Can Amanda Turn Her New Business around before It Is Too Late - Case Study Example

? Final Project Case: Smith's Accounting and Tax Service: Can Amanda Turn Her New Business Around Before It Is Too Late? To, 09.03 The Smith's Accounting and Tax Service, Dear Amanda, Subject: Recommendations for Improving Management I have studied your case and on the basis of my analysis, I sense that you need to enhance the managerial functions in your organization. In a nutshell, all organizations irrespective of their size must develop and apply the four managerial functions (planning, organizing, directing and controlling) in order to run the business efficiently and achieve the objectives. These functions facilitate to make appropriate strategic decisions. With the aid of these four functions, you can utilize the resources effectively, minimize the expenses and ascertain sustainable improvement for your business (Eze, 2012). The major problem that I have identified in your business is mismanagement as there was no appropriate communication of mission and vision statement. Furthermore, in the business, a lack of employee motivation, a lack of performance standards and measurement activities has been observed. It is also observed that you take low curiosity about certain negative information which you had perceived from the clients. These aspects along with a lack of employee commitment and a lack of proper follow up on employees activities have resulted in a negative image of the organization. The following recommendations will help you to enhance the management of the small business and also bring about positive consequences within the organization. Now Amanda, the other most important drawback that I consider in your business is a lack of human resource planning. Planning is a vital element for any business irrespective of its size, because every function which is related with business falls under proper planning. On one hand, the planning of the business with respect to human resource management was good as you had organized interviews for employing qualified professionals in the business which was quite effective to a certain extent. However, the fact that Lisa, your acquaintance was liable for the recruitment process proved to be an ineffective decision for your business. The reason is that Lisa is not competent enough to handle the human resource management issues. Furthermore, she also has limited understanding in the field of accounting and taxation. Therefore, her selection of employees was inappropriate for the organization. Consequently, in order to make the recruitment process appropriate, there is a need for proper planning through devising precise job description, job design and selection method. Apart from these factors, I have recognized inappropriate management of time to be the other crucial element in your business. I can see that you have limited time for your employees. You had also failed to organize the time effectively. Often, you were under tight schedule and unable to provide appropriate guidance as well as direction to Lisa along with other employees. This poor time organizing has resulted in overlooking of serious managerial factors which has impacted upon the services of the business. Therefore, it is recommended that you must organize the schedule in such a way so that you can be present amid the varied activities in the business when needed in order to provide proper guidance and leadership (Alimo-Metcalf & Alban-Metcalfe, 2008). It is true fact that employee motivation is a vital factor which can determine the future of a business. Since there was no proper job description and job design, your employees are quite unsure about what are being expected from them. I can also see that Lisa was unable to provide proper instruction to the employees regarding what the organization expected from them. Due to this reason, the employees were unable to provide their best effort to accomplish the organizational goals. Thus, in order to make the employees to recognize what the organization wants from them, there is a requirement for developing and sharing the mission statement to them. It will help to develop the passion to put their best efforts towards the fulfillment of the organizational objectives. It is the role of the management in any organization to provide a proper direction to the employees. From the case, I believe that you lack in terms of providing proper consideration to the unsatisfied clients and you also left Lisa to handle all the clients’ complaints. Clearly, it seems that you failed to control the activities of employees which resulted in client dissatisfaction. The quality of services provided by your organization was far from appropriate. Thus, there is a requirement for providing proper directions and instructions to the employees so that they can fulfil the expectations of clients. In this circumstance, it is recommended that you must develop certain standards which can help to measure the performances of the employees and accordingly take actions to control the unexpected performance. This activity will help to resolve the problems related with clients (Moynihan & Pandey, 2010). It is still not that late for you to take proper actions for enhancing the organizational outcomes. In order to enhance the performance, you need to ensure accurate and timely information throughout the organization. In your context, I can advise you that you need to improve the communication system in your organization. This will help to ensure that you are receiving accurate and timely information and consequently you can take proper actions against any kind of identified business related issues without any delay. I acknowledge your attempt to include Monday for meeting in order to converse about the working status of individual employees. However, you have overlooked a vital aspect concerning the problems employees are facing in the current workplace. It is important for your organization to recognize the areas which can make your employees satisfied with regard to the work. You need to provide solutions to any problems of employees which will help to enhance the service quality of your organization (Kumar, Petersen, & Leone, 2013). Finally, by analyzing your case, I can acclaim that there is a lack of control and planning in your business. In numerous circumstances, you were unsuccessful to plan the time as well as managerial activities such as recruitment and training to the employees. Due to this reason, you lost control over the performance of your organization. Although your employees know their tasks but there is a need for proper control for ensuring appropriate performance. Furthermore, you need to organize the employees effectively to handle different tasks. Your organization is not organized appropriately since you have assigned considerable amount of tasks to Lisa. Thus, I suggest you that you should handle the human resource managerial tasks on your own so that you can effectively use the employees in a most lucrative manner. You can still turn around the business since you have now identified all of your pitfalls. Considering the above recommendations in business will help you to enhance the performance of your organization. With Best Regards, References Alimo-Metcalf, B., & Alban-Metcalfe, J. (2008). Engaging leadership creating organizations that maximize the potential of their people. Retrieved from http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/F72D3236-E832-4663-ABEC-BCC7890DC431/0/4585EngageleaderRIWEB.pdf Eze, A. A. (2012). Management practice in an organization. Retrieved from http://www.aiu.edu/applications/DocumentLibraryManager/upload/ANASTASIA%20DOC.pdf Kumar, V., Petersen, J. A., & Leone, R. P. (2013). Defining, measuring, and managing business reference value. Journal of Marketing 77, pp. 68-86. Moynihan, D. P., & Pandey, S. K. (2010). The big question for performance management: why do managers use performance information? Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, pp. 849-866. Read More