THE CONTROL PROCESS

The controlling activity is one of the fundamental management functions including planning, organising, leading and co-ordinating (some add staffing instead) that a manager is expected to carry out. But, just what is control?

Control is the process of ensuring that the organisation steadily pursues what it decided it should achieve, and not anything else. So, to control is to ensure that the performance of the institution stays within predefined bounds.

Controlling is only possible where plans prescribing what is to be done exist; and plans may be a waste of resources without any form of control. That is because the purpose of control is focusing performance in the direction of the desired outputs, not just any outcomes.

Control can be applied to all sorts of plans, and examples are those concerning inventory re-order quantity, revenue, profitability, quality, productivity and safety.  

About five major steps are taken in the control process.

1.     Determining Standards. Ordinarily, anything to be regulated requires standards. Standards are performance benchmarks, or grades that indicate acceptable levels of operation, without which the organisation may not be able to achieve its objectives.  

Standards often make use of comparative representations like sales-to- quotation ratio and profit margin; rates like units produced a day and breakdowns per month; and even absolute measures like degrees Celcius or degrees Fahrenheit.

The level of performance picked as standard can depend on many factors. We use three examples from the sales arena:

                                         i.          The amount of experience possessed by the person carrying out the task. For example, new sales people fresh from school are not normally expected to sell as much as older, seasoned ones.

                                  ii.           The time of year. Sweaters and other warm clothes, for instance, do    not sell as much in summer as in winter.

                               iii.       The level of competition, as in a new, growing market generating a lot more business than a crowded, mature one. 

     

Other strong elements affecting the decision to adopt a particular standard are type of industry or product and resources at the disposal of the institution.

For some variables, say, friendliness of customer service, establishing standards can be difficult.

2.     Monitoring. Monitoring simply means keeping an eye on what is happening. Today, it is not always a necessity, especially because of the emergence of high-intelligence, computer-driven technologies which can perform the monitoring task and give alarm signals when something goes wrong. Even then, however, monitoring by humans remains extremely important in some cases. Besides, machines are not infallible.

Some jobs just may not be performed as well by the latest technology as by the manager. For example, cutting-edge technology might be unable to read sadness in a worker.  The human supervisor, on the other hand, can quickly notice and address it before it begins to affect output. Even if no action is immediately taken, step 4 is likely to be quicker and less time-consuming if the manager has some mental recollection of how, in this example, an employee had looked.

And there are problems that have to be spotted and corrected instantaneously, thereby requiring second-by-second monitoring: like those occurring in a boxing or football contest, making it necessary for the manager to shout out instructions all the time.

  

3.     Measuring and comparing. Measuring results and comparing with set standards is done to find out if everything is going well. The actual could turn out to be below or above expectation. There is often an acceptable degree to which actual can exceed standard or fall below.

Caution: just because the standard has been outstripped does not mean celebration. Sometimes, higher is as bad as lower. A business, therefore, cannot produce any more than its storage facilities can hold or the market can readily buy.  That is to say, control is for deficiencies as well as excesses.

4.     Diagnosing problem.  When outputs are in accord with standard, there is normally no action taken (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, some say), even though some might recommend measures to further strengthen the chances of attaining the preferred outcome.

When results are outside of allowable limits, steps are taken to determine what caused the deviation. The problem area is expected to be either the standard itself or the way things are done.

5.     Taking remedial action. Like step 3, this is split into two possibilities. If the problem is wrong standard, a new standard is worked out. If it is wrong work formula, a new formula is devised.

More specifically, the answer usually falls in any one, or combination of, the following categories:

                                                  i.      Changing the manner or style in which things are done.

                                                ii.      Changing the conditions under which things are done.

                                              iii.      Changing the inputs or aids.

                                             iv.      Changing the actor (machine or human), or

                                               v.      Changing the standard.

Do note (Figure XY below) that if it is the standard that has to be reviewed, step 1 serves as step 5 as well. It also is step 1 in subsequent cycles. Step 5 is phase 1 in circulations following the first.

       Figure XY: The five-step control process.

        

                        Rupert Chimfwembe                                                                                          30 January 2017

THE MARKETING AUDIT

The marketing audit is a study of variables in the environment of an organisation that are relevant to marketing, for the purpose of making it easier to plot a meaningful business course.

The marketing audit is a look at how the enterprise has fared over a given period of time and a forecast of what can be expected.  This makes the audit an important part of marketing planning.

    

Different organisations and individuals have given their own versions of the marketing audit. Partly, it is because there has not been any universally agreed upon format for conducting it. Nevertheless, one would probably expect all the most important aspects of the unique situation of each business to be covered. There are, however, some elements which would likely be considered natural constituents of the basic marketing audit. The framework suggested below is based largely on those components.  

A Basic Marketing Audit Framework

An elementary marketing audit could be typified as consisting of at least the following six main parts:

A.    Objectives and strategy audit.

B.     Macro-environment audit.  

C.     Industry environment audit. 

D.    Micro environment audit.

E.     Organisation audit.

F.     SWOT Analysis.

A.    Objectives and strategy audit.

-         What are our main objectives in the existing marketing plan? To what degree have we met them?

-         What is our strategy? How far has it been implementable?

-         Were there signs we over-looked other attractive objectives and strategies (based on what was experienced and seen in the marketplace itself?)

B.     Macro-environment audit.

This involves examining SLEPT variables, mainly the sociological, legal, economic, political and technological. SLEPT factors shape the mother environment in which businesses operate. Because enterprises basically cannot control these, the main discussion is how well they are adapted to. Key questions include:

-         What have the SLEPT factors been like and how have we responded to them?

-         How are they likely to change?

C.     Industry audit.

Michael Porter’s Five Forces model is most useful in studying the environment in the specific industry; how the organisation has positioned itself; and attempting to predict changes. While the variables examined here are part of the micro environment, the significance of the model in competitive analysis perhaps makes it deserving of separate treatment in audit.

D.    Micro-environment audit.

                                i.            Consumers (ultimate customer or user).

In addition to what is looked at in Porter’s model, the following questions are among the additional ones to be asked:

·        Where are they found?

·        What quantities do they buy?

·        What are their age groups?

·        How do they use our product?

·        What are their income patterns?

·        How much of this information have we been basing our decisions on?

·        Which direction do user characteristics appear to be going?

·        What percentage of the market are the customers (those who consume our product)?

                              ii.            Intermediaries and support organisations.

There must be a good profile of middlemen like wholesalers, retailers, agents and transporters; a determination of any areas of their requirements that have not been met; and of course, noting any emerging new trends among them that could affect business.

Essentially, understanding the middlemen is understanding the buyers looked at in Porter’s model.      In other words, this section is about shading more light on them. The assumption in this audit is that the buyers are not necessarily the users.

Details concerning suppliers and competitors also have to be available, as one would naturally expect.

   

Finally, it is necessary to be well-informed in respect of other critical business partners like banks and insurers.

                            iii.            Other micro-economic considerations.

They include the general public and special interest groups like those that campaign against obesity and global warming.

E.     Organisation audit.

                                i.            Structural and skills audit.

Both the overall and marketing structures, and available skills and experience, need evaluation in the light of the organisational objectives and strategy that were pursued.

                              ii.            Financial and physical resource audit.

What resources were deployed and how much has been achieved in areas like sales, profit or time savings? Where there resource shortfalls or over-supply?

Also to be looked at are issues like office or factory location, design, size and storage space, even though most of these are planned for long term suitability.

                            iii.            Marketing mix audit.

·  Product.

What needs or wants are the products meant to satisfy? Have there been any gaps in meeting customer expectations, or are there likely to be any?

·  Price.

This is an evaluation of how much price has been in line with the most relevant among key considerations like product life cycle pressures (such as competition), costs, required profit, and positioning.

·  Distribution.

A review is done of the range of suitable sales channels that have been accessible, including how they were employed and could evolve.

·  Promotion.

The promotion audit is a listing of the suitable marketing communications types that have been available, and assessment as regards how they have been utilised from such angles as expected sales, increase in product awareness, expense-budget comparison and combinations (mix) used. It is also an attempt to predict new ways of sending messages to the market and getting feedback.

  

F.     SWOT Analysis.

At this stage, some pattern of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats will probably have surfaced. The more clearly identified they are, the more they can contribute to good marketing planning.  

The marketing audit is an important tool in marketing decision-making. It must, therefore, give a clear picture of where the organisation is and the future it is likely to face.

                 Rupert Chimfwembe   

                         3 February 2017