BMA lesson 6.a

 

 BOARD OF DIRECTORS 

The board of directors is a group of company directors who are charged with the task of fulfilling a vision for a company or any organization. They include the managing director from top management, executive directors from middle management, plus other non-executive directors who do not have full - time duties to play at the organization, but offer their services to the company on a part - time ground. 

THE CHAIRMAN

The Chairman is the person with the highest authority on the board level. He is responsible to hold meetings with all the directors of the company. 

The chairman, in most cases, happens to be one of the owners of the company with more knowledge about the company than any other person. He is fit to chair every meeting and is informed by his directors concerning the performance of the company. He represents the shareholders.

THE MANAGING DIRECTOR

The managing director is the second most powerful Person after the chairman and shareholders. 

He is the one the owner(s) entrust with him, the running of the company. This implies that all major decisions, plans, policies and their achievements on the administrative level are left in his hands. 

Due to this huge responsibilities, he is assisted by other executive directors and non executive directors , who form the body of administration, so that they can together fulfil the vision for the shareholders ( management).

THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS

The executive directors are mostly the administrative heads of departments who also have boardroom status. As representatives for their departments, they appear on the board to present feedbacks, challenges and suggest ways to handle these outcomes. They play little decisive role during board meeting. 

The word executive means, full time duty. As full time workers, these directors will be seen at their respective departments, leading and controlling the supervisors below them to directly enforce work progress on the workforce.

NON - EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS

Apart from the executive directors who work directly with top management, there is another group of directors who do not work directly with the managing director or the chief executive officer, but bring on board, their knowledge, when it is required. These are the non-executive directors who are not found daily with the company. Their presence is seen during board meetings.

Another way in which the organizational heads come together to deliberate on company issues, apart from a board meeting, is the meeting which takes place at the end of every trading year. This is called the annual general meeting(AGM), which brings together all the shareholders of the company and the directors so that profit for the company owners, called dividend, can be read out to them, as a way of saying thank you for allowing their investments to work for the company.

Generally, board of directors will play two roles for a company. They include a management role (usually seen with the shareholders), and an administrative role - which are left for the managing director, executive directors and non executive directors.

 Directors are seen as those people who are legally appointed to run the affairs of a company on behalf of the shareholders (owners of the business).

FUNCTIONS OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Let us finally take a look at the few duties by the board of directors.

▪ They are responsible for managing the day to day operations of the firm.

▪ They are responsible for the expansion and continuity of growth, in terms of workforce, liquid assets and capital assets.

▪ They are entrusted to make profits for the company (both the shareholders and workforce).

▪ They make relevant decisions for major purchases of materials like assets (properties, cars machines) for company.

▪ They ensure compliance of the law with stakeholders 

(outsiders) and with the internal workforce (insiders).

▪ They demonstrate good leadership for the firm and also to the outside world.

In conclusion, when it is mentioned of the role of the board as management, it must be seen as the management part of the company, whereas when the role administration is asked of as role of the board, it must be seen as the administrative duties of a company.

BMA lesson 5

 An Organization and its structure

One of the most important duties of every management body is to create a structure that helps them to run the organization successfully. 

The term organization is can be defined as an entity, a group or people or a union of association created to establish a common goal. In business enterprises, we call it business organization. Hence, whenever we see organization being used in this course, we mean a business type.

Secondly,o structure is a system of leadership created to regulate the affairs of the people. It functions from with powers from the top to the lowest part of the organization. 

The structure is designed to give the most powerful or key leaders in the organization to have powers given to them to control those under them.

In any typical organization, management creates the structure and represents it in the form of a chart to allow people to see  how their leadership works in the organization.

An organizational chart can also be called organogram. In a typical organizational chart, there is usually arrows moving from the top to the bottom. Some arrows too move sideways.

All arrows pointing from the top represent  authorities given to the top people at management level to work over their subordinates  under them ( administration ).

Any arrow moving in sideways represents a help or assistance from one department to another on the same level ( only administration ). 

Within an organizational chart, we also have the number of people who are asigned to work under a leader. We call this the span of control. If a manager for a department has three people working under him, for example, we can conclude that the span of control of the manager is 3, meaning, he controls three workforce. 

To be able to draw an organogram and to represent it well for authority flow, a student must under the types of authority found within an organization. Authority will be treated in the following topics.

BMA lesson 4

 Administration continuation

Defining certain terminologies under administration.

The following are some major activities that administration undergo in executing their duties for management.

EARLIEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

 Henri Fayol, one of the early fathers of management, identified the core functions for administrative  activities. 

According to Fayol, the main administrative duties included planning( putting down short term goals), organizing(bringing a team together), staffing( looking for people to fill vacant positions), leading(demonstrating leadership qualities), coordinating(linking teams together), and controlling( enforcing rules). 

Let us discuss these activities in brief.

 Planning :

 The first step taken by administration. After management has handed down their long term objectives, administration now  breaks it down and formulates their goals to achieve management objectives in the shortest possible time.  The process whereby administration makes effort to achieve management's big vision or objectives by considering the how to achieve it, and when to achieve it is called planning. There will also be planning made for production, marketing, sales target,  profit making and budgeting, and recruitment, among other activities for all departments. Planning sets an idea into motion.

 Organizing : 

Administration will need to create a system which supports the management plans to work. To organize means to look out for and to select or put together, competent team who can execute an assignment for administration head. It takes the effort of good administrative organization to build the right team who will be capable enough to execute plans passed on to administration. The head of administration ( Managing Director ) will organize his people ( executive directors ) to also do the same with their members in their respective departments so that work can be done.

 Staffing : 

Staffing is the supply to the company, the right calibre of workforce to fill created positions. Recruitment exercise is a means to bring on board, brains which can drive the company’s vision and its goals forward. When ever there is a shortage of human resource or labour, Administration head and the HR department work together to bring the best brains into the company to work for the organization. _Staffing of workforce_ is an administrative task.

 Leading :

 leading is the act of championing a workforce to act according to plans or goals. It is the demonstration of leadership, qualities and nobility for followers to believe, trust and to follow.

 Coordinating : 

This involves the liaising between and the forwarding of all reports from the team to management for review, while getting instructions from management back to the administrative level. 

 Controlling :

 controlling is the effort to institute checks and balances, and to evaluate performances, according to short and long term goals.

BMA lesson 3

 WHAT IS BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION?

According to Graham Whitehall, administration is defined as ‘that part of the management of a business organization which seeks to implement the decisions made by top management and achieve the objectives which it has specified.’ Ideally, if administration is ‘…that part of the management…’, then it stands to mean that administration in itself is under management, as identified by Graham Whitehall. 

Administration is equipped with the task of breaking down long term goals  of management into short terms and also working on  budgets for all the departments, recruiting competent staff on behalf of  top management, coordinating work progress, controlling work performance, and reporting all operational duties back to top management.

 The features of administration :

1) It is a level that seeks to execute all major decisions by management while making other minor decisions to control the workforce under them

2) It takes instructions from management to prepare department budgets for operations

3) It maintains and runs with policies set up by management.

4) It takes its authority from management to control the lower workforce

5) It is dependent on management for its purpose.

6) It works with funds and resources provided by management to achieve targets.

7) Administration seeks to achieve the workforce goals.

The Key people involved in administration include the managing director, executive directors ( full time departmental managers), and non - executive directors ( part time experts )

BMA lesson 2

WHAT IS BUSINESS MANAGEMENT?

Several schools of thought have attempted to define business management from several perspectives. 

According to the book - business management and administration, written by Graham Whitehall, business management is defined as, ‘ the process of determining the objectives of an enterprise; deciding how these objectives are to be achieved in general terms; devising an appropriate organization to pursue the objectives; providing funds which will enable the organization to be adequately supplied with staff, equipment and other items necessary; making initial arrangement to commence operations and then keeping them under constant review’.  

A careful look at this definition from Whitehall reveals the following activities:

1. The determination of an enterprise’s objectives. This informs us about the vision the organization has it written down. 

2. The stating of a clear mission statement with a strategy to achieve these objectives. This is about planning.

3. The creating of an organizational structure to be used to achieve objectives. This involves developing departments, deploying adequate workforce and setting up of roles to operate.

4. Provision of financial resource for the supply of other capital assets and human resource.

5. The commencement of business activities with operational plans.

6. The reviewing of operations, based on daily, short and long term targets.

Management is purely decision making body or level of any organization.

Let us consider the features of management:

1) It is a level that lays down all the major policies and objectives of the organization.

2) It gives instructions to administration for the preparation of company budgets for various departmental operations.

3) The level is responsible for crafting internal and external policies suitable for running the company.

4) This level guides administration in the right direction it needs to achieving the goals and objectives outlined in the company’s vision statement.

       5) It has all the power to make major decisions.

       6)  It is independent of its operations

       7) It is mainly seen within business Enterprises.

       8) Finally, it is responsible for the supply of funds and resources into the organization for operations to be carried out effectively.

 The key people found on the management level include the founder(s) and shareholders, The Chief Executive Officer, the board chairman, and company secretary.

Most organizations have their management team differently from others. In all, they seek to do one common thing, which is, to formulate ideas and run the entire organization. 

BMA lesson 1

 INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION

 The subject of business Management and business Administration looks at decision making and decision execution taking  within the framework of business organizations. 

It is a well established fact that, within any organization, the responsibility of decision making and objectives formulation lie on one part of the organization, whiles another  part gets to execute the formulated objectives. For this course, a school of thought takes a stand to relate management to the part which formulates decisions, whereas administration is considered to be that part of the organization which seeks to execute the objectives or decisions made.

From this angle, we take our stand and align our editorial works with the above definition, in which  the British educational curriculum, under management and administration program, also is set around this notion.

We can therefore conclude that the part of any organization which formulates ideas is classified as Business Management whereas the other side which seeks to implement any decision made is known to be called Business Administration. 

This notion has been considered, studied, accepted and maintained by the British and European communities, including  some eminent writers  like E.F.L Brech, Barry Pichman, Melwyn Copen, and Theo Haiman. For this consideration, we make management superior over administration.

 ICM aligns herself with the above proposition.