Business Organisations And Their Environments

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Business Organisations And Their Environments

Q1)

My situation at Abbey is that there is a management style changing to cope with internal pressures of expansion and development within departments to keep the performance of the company at it's peak, which is leading to performance pressures of individuals within the company like myself and will affect the way we work at the company as a whole as well as individuals themselves.

The responsibility placed on management is to organise, direct, motivate and control their resources for the overall effective benefit of the organisation. In order to control, we need information on what is happening (principle of feed-back) and a previously prepared plan of what Abbey intend doing. Abbey compares information on events occurring against the plan and then they decide what action to take to maintain or re-direct performance to plan. A decision can then be taken. When may events occur, a need for processing a high volume of data results? Abbey must have tight control; data on events must be processed quickly to provide information for appraisal, the longer the delay, the longer the operation may be out of control. Thus we have a rapid processing of a high volume of data to provide information. This can only be done effectively using computer based systems. Management require information to support them in decision-making. Change is occurring even more rapidly due to new materials, new manufacturing methods, new products, market pressure and etc. Management are faced with the challenge of trying to exercise control in circumstances which may be completely new or about which there is little known knowledge. Abbey, therefore need help from tools such as modelling to support them in trying to understand the nature of problems and possible actions to take. Such help and support is provided by suitably designed computerised information systems, to handle the volume of transactions rapidly, economically and accurately and provide right information in the right format at the right time to support decisions (or take decisions based on formalised decisions rules). The net effect of such system should be to reduce uncertainty and increase predictably and therefore, give more effective control. This should be the objective of all information systems.

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Internal Pressures of lack of motivation within the company, where the manager has to take charge of the situation and try to resolve it as efficiently as possible to reduce the long term damage this could do to the company internally, For example if many teams are not having the right team spirit between themselves then them managers must be told. This is because it is not just affecting the teams, it is affecting the entire Abbey. This is because if people in the team are not communicating with each other then they cannot solve problems or enquiries of customers. This is because if a colleague has a customer who makes a specific enquiry and the member o staff does not know that answer or information to the enquiry then he/she could ask the team members, but in this case he/she cant because the team members are not speaking to each other. So in this case it could affect customers because wrong information could be given to them. If the customers find out that the wrong information has been given to them then they might leave Abbey and go to one of its competitors like Abbey because the customers will be thinking that Abbey are not professional enough to deal with them. So because of one team not speaking (communicating) to each other it affects the entire Abbey.

Q2)

My situation at Abbey is that there is a management style changing to cope with external pressures of expansion and development to dominate competition, which is leading to performance pressures of individuals within the company like myself and will affect the way we work at the company as a whole as well as individuals.

The main internal pressure within Abbey National is expansion of areas and departments within the company itself. Therefore the management techniques and control of the organisation is changing in order for the manager to adapt to the situation in hand because more workers are being employed, increase in the amount of workload and most importantly more responsibility for the manager in the workload they have to cope with.

There are many styles of management to adapt to the situation but the one, which Abbey think is the best on is the Democratic Management style. Abbey has many teams in their company so they would like the manager’s team to make the decisions and then the feedback of the decisions should go to the manager. This will mean that the team will b held liable for the decisions that it decides to make. The manager will need to have a good overall understanding of the decisions that are being made. Abbey has confidence in the team manager’s teams that they will use the responsibility given to them wisely.

Abbey have tried many management styles to cope with this demand but they weren't as successful as a Democratic Management which the company eventually incorporated.

Abbey tried a Consultative Management style approach but did not prefer this type of management style because it takes a lot of time to make a final decision. This is because the manager in this style would prefer to ask other colleagues questions and from them results he/she would make a final decision. If Abbey did follow the Consultative management style then inside the organisation there would be a series of mechanisms like newsletters, suggestion boxes, team briefings and other mechanisms. This makes it easier for the manager because it gives him/her the fell of the concerns of other people involved in the decisions-making process, as well as draw on their expertise.

Abbey also tried an Autocratic management style but this management style did not work either for the company. This management style was suited and used by many organisations, but now they either follow the Consultative style or the Democratic Management style. This style was adapted by Abbey where the manager tells his workers what to do and when to do it rather than asking them for any opinions on how the task should be done. This is like stamping the authority that I am the manager in charge of you so you do what I say you do. This makes the manager at Abbey the only person making the decisions whereas the Consultative everybody was working in a team and they were all contributing to the decisions –making process.

Abbey changed their management style to Democratic management style after hard work and grafting by the company and with that they learnt to cope with the internal pressures of the company and adapted themselves to the competition of other banks across the U.K.

Q3)

The interrelationship between business organisations and their environments is a key part and aspect for the company to consider to become successful within the banking market especially with the credit crunch in place.

The functions of management within the company itself will be one of the key factors to the company's success and it's relationship with the environment. The key management functions I concluded from the different management styles the company has adapted and how it's affected it's performances as well how the company is doing compared to the market is divided into planning, organising, command, co-ordination and control.

Organising will involve ensuring that plans are carried out. People must be given responsibility for different functions of the business. Everybody must know who is responsible for making decisions and ensuring adequate supplies of materials, labour and equipment. In larger businesses these functions are usually split between departments.

Planning Management must decide upon the objectives of the business and how these will be carried out. Decisions must be made about matters such as which goods and services will be produced, where the firm will locate and how it will market its products.

Command in Managers must ensure that employees work towards the companies’ objectives. The word “motivation” is more commonly used nowadays because it is generally believed that workers are more efficient if they are involved in their work rather than simply being told what to do.

C0-ordination Within businesses, particularly larger firms, workers may have different objectives and priorities. If they are not co-ordinated to work together, problems may occur. For example, a machine may be the cause for complaints from customers. This may be because of production problems such as bad deigns or defective parts, or because sales staff are exaggerating what it can do whatever the cause, management must ensure that the problem is solved by getting production and sales staff to work with each other.

These are the main factors which I have analysed when looking at the management and control that has taken part in this company which has affected it's performance related to the success of the business through the environmentally competitive market.

Word Count = 1500

References

The B201 course team (2008) B201 Business organisations and their environments, Milton Keynes, The Open University.

Provide an introduction identifying the perspective you are going to use and briefly define some of the key elements in that perspective

This would have been a good place to refer some of the main theorists in this field such as Fayol or Mintzberg

Simon’s diagnostic control model would be a helpful way of explaining the situation in which managers must assess as s situation and decide what areas are priorities for action

What are the causes of this lack of motivation? Poor management? Low pay? Lack of training or opportunities for promotion.

You have discussed a number of problems or potential problems within Abbey but there was no attempt to introduce a theoretical perspective into your answer.

This question asks you to focus on external pressures

Define this term and give a reference to the source on which it is based

Abbey seems to have tried a range of alternative approaches which does not seem to be a well-informed strategy to pursue

This issue required much more discussion as do other external pressures – you could have used the PESTLE model to help you identify and discuss a range of issues

Are these centralised responsibilities or delegated in some way – how do managers execute these functions?

There was not much personal reflection in this answer – you were being asked to explore how the management and control perspective has helped to develop your understanding of organisations