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HOW A MANGER CAN SUCCESSFULLY HANDLE

TWO CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED WITH EACH OF


THE 8Ms OF MANAGEMENT

TO EFFECETIVELY AND EFFECIENTLY STEER THIS


ORGANIZATION IN A GLOBAL COMPETITIVE
ENVIRONMENT, AND THUS ACHIEVE
ORGANIZATION’s GOALS

COURSE MODULE: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

Judith kiffola
Judithkiffola95@gmail.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................1
Man Management (Human Resource)........................................................................................................1
Delayed Salary Payments......................................................................................................................1
Lack of Proper Job Description............................................................................................................2
Money Management (Financial management)...........................................................................................2
Delayed Budget approvals....................................................................................................................2
Delayed supplier payments...................................................................................................................3
Material Management (Procurement)........................................................................................................3
Poor Quality Goods...............................................................................................................................3
Message Management................................................................................................................................4
Poor channels of communication..........................................................................................................4
Information Flow...................................................................................................................................5
Machine management (Equipment management)......................................................................................5
Machine Breakdown..............................................................................................................................5
Wear and tear........................................................................................................................................6
Method management (Operations management)......................................................................................7
Noncompliance to the policies and procedure.....................................................................................7
Poor coordination..................................................................................................................................7
Market Management (Customer Management).........................................................................................8
Insufficient Knowledge of customers’ expectations............................................................................8
Poor Marketing skills............................................................................................................................9
Moment Management (Time Management).............................................................................................10
Poor planning.......................................................................................................................................10
Lack of Priorities.................................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................12
HOW A MANGER CAN SUCCESSFULLY HANDLE TWO CHALLENGES
ASSOCIATED WITH EACH OF THE 8Ms OF MANAGEMENT SO AS TO
EFFECETIVELY AND EFFECIENTLY STEER THIS ORGANIZATION IN A GLOBAL
COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT, AND THUS ACHIEVE ORGANIZATION’s GOALS.

Introduction

Management is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives.
While there are several meanings of management, some theories say;
Management is the art of getting things done through and with the people in a formally
organized group, Harold koontz.
To manage is to forecast and to plan, to organize, to command, to co-ordinate and to control.
Henri Fayol (1841-1925).
My company of use is Busingye Properties Limited, it is a real estate company providing fully
furnished apartments, villas and stand-alone houses in Mbuya, Kampala Uganda with other
services in order such as laundry, chef and transportation. Management in the company is being
done by the CEO who is the owner of the business. The following are the scope of management
problems faced in Busingye Properties Limited and the solutions to each;

Man Management (Human Resource)

This is the practice of managing people to achieve better performance.

Delayed Salary Payments


In the company stated above, there has been a problem of delayed salary payment of employees
for at least 2weeks to one month after the end of the month. This has severely demotivated the
employees leading to high rate of employees quitting the jobs. For example, in 2020 February,
there was delayed payment of about two months since December losing at least three employees
to other companies. The work activities in the company slowed down, there was poor
performance by each employee that affected their behavior. Payment is considered as the life
blood of the construction industry because construction projects often involve very large capital
outlay (Ameer-Ali, 2005).
The management should at least pay half of the salary (part payment) of employees to keep them
motivated and hopeful. This will increase on their completion of work duties and achievement of
the objectives. The management should also create a trust account and payments bonds that will
help out in case of insufficient finances in the company to pay off the expenses, Lim (2005).
With this, payment will be made on time and there will be effectiveness and efficiency in the
company.

Lack of Proper Job Description


This is when employees perform duties not designed for their qualification. In the company
mention above, there is a problem of uncertainty in duties allocated to employees. For example, I
perform the administrative work, part of finance work and procurement. This has led to high
stress levels, delay in meeting the deadlines and mistakes made during the task performance thus
slowing down the performance of the company.

The Management should hire a well-trained and initiative Human Resource Officer to provide
detailed Job descriptions to employees in their contracts. This will avoid all the risk of
inefficiency at work and demotivation of the employees leading to high performance rates and
improves skills in their specialty.

Money Management (Financial management)

It is the planning, Organizing, directing and controlling the financial activities of the company
such as procurement and utilization of funds.

Delayed Budget approvals


In the company above, there is a problem of approving budgets allocated to departments. All
approvals have to be done by the CEO which affects the urgency of some of the activities
leading to delays in meeting deadlines. Most of the daily requisitions are on repairs, maintenance
of the apartments or villas and the delays in performing them affects the relationship we have
with our tenants leading to terminations of contracts by some of them and delayed payments of
rent. Such as the AC repairs we have to make in one apartment, 7months now it has not been
approved.

The Management should ensure that he delegates authority and responsibility to supervisors or
heads of departments in order to smoothen the process and deliver timely assistance to tenants
when needed. This will increase on the chances for more referrals by our tenants, increase on the
income received because of timely rent payment.

Delayed supplier payments


In the company above, the management tend not to pay the suppliers on time as per the contract
agreed leading to insufficient resources to perform duties. The repair works that is meant to be
performed in painting, pipes, beddings, security equipment makes it difficult to be achieved.
Such as, we have a contract with a paint company, we have not paid them for the past three
months, they have stopped suppling us with paint and has slowed down the plans and activities
of the company. Leading to poor performance and efficiency in the company.

The Management should revisit the agreement contract with the suppliers in order to provide
timely supply and limited delays. The payment terms should be increased to at least 3month
payment after goods are got on credit, this will give the company time to look for money and pay
off other expenses on time. Leading to high performance level in the company, increased
occupancy level and good relationships with the tenants.

Material Management (Procurement)

This involves acquiring quality goods and services from preferred vendors within a stipulated
budget, or before the deadline. It involves sourcing, requisitioning, ordering, expediting,
inspection and reconciliation.

Poor Quality Goods


In the above company, there is no standardized way of purchasing goods needed for repairs or
maintenances. The person who is not competent and without knowledge of the detailed goods
needed is the one who does the purchasing. One day, the finance officer went to purchase CCTV
cameras for the company and he got ones with poor lighting, short coverage and were old type.
This led to loss of the company finances and didn’t perform the expected work.

The Management should use total quality control measure so as to deliver the right and correct
type of goods requested. Give authority to subordinates with competence to purchase the right
goods required and also have all contract suppliers for each goods needed in the company to
avoid time wastage, delays in purchasing, poor quality good. This will therefore lead to good
quality goods received on a timely basis whenever required. quality improvement programmers
now stress a customer focus, employee training and empowerment, top management support and
commitment, Lee, Y.R. and Lazarus, H. (1993)

Delayed approval of Requisitions

The goods requested always take a long time to be approved which affects the work of
employees in the company. In the above company, the CEO takes time verifying the details of
the requisition and note if it is urgent or not. This process has affected the performance of the
company severely because sometimes it takes two to three months for the requisition to be
approved for example, one tenant complained of the AC not working, it has taken the company
almost four months without working on it. This leads to dissatisfaction of the tenants and
termination of the contract, bad image painted on the company and poor performance.

There should be proper planning of all the procurement activities in the company. When
requesting for good, it’s better to request for excess that some can be used for other days.
Requisitions should be requested at least one month early enough to avoid delays of approval
and meeting the deadlines. This will improve on the efficiency of the company performance, thus
increase in referrals and retention of the existing clients.

Message Management

A critical aspect of successful advocacy is the ability to create and deliver a message. You need
audience, make your message compelling, engage your listeners and present yourself as a
potential for the successful communication. In order to be creative you have to imagine your
audience knowledge, need and somehow reach them.

Poor channels of communication


In the above company, there is no organized form of communicating to employees such as; Very
important documents like tenders’ bids are transferred through WhatsApp, very important
notices of the company are sent through WhatsApp which should be addressed face to face and
get opinions of others. One day, the CEO sent me a tender bid to work on using WhatsApp, it
was urgent and I didn’t have internet the whole time because I was on field. It took me six hours
to go online and this really affected the documentations since it needed time to handle and work
on. This has lowered the performance rates of employees because they take time to open and act
on the communications passed.
The manager should have organized communication channels such as company emails for every
employee and provide internet bonuses for employees. Know the kind of message you are
communicating and its urgency thus choosing the best channel such as telephone, company
emails, face to face or text. This will improve on the efficiency of work in the company because
the employees know what they are doing, deadline and whom they are to report to.

Information Flow
In Busingye Properties limited, there is no proper structure of communicating. One employee
can have three supervisors or persons to report to. This leads to misunderstanding of the
information communicated, distortion, confusion of what is right and not right and
misinterpretation. This has demotivated employees because they end up doing activities for other
employee’s job description thus leading to mistakes, delays in meeting deadlines and negligence.
The maids in Busingye Properties have almost four supervisors that’s, CEO, Facility manager,
maid’s supervisor and the Administrator, who have their own taste and preference of what they
need the apartment to look like, this has demoralized most of the maid’s performance. The
quality of information received, the timeliness of the manner it is received and the cost
effectiveness in obtaining the information determine the efficiency of a project partner, Titus,
S. and Bröchner, J. (2005).

The manager should restructure the organizational hierarchy to show the flow of communication
in the company. With this, there is properly organized work force and activities done in the
company. There will be timely delivery of activities because the employee knows who they are
reporting to and what needs to be done and what time. This improves also the performance of the
company since specific duties are assigned to a particular employee.

Machine management (Equipment management)

It combines the technical information of the company’s management and manufacturing


equipment with modern management to ensure the effective management of equipment resources
and maintenance of normal production and operation of the equipment.

Machine Breakdown
There are lots of things that can go wrong with computers, from complete breakdown to viruses
that keep it running but render it useless or very slow. In the above company, there are several
breakdowns on computers such as overheating of the computer, failure of the hard drive, internet
or network connectivity issues, computer completely shuts down and restarts and applications
wont install. This has affected the efficiency of work, loss of data, slowing down of the work
performance and delay to meet deadlines due to internet connectivity issues. For example, we
were submitting a bid proposal which was online process and we got cut off due to the slow
internet and slowing down of computer due to the work overload.

The manager should provide continuous routine checks on the computer and get a better internet
service provider that is reliable and stable thus solving the problem before it even happens such
as computer shut down, hard drive failure and loss of data. The management should also buy
more storage drives to keep the computer information to avoid loss and failures to commit to
objectives due to unavailable information. Internet should also be restricted to only work duties
to avoid overloading the internet thus slowing down the activities of the company as they are
happening. With these solutions, the efficiency and performance of the company will improve.

Wear and tear


Poor management of the company vehicles has led to delayed performance of the company
activities. In the above company, most of the employees and drivers that have control over the
company vehicles handle them carelessly and use them for their own personal use instead of
company benefit. This has increased on the rates of buying tryes, side mirror, battery failure and
even repair of the entire car due to an accident. This had led to poor delivery of services such as
airport pickups, transportation of the goods from suppliers and taking clients around Kampala.
This has dissatisfied the clients and made some of them to get their own transportation company
to take care of them during their stay hence losing clients and business. The company spends a
lot in repair of the vehicles but receives little income form the use of the vehicle.

Enforce the use of rules and regulations in the management of the company property and install
tracking devices on the company vehicle to know where it is and if it within the company duties.
This will reduce the use of the vehicle and increasing the life span. Continuous servicing of the
vehicle to avoid failure of movement on the roads such as the battery, tryes, engine and others.
This will increase the performance of activities in the company and gives the client a comfort of
using our vehicles.
Method management (Operations management)

This is concerned with the administration of the business practices to maximize efficiency within
the company. It involves planning, organizing, overseeing the company process to balance
revenue and costs and achieve the highest possible operating profit. Ensure company
successfully convert inputs into outputs in the efficient manner.

Noncompliance to the policies and procedure


This can be a major issue, jeopardizing both professionalism and safety. This can lead to health
and risk safety risks, Human Resource struggles, government fine and many others. For example,
in the above company, there is no proper attendance monitor in the company. Some employees
come at their own time and this always delays the completion of activities in the company
leading to demotivation of other employees to keep time and do company activities effectively.
Some employees don’t even show up to work with no notice of their absenteeism such as the
maids, security guards, receptionist. This has affected the performance of the company and
efficiency of the company to the expectations of the clients.

The manager should enforce proper rules and regulations in the company and promote reward
and punishment. Most the employees lose focus when their other colleagues are not performing
to their best and they are not punished or evaluated for it. The company should conduct
continuous evaluation and appraisal of the employee’s activities in the company to identify the
shortfalls in the performance. Punishments should be given to those employees that do not
respect and abide by the rules and regulations such as payment according to attendance, termite
the contract, demote them from their position. This will lead to effectiveness and efficiency of
the company, organization, completion of work timely and tremendous growth of the company.
The manger should have an awareness and understanding of employees on the existence of
relevant company policies and standard operating procedures for internal fraud and misconduct
deterrence, Nawawi, A. and Salin, A.S.A.P. (2018).

Poor coordination
Know how to integrate resources, activities and time to ensure proper use of the resources
towards the achievement of company goals. In the above company, when the maintenance team
requisition for items that is needed in the apartments and villas such as the painters, plumbers,
electrician, maids and others. The process takes long, the CEO holds authority, approval and
checks documents for consideration, this has delayed the activities in the company, since clients
complain on renovating the apartments and villas. Example there was a client whose villa had
rodents and insects, she asked for the cleaning and fumigating services to work on the problem.
The administration agreed and promised to work on the problem within 24hrs, but the finance
team and CEO delayed in approving the requisition. This led to dissatisfaction of customer and
termination of contract leading to high rate of vacancy of apartments and apartments.

The manager should enforce proper organizational structure and clear policy guidelines that
should be followed by the employees for the smooth running of the company’s expectations and
objectives. proper communications channels that will allow timely achievements of the needs
and plans of the company and employee’s goals. That will lead to the efficiency and
effectiveness of the company due to the commitment and the continuous information of the
activity roles and purposes to the company’s objective.

Market Management (Customer Management)

Marketing is the exchange of values between the seller and the buyer. Market management is
there art and science of choosing target markets and building profitable relationships with them
(Phillip Kotler). It deals with creating and regulating the demand and providing goods and
services to customers for which they are willing to pay a price with their value.

Insufficient Knowledge of customers’ expectations


This is the process whereby the company doesn’t know the real needs and wants of their
customers. Due to the continuously changing environment, there has been an increasing change
in customers’ needs and demands. This has led to vacant occupancy of the apartments and villas,
dissatisfied customers, bad feedback and income loss. For example, the company above focus
has been on long term clients but it’s now niching to the short term clients of 1month and less.
There have been failures such as the company don’t provide internet in the villas and sow
internet in apartments, don’t have smart TVs that support Netflix. This has led to rejection by
customers, low occupancy, low retention and low income received thus affecting the day to day
efficiency of activities in the company.
The manager should conduct continuous research of the market to avoid the misinterpretation of
the client’s needs and wants. The manager should get information about its competitors and see
what makes them greater and what needs to be changed in the company. This gives the company
a direction and new objectives and goals to be attained. With having one or two of the employees
go to other apartments such as Speke apartments wampewo to have a one night or two night
stays or pretend to be a promising client, this leads to provision of knowledge about the market
and customer retention. This will increase on the efficiency of the duties in the company and
leads to proper planning of the company.

Poor Marketing skills


During this process, the company should look at the product/ service variations, marketing
channels, pricing and promotions for the effective growth of the company. The company doesn’t
invest in promotion of the company such as using signage for proper locating of the apartments.
The company has an old signage at Mbuya Junction, the words have been scrapped off and has
affected locating of the company thus losing clients. In the above company, it still bases its
pricing according to how they were when new, this has negatively affected our sales because our
apartments are old now and need renovation. such as the CNOOC clients requested for a
reduction of the three bedroom apartments by $200 and they would pay for electricity, but the
CEO refused and wanted the fixed amount of $3,800 per month pay. This has delayed the
achievements of the company’s goals and objectives.

The manager should encourage promotions in the company to increase on the occupancy levels
and prevent the redundancy of apartments and villas. With promotions like Valentine, Easter
holidays, festive season holidays, the company should take advantage to reduce on the prices by
15% or 25%, more people become influenced to stay because they can easily afford it than
before. Research of the market and competitors, the manager should set its price slightly above
or slightly below the competitor’s price. For example, Speke apartments because we have old
apartments then look at the pros and cons of the competitors while setting pricing such as
spacious, view, noise, security, privacy, services offered and many others. The manager should
continuously train the marketing department personnel’s on how to approach clients, persuade
them, how to do promotions, promote team work and innovation. The above solutions will lead
to efficiency and high levels of occupancy in the company. There should be the need for
marketing activities to sustain and grow a company in a competitive business environment and
look at the current marketing efforts used by your company which is either failing or growing it.
Mike Simpson and Nick Taylor ( 2002).

Moment Management (Time Management)

It’s the endless series of decisions, small and large, that gradually change the shape of your life.
Even within structure time there are opportunities to select which tasks or activities to handle and
what priorities to assign to the task. Effective time management lies in organizing and planning.

Poor planning
It is the failure to see benefit, activity orientation and successful without it. In Busingye
Properties limited, there is a problem of planning for the company activities as it delays the
performance and efficiency. For example, the company has been trying to renovate apartments
by painting, changing the furniture, beddings, repairing of damaged walls, plumbering issues and
electrical services. It has taken two years and not fully completed at least one apartment or villas
as to the plan, this led to incomplete work which even damaged the rest of the work. A problem
arose when company received three clients from Russian embassy who needed two bedroom
apartments yet there was only one good apartment to show. It led to high stress levels in the
company because the employees were forced to work over time to deliver the needs and wants of
the client. Even after the clients entered the apartments, there were several complains of the door
hinges are loss, carpentry work in the kitchen, the mattresses needed to be changed. This actually
made them to refuse to pay us money for utilities for two months since our services were not up
to standard.

The Manager should properly plan for every activity in the company. The renovation of the
apartments should be on time and no overlapping of activities since they will affect the
performance of others and unfinished maintenances and repairs. Every employee, suppliers and
those hired to perform the activities should be aware of the plan and what time they have to
perform. When all activities are properly planned, every employee becomes responsible of the
success or failures of their work, this leads to motivation, team work, development of skill and
promotes appraisals in the company.
Lack of Priorities
This is when the company lacks goals and objective that influences and affects the behavior of
employees. In Busingye Properties Limited, the manager doesn’t make objectives and goals clear
or known to the employees and most employees perform without a drive to achieve anything.
Half of the apartments need to be renovated, fumigation due to rodent’s invasion, the AC are not
working for more than 2years, no microwaves, flat irons, not all rooms have TVs, washing
machines and many others. This has made tenants that come with a plan of staying for one year
to cut their stays to six months or three months. There was a tenant in the villas eight months ago
who terminated their contract and requested for their security deposit back, the manager forged
penalties on the customer and promised to give back only half of the security deposit. Company
image was tarnished thus slowing down the growth and occupancy level of the company.

The manager should have priorities in the company. The customer is a must priority in the
hospitality business. Every level of management in the company should have priories leading to
satisfaction of the customers (Quinn and Cameron, 1983). The renovation, maintenance and
repairs in the apartments and villas should be performed timely when need arises to avoid delays
in a customer occupying the room, contract agreements with a product/service provider such as
AC repairs, paint, plumbering items should be made thus on credit purchase. The manager
should know the competitive priorities in his sector and how it changes across the high and low
performing companies. (Fazli Idris and M. Muzamil Naqshbandi, 19th Oct 2018). The manger
should encourage feedback in the company, this helps to understand what the customers need,
want thus promotes attainment of new information and ideas that can be used as a strategy for
competition in the market.
REFERENCES

Henri Fayol (1841-1925) stated: "to manage is to forecast and to plan, to organize, to command,
to co-ordinate and to control.

Exploring competitive priorities in the service sector: evidence from India International Journal
of Quality and Service Sciences (ISSN: 1756-669X) by Fazli Idris, M. Muzamil Naqshbandi,19
October 2018 .

Simpson, M. and Taylor, N. (2002), "The role and relevance of marketing in SMEs: towards a
new model", Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 370-
382. https://doi.org/10.1108/14626000210450559

Nawawi, A. and Salin, A.S.A.P. (2018), "Employee fraud and misconduct: empirical evidence


from a telecommunication company", Information and Computer Security, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp.
129-144. https://doi.org/10.1108/ICS-07-2017-0046

Titus, S. and Bröchner, J. (2005), "Managing information flow in construction supply


chains", Construction Innovation, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 71-
82. https://doi.org/10.1108/14714170510815186

Lee, Y.R. and Lazarus, H. (1993), "Uses and Criticisms of Total Quality Management", Journal


of Management Development, Vol. 12 No. 7, pp.5-
10. https://doi.org/10.1108/02621719310044901

Lim, C.F. (2005). Malaysian construction industry - The present dilemmas of the unpaid
contractors. International forum on Payment Act and Adjudication. Kuala Lumpur: CIDB and
ISM

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