More than 90% of business failures are due to poor management, mainly due to untimely decision-making. This percentage has grown with the rise of new technologies, which causes competitive advantages to be ephemeral. Given this situation, companies are forced to constantly innovate, without losing the essence of their brand, in order to survive and not be devoured by the competition. In this context, the business management of managers and owners becomes especially relevant.
Business management is the set of profitable measures and strategies for the company, that is, measures and strategies that seek to improve its productivity and competitiveness . This role is usually performed by consultants, directors and managers. The key to the success of a business depends largely on efficient management and an adequate level of communication, which helps to identify the factors that influence the best results for the company and also to find problems in time to solve them.
What is business management?
The functions of business management, like many other functions within the company, are based on four main tools :
Business plan : a set of interrelated activities for the development of a company with the aim of achieving the planned goals. It is a guide that facilitates the creation or growth of the company.
Business structure : the human resources organization determines the responsibilities that correspond to each person within a company and the legal constitution of the company.
Accounting : studies the financial movements of an entity during a given period of time.
Checklist : A guide to preparing a complete business plan and determining whether the initial objective is likely to be met.
What qualities should members of the organization responsible for business management have?
Choosing a good business manager is essential , as they will be the person who will guide us in the basic aspects of our business activity. To find the ideal candidate, we spoke with three professionals who are fully familiar with management functions, as they have been working in this field for several years.
We can move within the framework of requirements and/or within that of competencies. I am increasingly convinced that it is the competencies that will make the difference between one professional or another and between the value contributed in the long term, understanding value in a broad sense. Speaking of competencies, therefore, rigor, honesty and the ability to communicate seem to me to be essential functions of management.
Engineers, especially when working in the industrial field, have the ability to "understand" what happens in the different areas and also in the technical part of the business. However, completing this technical training with a Master's degree in Management, Administration or Financial Management is very important to give the complete profile of a good manager, since they will know management techniques that will increase the efficiency of their work.
Silvia Leal, Digital Entrepreneurship Advisor at the European CommissionSilvia Leal, academic director of IE Business School
A good business manager must have vocation, ingenuity and passion, and if he doesn't have them, he will need to work to get them. In these times of our lives, without constant innovation it is difficult for a company to survive. Therefore, it is good to have this clear from the beginning and, why not? incorporate it as part of the DNA and transfer it from human resources to all members of the organization. It is, without a doubt, one of the basic principles.
I finished my degree in Economics after which I moved into the world of new technologies, where I received all my training in the business world. From there I moved into sociology, obtaining my doctorate in that field. In this way, I have managed to combine what I always tell companies they should look for in the same person: knowledge of business, technology and how people work . It has worked well for me and I think it works.
Blanca Esther Villamañán, CSR and sustainable development consultantBlanca Esther Villamañán, CSR and sustainable development consultant
Every business manager should prioritize being an advisor, giving more importance to the needs of the company and the combination of available resources than to the manager's own objectives. There are different fields in which a business manager can specialize and, depending on this, he or she must train and retrain continuously. In my case, in my first stage as a business banking manager, I took different courses on financial and non-financial products, economic-financial analysis, etc.
In my current position as a CSR manager, I have completed a multidisciplinary master's degree in sustainable development management and various specialization courses in the specific field of Social Responsibility and Innovation. You must consider your training to date and your professional experience in order to determine what type of business management you can or want to develop . Based on this, you must look for specialization courses to be able to reinforce your knowledge and learn what you consider you still need to improve.
What are the basics of business management?
In this infographic we summarize the information you need to handle:
Planning
Be clear about what to do, how to do it and where to do it. Don't leave kuwait numbers any work task to chance.
Organization
Group all the company's resources and make the best use of them to achieve an efficient way of working.
Communication
Build a friendly relationship with employees to create a good working environment
Control
Check that the objectives set in the strategies are being met and monitor the behavior of workers
Infographic on the four basic points of business management
If you want to improve your skills to work as a business manager, Femxa has several free courses for you that are ideal for achieving the required training. To do this, we recommend that you filter your needs to know which parameters of your business you need to focus on. Running a small business, where the owner does everything, is not the same as running a large company, where the work is divided up depending on how the resources will be combined and each employee is a specialist in their tasks. You also have to take into account the Spanish business framework, where the vast majority are micro-enterprises. In these, the business plan is developed in a different way, since the budgets assigned to each sub-activity are very low and both the level of external communication and innovative tactics take on special importance.
Also, keep in mind that the training required for efficient management must be diversified . Complete courses on this topic can be very broad, such as the classic MBA Master, in which a multitude of business-related subjects are studied, but there are other options with which to create a complete training itinerary. We are referring to specialization courses in different areas of business management functions: commercial management and marketing , after-sales service, or the operation and distribution of your product or service.