Styles of Business Management

The success of an organization depends upon the style of governance. Every organization has its own management code which becomes the backbone of the company’s work culture. Do you know which style is right for you and your company? Would like to find out what style is being followed in your organization? The management styles are basically divided into autocratic and democratic style. Many more styles have come into existence with the increase in competition in the market. I will deal with the traditional autocratic and democratic style and the Laissez-faire management.

Autocratic Management
“I am your boss. You have to do what I ask you to do. Do not ask questions and expect explanations for the orders given. Remember, that the boss is always right!”

Is this the situation in your company? The organization that has the manager dictating his terms and conditions to his employees follows the autocratic management. The autocratic manager makes decision without consulting the staff and he likes to remain in control at all times.

This style of management was widely followed during the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the managers selected during this period had military background. It was considered that their sense of discipline and organization will help in standardizing the work process of the company. The companies following the autocratic style did not allow creativity and free hand to the employees in their areas of expertise. This led to the downfall of many large companies as they had ‘an inability to change’. This style of management gets work completed on time as the decision-making process is quick and usually done by one person in authority. The employees in such organizations are less motivated and have low job satisfaction. The company faces a high employee turnover. This style can be applied to industries where targets have to be met in a short time and time cannot be spared in taking a consensus from the employees.

Democratic Management
“I believe in your ability. I trust your decisions. I give you a free hand in organizing your department. I expect you will get the work completed in time according to the company policies and achieve the highest results. All the best.”

Wow! What great feelings arise when your boss delegates you work combined with trust. It makes one determined to complete the task. This kind of management is called democratic management. In this style, the democratic manager empowers his employees with the responsibility of task completion. The employees can use their own methods to achieve the results on time. It involves all the staff members in decision-making and chalking out the plan of action. This highly motivates each individual and creates a sense of belonging to the organization. This in turn helps in increasing the work quality and quantity. This is a popular style of management today. This kind of management is effective when the employees have strong job skills because they require minimal supervision. The decision making takes a long time as all the members of the staff involved in the particular work need to be consulted.

Laissez-faire Management
“Do whatever you like. Take any decision you want. If you need me, I’ll be in my office.”

This style of management is the Laissez-faire management. Also known as the free-rein management. The term Laissez-faire was derived from the French expression, “leave it alone.” In this style, the manager gives most of the authority to the employees. There is very little involvement of the manager. The manager does not sit idle. He watches over the employees and guides them as and when required. He sets goals and objectives for the business and leaves the employees to perform the work as they wish. This style of management can be applied in areas where the employees need to work independently, like outdoor salespeople, writers, engineers, scientists etc. The main drawback for this kind of style is that some employees pursue their own agendas rather than achieving the organization goals.

The right management style should be chosen after understanding your own personality. Understand the kind of boss you want to be. Then you should understand the ability of your staff and lastly, the work culture followed in your organization. If all the three factors point at choosing a particular style, make it the standard style for your organization. Remember, the success of an organization lies in the hands of a satisfied and well-motivated employees.

Keeping Business Records

Record keeping is defined as ‘practice of maintaining the records of an organization from the time they are created up to their eventual disposal. This may include classifying, storing, securing, and destruction (or in some cases, archival preservation) of records.‘ Record keeping refers to keeping a track of all the transactions, monetary and non-monetary, that take place in a given period within a business organization. Record management is a super-set of the term ‘keeping business records’. The subject of record management includes records like birth certificates, medical records and other data.

Business record keeping refers to maintaining a track of capital invested and borrowed, reserves made and used, liabilities, both current and deferred and outstanding payments. On the asset side, the business record keeping is directed towards evaluating fixed assets, current assets, preliminary expenses and shareholder’s equity.

Keeping business records for big firms has a set of guidelines, rules and regulations. Hence, maintaining the huge business record keeping is not a ‘How-To?’ issue. The issue arises, when the records are not maintained properly, which is often a cause of individual differences. Double-Entry and Single-Entry, are the two methods used for the purpose of maintaining the accounts of the business. These systems have been set and are being used efficiently in all the limited companies globally.

Other than accounting records, a business may have other records such as Articles of Association, Memorandum of Association, shareholder’s records, debenture records and other such records. A small business firm may have letter of incorporation, employee register and payroll register. It is important that all these records are maintained for taxation purposes, legal purposes, analyzing business strategies and future planning.

Record Keeping For Small Business
As a matter of fact and experience, record keeping for small businesses is rather cumbersome. Especially in the case of a sole proprietorship, the owner and the management is not necessarily different, hence the problem of over work occurs. Moreover, as a sole proprietor may not have the know-how about record keeping, management goes for a toss. Here are some tips to help with the record keeping for small business.

Gross Receipts
Gross receipts is the total income your business earns. The documents that validate gross receipts are cash registers, bank deposit slips, invoices, bills received and credit sale slips.

Purchases
Purchases refer to the raw material and any other item that you buy for production. The documents that will support the purchases that you’ve made are purchase book, invoices, check books, bank statements, bills payable and credit purchase slips.

Assets
An asset is a property that you buy for your firm. It may be a machinery, furniture or computers. It is important to maintain a record for the same as it helps in evaluating the worth of business and its goodwill. The documents that will support the assets you have, are its receipt, the date when it was purchased, depreciation accounted and its usage.

Liabilities
Liabilities are the aspects of a business, that have to be paid off. No matter when you pay them off, its necessary that you note down how, when, where and why it was paid. The documents that will help you maintain liabilities are bill of exchange and invoices.

Electronic Record Keeping
With the advent of technology, keeping business records has become very easy. Electronic medium has eliminated all the paperwork and required filing. Right from employee attendance register to balance sheets can be made and maintained electronically. There are many record keeping software available for keeping business records. They make the work of retrieving the data and calculations extremely easy. This fastens record keeping, making the business firm efficient in nature.

Keeping business records can be easy if its organized and clear. Understand the nature of your business and then appoint people to maintain business records. In the long run, business record keeping will help your business in understand its strategies and potential.

Business Acumen

It is a well-known fact that every business person cannot become a legend and every business cannot be extremely profitable. The business acumen definition is related to the ability of a person to run his venture successfully. Business skill can be developed by consistent work and concentrated efforts. Before we know how to develop business skills, let us first understand its meaning in detail in the next section.

Meaning of Business Acumen

Business acumen is more related to understanding a business thoroughly. Unless a business person understands what is the exact nature of his business, what are the challenges before him and how is he supposed to overcome them, he cannot set up his brand in the competitive market. A person with a business skill takes the right decisions at the right time for the benefit of his organization and ensures increasing profitability. Identifying business opportunities successfully before peer companies can help generate high revenues and profits. Business skills also includes identifying the potential threats to the organization and taking preventive measures to deal with them. Now, the main question before many people is whether this business skill can be acquired or is it only a skills with a few people. The answer to this question is simple – it is possible if you develop some qualities. The suggestions given below on developing business skill will help you understand things about entrepreneurship better.

How to Develop Business Skills

Observe Functioning of Established Businesses
Keen observation can help a person learn a lot. So, if you wish to acquire business skill like the big corporate leaders, you need to see how the established and successful business houses run. Try to understand what makes them different from the rest of the companies and how they keep up their leadership place despite several hurdles and stiff competition, leading to good business management. Note down some important points and start training yourself in that direction.

Get the Basics Right
Improving your business skill is possible only if you have learned your basics thoroughly. So, the main rules and regulations of business should be clear to you completely. The business skill of people well-educated in the fields of management is high and hence you should go through training programs to learn basic management concepts. A person will automatically develop his business skill while he applies these concepts practically. He may find things difficult initially, however, every failure becomes a learning experience and a person improves the way he looks at things.

Change the Way You Think
To see an improvement in your business skill and decision-making abilities, you need to change the way you think. Try to adjust to the changing ways of business by learning new technologies which are constantly being introduced into the market. By doing so, you will be able to match up with your peers in a systematic way. You also need to change your attitude and work hard for taking your organization to the position where you want it to be.

Implement your Plans
Business skill cannot be achieved unless you carry out your plans. So, you need to start by making changes in the way you function to see the results in the time to come. The thinking process can develop only when you try to bring in some creative changes. Every experiment you do with the functioning of your company will help you learn new things and be more knowledgeable.

Business acumen can be developed by taking into consideration the above mentioned factors. So, with a hope that you will use this information fruitfully, I would like to sign off here. Good luck!

Business Intelligence Analyst

Being a business intelligence analyst requires a lot hard work and dedication. Their main aim is the growth and development of the business. Business intelligence analyst or business analyst (BA) as they are popularly known as are employees who assist managers in making correct and uniformed decisions to improve the company’s position. The (BA) digs deep into the company’s warehouse and explores companies facts and statistics to know where the company stands in the market.

A business intelligence analyst also presides over the company’s intelligence reports and makes sure that top-secret information remains top-secret. For instance, new economic and sales reports are made under the correct supervision of the business intelligence analyst.

Business Intelligence Analyst Job Description

As the business intelligence analyst has undertaken the task of making sure the company’s growth is his/her #1 priority, he/she is often seen going through the history of the company’s origin. To make sure that the company deals correctly with the oncoming future, it’s necessary that the analyst knows about the company’s past. He/She also handles the job of designing the reports that can boost the company’s current image and intelligence. One of the most important aspects of the business analyst job description is to keep a close eye on rival companies and have a detailed look at their marketing and promotional business intelligence strategies and plans. His/Her prepared data can be analyzed and the company’s strengths and weakness can be taken into account and then statistical tools can be made to counter all the given situations. The skills of the business intelligence analyst is primarily used for finding out the company’s strengths and weaknesses.

A business intelligence analyst has to be thorough with all the little minute and important details of all the company’s processes. A person who’s having detailed computing knowledge has great business analyst skills, an interest in computer software and business intelligence tools is the ideal candidate for the various business intelligence analyst jobs in the company. Talking about the educational qualifications which are required to be a BA, then having adequate computer knowledge is very important. To be a business analyst, in-depth knowledge of business is a must. An MBA degree is considered necessary and a business analyst certification from the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) is required to be a successful business intelligence analyst.

Business Intelligence Analyst Responsibilities

I hope now you know what is a business analyst? The job looks impressive doesn’t it with all the information and the history about the company. You being the mind that leads the company’s business towards growth and profit. Other than creating data for company’s profit, there are some important responsibilities which the analyst has to shoulder. Let’s have a look at what they are…

  • To make all the necessary arrangements which are necessary for client engagements.
  • Making sure the company is up-to-date with all the latest changes going on in the market.
  • Ensuring that every problem has a good yet commercial solution.
  • Documenting, auditing and analyzing all the data required.
  • Using all the information and feedback from workshops, survey sites and customers in a constructive way as to benefit the company.

Business Intelligence Analyst Salary

Being a BA is a great career opportunity and your salary package mainly depends upon your previous working experience. If you have good computer knowledge then you can procure an attractive salary structure. Experienced individuals can earn from $121,000 to $150,000 every year. Business analyst is also an IT job which is considered as one of the best future careers.

So I hope this article has answered your question what is a business intelligence analyst? Being a business intelligence analyst is a job of responsibility but it also has its perks. It’s a lucrative field and according to many recent employment reports, the job of a business intelligence analyst is going to be in demand for years to come.