Explain the tasks of a professional manager.

Explain the tasks of a professional Manager. Discuss the professional manager’s role in managing survival and growth of the organization. Give example from the organization you are working in or any organization you are familiar with. Briefly describe the organization you are referring to.

Solution 1: Tasks of professional managers:
1. Providing direction to the firm:
Envisioning goal is the first task that should never be delegated.

2. Managing survival and growth.
There are two sets: internal and external.
Internal factors are choice of technology, efficiency of labour, competency of managerial staff, company image, financial resources etc.
External factors are govt. policy, laws and regulation, changing customer taste, attitude and values, increasing competition etc.

3. Maintaining firm’s efficiency:
A manager has not only to perform and produce results, but to do so in the most efficient manner. The more output a manager can produce with the same input, the greater will be the profit.

4.Meeting the competition challenge:
A manager must anticipate and prepare for the increasing competition. Competition increasing in terms of more producers, products, better quality etc.

5.Innovation:
To finding new and better way to doing any task



6.Renewal:
Managers are responsible for fostering the process of renewal.it has to do with provoding new process and resources.

7. Building human organization:
A good worker is a valuable assets of any company. Every manager must constantly lookout for people with potential and attract them to join the company.

8. Change management:
A manager has to perform the task of change agent.its the managers task to ensure that the change is introduced and incorporated in a smooth manner with the least disturbance and resistance.

9.Selection:
Todays manager4 are faced with a bewildering array of information technology choices that promise to change the way work gets done.


Example:
A professional manager for a city has duties which include meeting with elected council to determine policies that are determined by the council and to notify council members and citizens about the local govt.operations.discussing of certain reforms, installing a bridge, setting up new traffic plans, or proposing a new building-all these are many more things which can affect community life are some of the responsibilities of the professional managers in a township. He is also responsible for preparing annual budget, presenting it to elected officers for sanction and then implementing it, after is is approved. Listening to citizen grievances with regards to administration, civic problems, law and order, and presenting matter to the elected officials for appropriate actions are some of the task of professional manager who is in charge of the administration of a city.

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Explain the tasks of a professional manager.

Explain the tasks of a professional manager. Describe the tasks which are more challenging in terms of survival and growth of the organization. Illustrate with the help of examples from an organization you are acquainted with. Briefly describe the organization you are referring to.

CHECKLIST OF ROUTINE MANAGERIAL DUTIES

• Analyze, on a periodic basis, workload and personnel needs of an organizational unit. Recommend changes in the staff level of the work unit.
• Review documentation for new positions and positions that have been revised. Obtain approval to modify positions. Interview candidates for employment and make hiring decision or recommendations. Orient new subordinates concerning policy and procedures, work rules, and performance expectation levels. Review position responsibilities.
• Plan, delegate, communicate and control work assignments and special projects concerning subordinates. Establish and maintain specific work goals and objectives or quantitative and qualitative work standards to be achieved by subordinates. Train, develop, and motivate subordinates to improve current performance and to prepare for higher level jobs. Determine significant changes in responsibilities and major duties of subordinates by reviewing their job responsibilities on a regular basis. Evaluate the performance of subordinates. Document and discuss present and past performance with each direct report. Keep supervisor informed of results.
• Review salaries of subordinates and recommend changes according to policy and procedures. Recommend personnel actions such as promotions, performance awards, demotions, etc., according to budget guidance and policy. advise superiors and subordinates of developments that impact job duties. Ensure proper communications. Maintain discipline, recommend and administer corrective action according to policy and procedures. Communicate and administer personnel programs in accordance with design and objectives. Maintain proper documentation on all subordinates.
• Direct the business activities of the company for the achievement of short and long term business/policy objectives, increased profit, production activity, or market share. Establish the business's objectives, policies and programmes within the context of the overall corporate plan and, where appropriate, recommend standards and set targets (may include manufacturing, sales, marketing, distribution and administration). prepare, or arrange for the preparation of the business's budgets, reports and forecasts, and ensure they are presented in a timely manner to the management.
• Appraise the activities of the business according to overall strategies and objectives, and monitor and evaluate branch and division performance, the efficiency of staff, procedures and production costs. Co-ordinate subordinate staff to optimize the use of human and material resources to achieve goals. Consult with subordinate staff and review recommendations and reports.

Professional Manager Tasks
Providing direction to the firm: The first task, envisioning goals, is one of the tasks that should never be delegated. This is the ability to define overarching goals that serve to unify people and focus energies. It’s about effectively declaring what’s possible for the team to achieve and compelling them to accomplish more than they ever thought possible. Managing survival and growth: Ensuring survival of the firm is a critical task of a manager. The manager must also seek growth. Two sets of factors impinge upon the firm’s survival and growth. The first is the set of factors which are internal to the firm and are largely controllable. These internal factors are choice of technology, efficiency of labour, competence of managerial staff, company image, financial resources, etc. The second set of factors are external to the firm like government policy, laws and regulations, changing customer tastes, attitudes and values, increasing competition, etc. Maintaining firm’s efficiency: A manager has not only to perform and produce results, but to do so in the most efficient manner. The more output a manager can produce with the same input, the greater will be the profit. Meeting the competition challenge: A manager must anticipate and prepare for the increasing competition. Competition is increasing in terms of more producers, products, better quality, etc. Innovation: Innovation is finding new, different and better ways of doing existing tasks. To plan and manage for innovation is an on-going task of a manager. The manager must maintain close contact and relation with customers. Keeping track of competitor’s activities and moves can also be a source of innovation, as can improvements in technology. Renewal: Managers are responsible for fostering the process of renewal. Renewing has to do with providing new processes and resources. The practices and strategy that got you where you are today may be inadequate for the challenges and opportunities you face tomorrow.
Building Human Organization: Man is by far the most critical resource of an organization. A good worker is a valuable asset to any company. Every manager must constantly look out for people with potential and attract them to join the company.
Leadership: Organizational success is determined by the quality of leadership that is exhibited. "A leader can be a manager, but a manager is not necessarily a leader," says Gemmy Allen (1998). Leadership is the power of persuasion of one person over others to inspire actions towards achieving the goals of the company. Those in the leadership role must be able to influence/motivate workers to an elevated goal and direct themselves to the duties or responsibilities assigned during the planning process. Leadership involves the interpersonal characteristic of a manager's position that includes communication and close contact with team members. The only way a manager can be acknowledged as a leader is by continually demonstrating his abilities.
Change management: A manager has to perform the task of a change agent. It’s the manager’s task to ensure that the change is introduced and incorporated in a smooth manner with the least disturbance and resistance.

Selection of Information technology
: Today’s managers are faced with a bewildering array of information technology choices that promise to change the way work gets done. Computers , the Internet, intranets, telecommunications, and a seemingly infinite range of software applications confront the modern manager with the challenge of using the best technology.

Example
A professional manager or a chief administrative officer for a city has duties which include meeting with elected council to determine polices that are determined by the council and to notify council members and citizens about the local government operations. Discussing of certain reforms, installing a bridge, setting up new traffic plans, or proposing a new building-all these and many more things which can affect community life are some of the responsibilities of the professional manager in a township. He is also responsible for preparing the annual budget, presenting it to elected officials for sanction and then implementing it, after it is approved. Listening to citizen grievances with regards to administration, civic problems, law and order and presenting the matter to the elected officials for appropriate actions are some of the tasks of a professional manager who is in charge of the administration of a city.

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Discuss various tasks of a professional manager.

Discuss various tasks of a professional manager. Describe the survival and growth options which your organization has adopted or any organization you are familiar with. Describe the organization you are referring to.


1 Answer. The concept of professional management has become synonym of progressive and efficient management and since no one likes to be backward an inefficient.

A professional manager need not have a formal degree or education in management. He may have learnt the necessary skills and gained competence from his experience. A professional managers main concern is the organization or the company with which he works. A professional manager always has his company’s overall perspective in mind and all his actions are guided by the objectives of the company. Moreover, a professional manager is responsible for p[performance.

Some Tasks of a Professional Manager
Providing direction to the firm: The first task, envisioning goals, is one of the tasks that should never be delegated. This is the ability to define overarching goals that serve to unify people and focus energies. It’s about effectively declaring what’s possible for the team to achieve and compelling them to accomplish more than they ever thought possible.

Managing survival and growth: Ensuring survival of the firm is a critical task of a manager. The manager must also seek growth. Two sets of factors impinge upon the firm’s survival and growth. The first is the set of factors which are internal to the firm and are largely controllable. These internal factors are choice of technology, efficiency of labour, competence of managerial staff, company image, financial resources, etc. The second set of factors are external to the firm like government policy, laws and regulations, changing customer tastes, attitudes and values, increasing competition, etc.

Maintaining firm’s efficiency: A manager has not only to perform and produce results, but to do so in the most efficient manner. The more output a manager can produce with the same input, the greater will be the profit.

Meeting the competition challenge: A manager must anticipate and prepare for the increasing competition. Competition is increasing in terms of more producers, products, better quality, etc.

Innovation: To plan and manage for innovation is an on-going task of a manager.

Building Human Organization: Man is by far the most critical resource of an organization. A good worker is a valuable asset to any company. Every manager must constantly look out for people with potential and attract them to join the company.

Leadership: Organizational success is determined by the quality of leadership that is exhibited. "A leader can be a manager, but a manager is not necessarily a leader," says Gemmy Allen (1998). Leadership is the power of persuasion of one person over others to inspire actions towards achieving the goals of the company. Those in the leadership role must be able to influence/motivate workers to an elevated goal and direct themselves to the duties or responsibilities assigned during the planning process. Leadership involves the interpersonal characteristic of a manager's position that includes communication and close contact with team members. The only way a manager can be acknowledged as a leader is by continually demonstrating his abilities.
Change management: A very important task which every manager has to perform is that of a change agent. It’s the managers task to ensure that the change is introduced and incorporated in a smooth manner with the least disturbance and resistance.

Selection Information technology: Today’s managers are faced with a bewildering array of information technology choices that promise to change the way work gets done. Computers, the Internet, intranets, telecommunications, and a seemingly infinite range of software applications confront the modern manager with the challenge of using the best technology.

Example: Global Auto Manufacturer
My company needed to transform its supply chain into a strategic asset for competitive survival and growth.

The company suffered from lack of focus on retail sales. Production drove sales: dealers were allocated vehicles and told to sell them, and sales and marketing had limited ability to influence volume or mix of vehicles in production.

Inventory represented a major drag on the company's balance sheet. Lead times between order and delivery exceeded 100 days. Global shipments of components and finished goods caused significant lead-time variability. Together these factors led to inventory that was 30% higher than that of key competitors.

Successfully changing this under-performing supply chain into a lean, market-focused asset was absolutely essential.

My company hired Coplenish professionals. They used Collaborative solutions approach to solve the problem.


Collaborative solutions approach
Coplenish professionals led client teams of marketing, sales, manufacturing and information technology personnel to reduce costs and inventory by improving the quality and speed of the information supply chain.

This required substantial change in the working relationships between retail dealers, sales and marketing and production. Substantially more effective collaboration and communication was required to make retail demand the driver of the supply chain. In addition, physical process flows needed to be reexamined and changed to speed up cycle times and reduce variability.

The team changed the way the dealers and the manufacturer worked together and changed how the functional silos within the manufacturer worked together.





The team developed an online system for dealers to provide annual sales plans that showed their projections of sales by model by month.

In addition to the ordering system, the team rolled out an online auction system so that the dealers could bid on excess production vehicles, off lease vehicles and damaged vehicles creating market based pricing, instead of mass incentives, for these lower demand vehicles.
Results of implementation
• Inventory has been reduced significantly
• Logistics costs have been reduced by $13 million
• Dealer order to delivery lead times have been reduced from over 100 days to 40 days
• Volume and mix are now changeable on monthly basis
• Final specification freeze is down to 10 days from three months
• Flexibility to make production plan changes is now based on component availability rather than arbitrary, fixed percentages
• Daily changes to color and destination are now supported up to six days prior to production

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Describe different skills required by a manager and the responsibilities of a professional manager

Describe different skills required by a manager and the responsibilities of a professional manager

The accomplishment of any task or goals of any organization is dependent upon the competency of manager to a greater extent.An organization cannot be successful without the efficient and effective manager. The following are the basic and important skills required by a manager:-
 Planning
 Organising
 Staffing
 Directing
 Controlling

Planning: Planning is most important technique of management and is a continuing process. Planning is a mental process requiring the use of intellectual faculties, imagination, foresight, aiming at in deciding in advance what to be done, how and where is to be done ,who will do it and how results are to be revealed and evaluated.
While planning manager will have to consider the past, present and future i.e past failures, present needs and future utilities. Planning also involves rethinking of a process.


Organizing: The main output function of manager is to organize the whole show which needs a proper grouping of the work of all departmental activities. By organization the manager combines human and material resources. This function involves determining the activities to be done, grouping the activities, assigning the grouped activities to individuals and creating a structure of authority and responsibility to the people to achieve the goals.

Staffing: The manager should know how many staffs are required to accomplish the task. After determining the number of personnel to be selected to fill different jobs, manager starts recruiting, selecting and training the people to fill the requirements of the enterprise.

Directing: Having done with planning, organizing and staffing the manger have to simulate action by giving orders to subordinates and by supervising them. This managerial function involves:
• Leadership
• Communication
• Motivation
• Supervision

Leadership: Leadership is a process by which a manager guides and influences the work of others in choosing And attaining the specific goals by mediating between the individuals and the organization in such a manner that both will obtain satisfaction. Thus leadership involves the way a manager behaves in his man to man relationship with his subordinates. He should show the way to his subordinates the way to achieve the goals.

Communication: An organizations life is difficult unless messages, instructions and other information are passed on accurately. Regular contact with the employees serves so many purposes i.e. expression of interest, greater individual knowledge of one another anticipation of problems, first hand knowledge of difficulties etc.

Motivation: The aim of motivation is to make the self concept real, to live in a manner that is appropriate to one’s preferred role. A worker today regards himself as a man who gives more than he gets. So a manger should motivate is subordinates so that they can perform to their maximum. A satisfied worker is an investment which can yield greater returns than any other input.

Supervision: -The manger has to see his subordinate work effectively to accomplish the task entrusted to them. Supervision is a process by which conformity between planned and actual results is maintained.

Controlling: Control is the continuing process of measuring actual results which were planned for the organization and it deals with the measurement and correction of the performance of subordinates in order to make sure that organizational objectives and the plans devised to attain them are accomplished. The mangers compare actual performance against the planned one and finds out the deviations, takes corrective actions to remove the deviations and incorporates positive deviations in the plans. The essential ingredient of the process of control is forward looking. A manger cannot control of do anything in the past but can avoid them in future by taking actions in the light of past experiences.


Responsibilities of a professional manager:

Responsibilities towards customers: The manger must always remember that the customer comes first. The starting point for the business firm is an understanding of the needs of the customer, and the firm’s foremost responsibility is towards the customer. A firm’s responsibility towards its customer is in terms of ensuring that the desired quality of product at a reasonable price is made easily available to the customers. Product quality of the utmost concern and covers dimensions of product design, materials used in the production, safety, purity, hygiene and ascetic appeal.

Responsibilities towards Shareholders: All those people who contribute capital to a firm are known as its shareholders. The prime responsibility of the manger is to ensure the security of the shareholders capital. The manger must ensure that the firm does not become bankrupt or it is faced with a situation where the shareholders capital is endangered. In other words the manger must at least ensure the survival of the firm. He must also ensure to get profits for the shareholders.

Responsibilities towards employees: employees are the most important resource. Their hard work loyalty and dedication are critical contributions to the success of any firm. The wages and the salaries which a firm gives must be in accordance with the minimum level as specified by the govt. but they must also be at part with other firms within the industry. Results or productivity linked bonus and incentives are a way to ensure that your employees can share n the growth and prosperity of the firm. Apart from wages, provision of a safe healthy environment which is conducive to work is also important. There must be proper and adequate facilities such as canteens, bathrooms, first aid rooms etc.


Responsibilities towards distributors and retailers: Distributors and retailers are the link between the firm and the actual customers who consume the product. A manger is responsible for ensuring regular supplies to distributors. Persistent delays in processing and supplying distributors order can let to a situation where the distributor eventually loses interest in the product and switches over to a competitor firm. Timely supplies have their relevance provided they are as per the order specification.

Responsibilities towards union: Responsibilities towards employees union is to acknowledge it as a friend rather than as a foe of the firm. Most problems with unions arise because of the assumption to the mangers that unions have no constructive contribution to make but are interested only in playing a negative role. As a responsible manger he must understand that management and union have a great degree of mutual dependence and the union cannot further its interest at the cost of the firm’s interest and vice versa. Only a relationship based on mutual trust and cooperation will best serve the interest of firm and union.

Responsibilities towards government: It is wholly the responsibility of the manger to ensure that the constitution and operations of the firm are within the legal framework as specified by the government. This legal frame work may vary depending upon the nature of ownership of the firm, size of the firm and specific industry within which the firm operates. Also paying the taxes regularly and fairly is also a very big responsibility.

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