Much is said nowadays about the phases of the business management, as well as its undeniable importance for the consolidation and improvement of a business, especially considering a current situation in which the market is increasingly competitive and constantly changing.
Throughout this article, the concept, the importance of these steps will be presented. Shall we meet them?
What is business management?
We define the business management as a set of strategic practices that aim at the evolution of results within a company.
These practices can follow several different models, but they always aim at optimizing processes, stipulating and meeting goals, improving the results achieved and pursuing the constant growth of the business.
It is different from management because, while it addresses fundamental and strategic decisions for the entire company, management, in turn, works as a kind of bridge that connects the strategic part and the operational part.
Therefore, it should be noted that good business management thinks, fundamentally, of the continuity of work, making it essential, not only with regard to the achievement of the goals established in a project, but also with regard to the definition and the fulfillment of new goals in the medium and long term.
How important is a good business management job?
Although the need for solid management in large companies is evident, this matter is of paramount importance for any business, regardless of its size.
This care is especially necessary when we talk about small and medium enterprises, since they tend to have fewer resources (both financial and human) to carry out all their demands.
Imagine a sole proprietorship in which everything depends on a single person: any misstep in running the business can be a fatal mistake and, in such cases, competent management is crucial to separating a good idea from a total failure.
To obtain a good performance, a competent manager must have a good command of all available tools. In this sense, we know that technology is, today, a powerful ally.
Invest in tools
If, in times past, many processes were performed manually, recent technological advances now allow many tasks be automated. Integrated business management systems, known as ERP, or Enterprise Resource Planning, exist in droves, adapting to companies of the most diverse sizes and formats.
This type of software provides information and reports, connecting different sectors of a company, such as financial, administrative, commercial, inventory, and so on. On the other hand, we cannot fail to mention that a good manager understands that, at the same time that the technological factor becomes increasingly essential, the human factor continues to be of vital importance in any and all professional processes.
Undeniably, a qualified team represents a good part of the gears necessary for the proper functioning of a company. Employees, supervisors, managers and the business owner himself, who sometimes assumes more than one (or all) of the company's functions – everyone must be well prepared.
Therefore, technical courses, degrees and professional experience, combined with sagacity, responsibility and proactivity, are powerful weapons that cannot be disregarded.
Consider hiring a consultancy
Contrary to what one might imagine, the owner of the company is not always its main manager. Therefore, it is not uncommon for the entrepreneur to choose to hire a business management consultancy. It is a specialized customer service, whose purpose is to assist in the conduct of business management activities.
This service can be applied both generically, on the company as a whole, as well as focusing on its specific sectors. Contrary to what can be assumed, a management consultancy does not consist of a mere outsourcing, as the participation of the manager with the consultancy is fundamental, mixing the knowledge internal of the first to the external vision of the second.
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What are the 5 phases of the business management process
For a management to be really efficient, it is necessary that the person responsible has total management over each moment of the work process. Therefore, it is essential to have a good work of systematization of stages. Below, we highlight the five main phases of the business management process:
1. Pre-analysis
This first step focuses on generating in-depth knowledge about the business, its proposal and the market within which it operates. It is a phase of much study and confrontation with reality, and therefore, feared by many entrepreneurs.
All the following steps will be based on the information gathered during this step, which is precisely why its importance should not be underestimated. Here, the enterprise is considered from several perspectives: it is the ideal moment to list all the alternatives and difficulties offered by the market, future perspectives and possible risks.
It is also essential to carry out a detailed analysis of the competition: who are the competitors, both established and potential ones, as well as the ways in which they operate.
In addition, a detailed study of the target audience cannot be lacking, which considers aspects such as their nature, expectations and purchasing power. There are also all sorts of internal and external factors, and their variations according to issues such as economy, location and seasonality.
In short, nothing should escape this thorough investigation of the terrain. It is simply essential to know all the elements capable of influencing the business, both positively and negatively.
2. Planning
Once the preliminary analysis has been completed, the time has come to structure the company's lines of action. This phase is called planning.
Talking about planning is essentially talking about goals. It is necessary to define where the company wants to go: once this objective is set, the necessary steps to reach it must be established in detail in a business plan.
It is also time to determine the marketing strategies and production, as well as all processes related to the company, its products. This plan can, and should, be constantly revised, and can be readjusted as new issues arise along the way.
This second stage must be done objectively and accurately, with the understanding, realism and self-criticism acquired during the previous stage. Even if things do happen, in fact, in practice, it is the good conduct of the pre-analysis and planning phases that give the manager or owner of the company a better understanding of the business itself, as well as the preparation against eventual bad weather that may come to show up along the way.
3. Execution
It's time to finally put the ideas into practice. This step consists of executing everything that was determined during the planning, and always paying attention to the notes made during the pre-analysis.
Initial studies and strategies should always guide the actions of this stage, but it is also necessary to keep an eye on the various developments of the present.
The unfolding of everyday events signals which measures will work or not. Therefore, it is essential that there is constant communication between manager and team. If there is not this constant exchange of feedback, perceptions about the progress of the work are plastered and this harms the final results.
4. Check
As the manager and consultant said William Edwards Deming: “you cannot manage what you cannot measure”. Based on this premise, there is a need to keep a constant assessment of the progress of the business, which is done during the checking stage.
Also called control, this step works in a complementary way to planning, and pays attention to processes such as strategy, feasibility, efficiency, productivity, profitability and customer service.
Through continuous monitoring and the use of instruments such as performance indicators, an overview of the progress of activities is established and it becomes possible to observe whether the goals are being duly met.
When there is a failure or delay in some objective, efforts must be made to identify the reasons for what happened. An efficient business management acts so that all possible hypotheses are raised, analyzed and revisited, until the reason for the failure is clear and the situation can be reversed in favor of the good progress of the work.
5. Action
In this last stage, the manager, starting from all the diagnoses and results obtained in the previous phases, acts in order to rectify the errors and, but also to improve the successes, when initial expectations have been exceeded.
It should be noted that, more than a final phase, the action is, in fact, a practice that needs to exist throughout the entire process. The key to the success it is intrinsically related to the manager's ability to learn, and, consequently, to the rest of the team, as well as attention to all phenomena surrounding the company.
Now that you know the concept, importance and phases of the business management process, we invite you to delve a little deeper into the subject: we have prepared content on organizational process management and you can check it out on this link.
