment or competes. It involves activities such as strategic planning and strategic thinking.

Henry Mintzberg from McGill University defined strategy as a pattern in a stream of decisions to contrast with a view of strategy as planning, while Max McKeown (2011) argues that “strategy is about shaping the future” and is the human attempt to get to “desirable ends with available means.” Dr. Vladimir Kvint defines strategy as “a system of finding, formulating, and developing a doctrine that will ensure long-term success if followed faithfully.”

Many Definitions of Strategy

In 1988, Henry Mintzberg described the many different definitions and perspectives on strategy reflected in both academic research and in practice. He examined the strategic process and concluded it was much more fluid and unpredictable than people had thought. Because of this, he could not point to one process that could be called strategic planning. Instead, Mintzberg concludes that there are five types of strategies:

As plan: A directed course of action to achieve an intended set of goals; similar to the strategic planning concept.

As pattern: A consistent pattern of past behavior, with a strategy realized over time rather than planned or intended. Where the realized pattern was different from the intent, he referred to the strategy as emergent.

As position: Locating brands, products, or companies within the market, based on the conceptual framework of consumers or other stakeholders; a strategy determined primarily by factors outside the firm.

As ploy: A specific maneuver intended to outwit a competitor; and

As perspective: Executing strategy based on a “theory of the business” or natural extension of the mindset or ideological perspective of the organization.

In 1998, Mintzberg developed these five types of management strategy into 10 “schools of thought” and grouped them into three categories. The first group is normative. It consists of the schools of informal design and conception, the formal planning, and analytical positioning. The second group, consisting of six schools, is more concerned with how strategic management is actually done, rather than prescribing optimal plans or positions. The six schools are entrepreneurial, visionary, cognitive, learning/adaptive/emergent, negotiation, corporate culture and business environment. The third and final group consists of one school, the configuration or transformation school, a hybrid of the other schools organized into stages, organizational life cycles, or “episodes”.

Michael Porter defined strategy in 1980 as the “Broad formula for how a business is going to compete, what its goals should be, and what policies will be needed to carry out those goals” and the “Combination of the ends (goals) for which the firm is striving and the means (policies) by which it is seeking to get there.” He continued that: “The essence of formulating the competitive strategy is relating a company to its environment.”

April 19, 2017