Managing a Business

Management is an art or practice of managing (especi bothy a business or money. According to behavioral theories of management the traditional judgment of Management is inventing, organizing, leading and controlling. We gather in chosen Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC) to beg off these management concepts.PLANNING mean is an valuable management function that has to be carried appear in an organization as it helps in determining the organizational goals and to crap an action figure to carry it tabu.PLANNING PROCESSEvery segments omnibus is responsible for preparing its own plans of action to carry out their businesss in the most efficient manner. These plans of action can also be termed as tactical plans as they argon designed to help execute major(ip) strategic plans a longsighted with helping the organization to achieve its overall goals.SHORT-TERM AND long PLANNINGThe manager undertakes both short-term planning as easily as long-term planning. The bank stresses on the discussion sections to lay greater accent mark on short-term goals so that the bank sees at least the short-term results of apiece department and, therefore, the progress of the departments.While preparing its plans, each department takes into consideration the resources, chief city and human both, available to the department and the budget that is available to the department for each of the products. The manager also plans for the existing product line as considerably as the modern products that atomic number 18 recently launched in the market. Lastly, the manager also plans for the targeted volume of each product.After the plan has been devised taking into account all the higher up factors, the plan is sent to the Central Planning plane section, which is centralized. The Central Planning Department is a group of planning specialists who therefore prep atomic number 18s the overall future plan for the bank and submits it to the Finance Department.At the same time, mo nthly meetings ar held in which all the operates of variant departments and the Board of Directors get together to review budget vs. variances, returns and loss accounts, hard currency flows, inventory level, etc. of each department and thusly the trade department, for example, will have to come up with a new plan to overcame the shortcomings as pointed out by the Board of Directors.STRATEGIESStrategy formulation is an important part of planning which the department also undertakes. There are various strategies and methods used by the departments to undertake their plans.PRICING STRATEGYOne of the strategies that it uses is the Pricing Strategy. In this strategy, they look at the current prices in the market and then plan accordingly and then project the new prices which will prove to be more net incomeable than the old prices.Note While we are talking nearly the pricing then we mean the prices of the products that the banks are offering and the price itself is the affair rate being offered.COST BASED PRICING STRATEGY The early(a) strategy used by the departments is Cost Based Pricing Strategy. The departments sets the products prices by looking at the components those make up their price, that is, its imagery, price and profit. The department always tries to set the price, which is lower than the competitors and brings in positive cash flow. So, it tries to produce the products at the lowest possible cost by expend more money into R&D so that it could increase its profit margin further.OTHER STRATEGIESOther strategies used are market research, which is conducted on a small basis but is very important for the Marketing Department. And as their focus is on corporate clients, the carry out corporate surveys and interviews with their customers, which adds a personal touch and results in, increased sales. Focus groups and questionnaires are also sometimes distributed to get responses from the customers. Sampling is another strategy used by the departm ent in which they give sample products to various houses which they choose randomly and the results are then verified by the sales and marketing group carrying out the research.ORGANIZINGOrganizing is the next important function of management which is the assignment of resources available to the accompany to different tasks in order to achieve the strategic goals.ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE worry every other company HSBC has also been established as a separate legal entity having its own managing director and a team of professionals to head each department. As evident from the organizational grammatical construction of the company, the company has a courtly structure i.e. it is official and planned and has deliberately planned structure of roles within the organization.It follows the organic style of management where authority is based on expertise rather than hierarchy and, therefore, believes in participative decision qualification in which employees working in all levels of th e company are involved. Decision making power is delegated up to the level of middle management. The company believes in the ism that To get the job done most efficiently, population doing the job should basically be indecision making.All the decisions, whether small or minor, are made at the top levels in the companys hierarchy. Therefore, HSBC is a centralized company in the sense that that the department heads and the managing director is involved in decision making.MARKETING DEPARTMENTS STRUCTUREIn the Marketing Department, the authority to make decisions is vested in the Marketing Director, who makes all the decisions for his department and then delegates authority and responsibility to their subordinates.The sales team collects discipline like the sales figure currently in the market, information just about the competitors, etc. and is handed over to the Marketing Director who then makes the final decision based on the available information. There are assistant brand man agers working under the brand managers who are sometimes asked to give suggestions if a decision requires information related to a task which is directly handled by them.HSBC follows the concept of line authority as the people in the management positions such as the research division manager has the power to control and direct the immediate employees which in this case are the field investigators.LEADINGHSBC believes that leadership is an art or process of influencing people so that they perform assigned tasks willingly and in an efficient and effective manner. The marketing director, therefore, thinks that leadership is crucial in motivating and inspiring the workforce.MOTIVATORSThe company uses only two ways of regarding the employees either by increasing the salary or prompting the employees if possible. The company strictly adheres to the policy of promotion from within.Job enrichment take into accountd by HSBC is approximately negligible which limits the scope of jobs for the employees because of which employees leave the company for better job offers elsewhere.HSBC does provide a good working environment to its employees and there are pear-shaped numbers of female employees working in the company.There is high employee turnover in HSBC because of the few opportunities of progressing that the company provides to their employees because of which none of the employees stay with the company for a long time.CONTROLLINGControlling which is the fourth function of management is effectively practiced in HSBC. The director of the Human Resource Department monitors employees activities, keeps the departments on track towards achieving the goals and makes corrections as needed. These are the basic functions of controlling which are used in this department.CONTROL METHODS Regular meetings are held to check the progress of the employees and then make amendments as needed. Marketing and sales teams are sent for national visits to places and when they come back, the y have to report to the marketing director in way of both formal and informal reports The director then sees the results of the visit whether there was an increase in sales or not and therefore, make corrections like to sort the sales team in the next visit, etc. These, therefore, train the employees in the practical aspects of the job which prove to be beneficial for the company.ReferenceCourtland L. Bovee, John Thill, (2004), worry in Action, 3rd Ed.Christopher Kingsley (1993), A trainers primer Advice to the novice trainer about the basics of organizing, planning, and leading an effective training seminar (Technical assistance & training government issue series)Sandy Schuman (2005), The IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation Best Practices from the Leading OrganizationLuis Martin Diaz (2006), Evaluation of Cooperative Planning in Supply ChainsDavid A. Baldwin, Frances C. Wilkinson, and Daniel C. Barkley (2000), Effective Management of Student Employment.Rohan Wickremasinghe (Dail y News may 3, 2001), Management Consultant, President of Institute of Development