Describe budget and other tools for financial controls?

A budget is actually a plan that is illustrated in time, units of output, dollars, and other quantifiable factors. A method for the measurement of performance over different units is offered by budget in an organization. There are four basic objectives of budgets: enabling companies to measure the performance of units and managers, offering precise guidelines about the expectations and resources of the company, simplify the standards of control, and assist managers in coordinating projects and resources. There are three types of budgets;

The financial budget shows the utilization of cash and sources, operation budget shows just what quantities of services or products, the organization tend to make and what resources will be used, and non-monetary budget shows planned functions with respect to non-financial terms.

Some other tools financial control includes financial audits, ration analysis, and financial statements.

Financial audits are actually the independent appraisals of the administrative, financial, and accounting processes of an organization. External audits are carried out by external experts and internal audits are carried out by workers. Meanwhile, rational analysis is the measurement or calculation of financial rations for assessing some aspects of an organization’s financial ratios. A financial statement is the profile of some specific aspects of a company’s financial condition (Drucker, 2012).

Identify and distinguish between the two opposing forms of structural controls?

            It can be said that structural control seems to monitor just how an organization’s building blocks are functioning together. It also checks whether their performance is up to the standard.

            There are two types of structural control which are opposite to each other as they have different levels of participation, reward systems, organization designs, performance expectations, degrees of formality, and different goals. They are Bureaucratic control and Decentralized control.

            Bureaucratic control is actually a way towards the organization design which is classified by mechanistic and formal structural arrangements. Just like the term tells, bureaucratic model is followed by it. And its goal is the compliance of goals. Organizations using it depend on some strict rules and it insists that workers meet the acceptable levels of standards minimally. In addition, they concentrate their rewards on some individual performances and permit only formal and limited participation of workers.

            In contrast, decentralized control is simply a way towards the organizational control which is classified by organization and informal structural arrangements. The objective is the commitment of employees to the company. It depends heavily on powerful corporate culture and group norms while giving workers, the responsibility for controlling themselves. It encourages workers to perform over the acceptable levels which are minimum. Rewards are directed by them at the performance of group and seem to favor the broad participation of employees. Companies using it are comparatively fat (Griffin, 2013).

Identify and explain the three forms of operational control?

            It can be said that operational control concentrates on the procedures which are used for transforming resources into services or products. Many organizations use several control systems that combine all three types of control including postaction control, screening control, and preliminary control.

Preliminary control is also referred as feedforward control or steering control which focuses on the organization’s resources which are brought from the environment. It has the objective of monitoring the quantity or quality of such resources before they enter the company. It is more or less the primary check that ensures resources are up the chosen standards.

Screening control is also referred as concurrent control or yes/no control. It has the objective of focusing on meeting the selected standards for the service or product quantity or quality during the process of transformation. Furthermore, screening control depends on the processes of feedback. For instance, when quality measures are taken for providing feedback to employees developing a product, they become aware of the corrective actions that they must take.

Post action control is referred as feedback control and concentrate on the results of an organization after the completion of process of transformation. Even though the control of post action if used alone might not be that effective, it can still offer information to management for future planning.

Explain the purpose of control, identify different types of control, and describe the steps in the control; process?

            Controlling actually includes the verification of whether everything occurring in conformities with the strategy are efficiently adopted, principles are established, and instructions are issued. It can be said that controlling makes sure that there is efficient and effective utilization of resources of an organization so to obtain the goals which are planned. In addition, it evaluates the variation of actual performance from the performance which is standard and discovers the causes which have caused this deviation before helping in taking the right actions. There are three types of control which include feedback control that involves the collection of information about a completed task, concurrent control which checks issues and evaluates them for taking corrective actions, and predictive control which helps in foreseeing an issue which has yet to occur.

            In the process of controlling, there are four steps. The very first step is about the establishment of standards in which targets are set which must be achieved. Evaluation of the actual performance is the second step and includes the measurement of performance of an individual against the adjusted target. In the third step, the actual performance is compared with the standard that has been set and checks the difference between the performance and standard. The last step is all about taking actions which are corrective and it might be carried out by a manager.

Discuss the relationship between control and strategy?

            Controlling and making strategies are two separate and different functions of management but they are related to each other. It can be said that in the scope of activities, they are overlapping. In the absence of strategies, the activities of controlling are baseless and in the absence of controlling, not even a single purpose can be fulfilled. That is why, controlling and planning are reinforcing each other. The relationship between controlling and strategies can be summarized as:

·         Controlling is proceeded by planning and planning is succeeded by controlling.

·         Controlling and planning are the functions which cannot be separated.

·         Planning puts activities on rails and they are actually kept precisely through only controlling.

·         The processes of controlling and strategies work on the System Approach.

·         Controlling and planning are an organization’s integral parts as both are smooth and important for running a business.

·         Controlling and strategy making always are reinforcing each other.

Identify characteristics of effective control, why people resist control, and how managers can overcome this resistance?

Accuracy: Accurate information and data are generated by an effective control and accurate information is very important for proper managerial decisions.

Timelieness: there are various issues that need immediate focus. If the data regarding such issues doesn’t reach management quickly, then such type of information might be useless.

Flexibility: The economic and business environment is highly dynamic when it comes to nature. Changes in the environment illustrate the requirement for flexibility in control and planning.

Acceptability: Controls affecting people must also be understood by them and they should accept them. A difficult control can cause various issues and mistakes.

Integration: With the consistency of controls with corporate culture and values, they seem to operate in harmony with the policies of an organization.

            Sometimes, organizations seem to focus on excessiveness as they wish to control a lot things. It becomes difficult when controls are related to the behavior of employees. In such a condition, workers seem to resist them. The narrow approach of control also makes workers resist control along with the fact that there is no reward for being eligible or appropriate. Meanwhile, the last element contributing to it is accountability.

            The best way of overcoming this resistance for managers is to engage employees efficiently while implementing change in several steps and stages. At last, changes should be communicated with workers (Paycor, 2016).

References

Drucker, P. (2012). Management. Routledge.

Griffin, R. W. (2013). Fundamentals of management. Cengage Learning.

Paycor. (2016, June 29). Overcoming Employee Resistance To Change In The Workplace. Retrieved from Paycor: https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/change-management-in-the-workplace-why-do-employees-resist-it