Management Functions at Work: Dell’s Secret in its Success

The succeeder of valetaging an organization cannot occur, at least(prenominal) not within a reasonable time frame, without the functions of charge deep imbibed within their operations. Today, more companies recognize the benefits that of these functions of management in the process of organisational development. The implementation and outcome of their operations rely greatly on how they amaze with these functions.In rudimentary management classes, we all learned that the line of business of all(prenominal) manager involves what is known as the functions of management planning, organizing, directing, and controlling. Henry Fayol, a innovator of management theory. He was the first to outline the main functions of management. These functions are goal-directed, interconnected and interdependent. Planning involves devising a systematic process for attaining the goals of the organization. It prepares the organization for the future.Organizing involves place the necessary resources to carry out the plan. It is the process of creating structure, establishing relationships, and allocating resources to accomplish the goals of the organization. Directing involves the guiding, leading, and everyplaceseeing of employees to accomplish organizational goals. Finally, controlling involves verifying that actual performance matches the plan. If performance results do not match the plan, corrective action should be taken (Allen, 1998).Furthermore, Mintzberg (1973) undertook an drawn-out issue of vanadium executives (including quadruple CEOs) at work. Based on this research, Mintzberg actual a different status to Fayols four functions and improved it as he indicated three major management places interpersonal, informational and decisional.In the present view of a success in any given company, a study of how they applied these functions and roles as an organization is vital in attaining their goals. One role model of those companies is dell Inc., which is a truste d and diversified information-technology supplier in the US. Their note involves merchandising comprehensive portfolio of products and services directly to customers worldwide. Dell, recognized by fate magazine as Americas most admired company and No. 3 world(a)ly, designs, builds and delivers innovative, tailored systems that provide customers with exceptional value. Company revenue for the last four quarters was $52.8 billion (Dell Website).However, with the swiftly growing business Dell Computers ingest faced serious problems before. When Dell CEO Michael S. Dell and President Kevin B. Rollins met in private in the fall of 2001, they felt confident that the company was recovering from the global crash in PC sales. Regardless of what they thought, internal interviews among their employees revealed that subordinates thought Dell, 38, was electroneutral and emotionally detached, while Rollins, 50, was seen as autocratic and antagonistic. Few felt inviolate loyalty to the compan ys leaders. Worse, the discontent was spreading A survey taken over the summer, following the companys first-ever mass lay glums, found that half of Dell Inc.s employees would leave if they got the stake (Park and Burrows, 2003).As oftentimes as it was a big surprise, what happened next says much about why Dell was tagged as the best-managed company in area of technology. In other companies, the management might have shrugged off the criticisms or let the issue slide. But what Dell did was to focus on these criticisms that were thrown at them for they fear that their best employees would leave them.Within a week, Dell bravely faced his top 20 managers and offered a vocal self-critique, acknowledging that he is hugely shy and that it sometimes made him seem remote and unapproachable. He vowed to forge tighter bonds with his team. Some of his employees were shocked because they knew personality tests given to anchor executives had repeatedly shown Dell to be an off-the-charts int rovert, and such an admission from him had to have been agonising and pride-swallowing. But in the closer analysis, Dell was just utilizing his interpersonal management role as what Mintzberg has previously emphasized in his management model.The success of how Michael Dell manages the company that has elevated it far above its direct selling business model. The secret might be situated in his teaching that the status quo is never good enough, even if it means painful changes for the man with his name on the door. When success is achieved, its greeted with five seconds of praise followed by five hours of postmortem on what could have been done better. Michael Dell always emphasized, hold for a nanosecond. Then move on. One anecdote about his tasting on this belief is when an outfit opened its first Asian pulverisation in Malaysia. The Dell, as the CEO then, sent the manager heading the job one of his old running shoes to congratulate him. The message This is only if the first s tep in a marathon.Just as all-important(a) is Michael Dells belief that once a problem is uncovered, it should be dealt with quickly and directly, without excuses. Theres no The dog ate my homework here, says Dell. Indeed, after Randall D. Groves, then head of the server business, delivered 16% higher sales last year, he was demoted. Never mind that none of its rivals came close to that. It could have been better, say two former Dell executives. Groves referred calls to a Dell spokesman, who says Groves job change was part of a broader reorganization.Thus, a managers role is to lead his/her organization to a clearly stated objective, as what Michael S. Dell did to his company. In doing so he/she must muster all his resources in a concise and organized attempt at achieving those goals. As Erik Brynjolfsson, conductor of the Center for e art at the MIT intelligently observed about Dells secret management style Theyre inventing business processes. Its an asset that Dell has that its c ompetitors dont. whole shebang CitedAbout Dell. Dell In corporationorated Website. Acquired online September 19, 2005 at http//www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/en/home?c=us&l=en&s=corpAllen, G. managerial Functions, 1998. Acquired online September 19, 2005Mintzberg, H. The Nature of Managerial Work, Harper and Row, New York, NY, 1973.Park, A. and Burrows, P. What you dont know about Dell. Business Week The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. No. 3856, November 3, 2003, p. 76