Challenges faced by todays Manager

Contents
Introduction Information Control Rising Costs Security & Technology Advancement Responding to Globalization Managing Work Force Diversity Improving Quality and Productivity Improving Customer Service Labour Force Modification of Work Culture Understanding Employee Needs Conclusion

Introduction
Business environment is changing drastically in todays corporate world. In early years of current management era, managers were supposed to work exclusively with equipments, data and systems; performing traditional tasks. But scenario of management responsibilities has now changed significantly and todays manger faces issues like cross training, personnel management, interdepartmental communication and widening job scope. Globalization is shaping and re-shaping business environment, resulting in increase of competitors, demand of new sourcing strategies and facing new markets with new demands.

Information Control
Irregular flow of information often subject to quantitatively strong fluctuations, controlling the flow of information is necessary otherwise these fluctuations can become detrimental. Information controlling is the analysis, evaluation and importance attached to the data that is collected and is provided with the data under various criteria. Day by day managerial job is becoming more and more hectic Manager needs to continuously look for new ways to improve speed and quality along with reduction in rising cost.

Rising Costs
Rising costs is another major problem for the managers. Rise in the cost of services and wages is becoming more and more troublesome for managers. In current environment there is no guarantee of the employees being loyal to company, thus, to get more money employees ask for higher wages. Also there is requirement to keep the cost of services, provided by company under constant watch. If company starts loosing because of rising service cost then mangers put attention to solve this issue.

Security & Technology Advancement

As complexity of electronic data processing increases, security often decreases. Not only does this pose problems in the form of breaches, it also has legal ramifications with regard to licenses. This problem is especially faced in IT industries. IT companies buy very expensive software and after some months or years, a new version comes up Again managers are forced to change their strategy along with change in technology. Customers may want to change or upgrade to new technology, then manager has to negotiate for the money and services, this may lead to unsatisfactory customer service.

Responding To Globalization
Various forces of globalization are reshaping the business environment generating new competitors and demanding new sourcing strategies and market. In dynamic market situations, its very hard for managers to predict any concrete goal and strategy for the business development. Short term strategy may work very well but for long term, goal setting is the problem. Again dynamic market conditions of global economy make the profit prediction shaky. Contd..

Responding To Globalization
..contd No one is able to predict the variations in the profit and losses, business can make. Responding to globalization is becoming more and more important; this results in redefining the business model. Today change is happening at such a rate that organizations cannot afford the luxury of managing one major change at a time. Today managers are facing two questions because of globalization, how does relentless change redefine the nature of management and the structure of an enterprise? And what role should the management play in re-shaping the enterprise?

Managing Work Force Diversity

Due to globalization and open market system for business, management has to face diversity in work force. Also, businesses are now spread over different cities in various countries. Thus managing not only gender and age diversity, but cultural diversity too becomes essentially important to manage the work force. Basically, heterogeneity of the work force becomes a challenge for the managers because of variations in the ethics, motives and working culture.

Improving Quality and Productivity

Main challenge for the management is to decide, what is to be produced, how much is to be produced and where is it to be produced. Management has to decide either to produce different products or has to lay emphasis on one product. Once this is decided, managers have to make sure that the quality of the product is maintained. It takes considerably long time for an organization to create a market for the product But if there is any lacuna (gap) in quality and productivity then because of high competition, it becomes hard for the product to sustain in the market.

Improving Customer Service

Improving customer service is one thing managers generally think, will get around to in time. But that time rarely comes. Changes in the requirements or changes in the taste of customers become hurdle in the improvement of customer service. To solve this issue, managers try to set up scenarios that challenge employees and cover the full range of customer requests At times management also keeps two scenarios running parallel and asks the employee to maintain a balance between both.

Labour Force
Along with the earlier stated problems, managing labor force is again a challenge for managers. These days there are no unwritten contracts of being loyal to an organization Because of this, many employees are fired from the organization or they leave the organization when offered a better salary job. In the absence of a contract between employee and organization, employee may decide to leave an organization in the middle of project work. This is a very challenging situation for managers to deal with.

Modification of Work Culture

To overcome these challenges managers have to modify the working culture. Managers need to be aware of the skills of their subordinates and people under them. Empowering of employees is the best way to get maximum output from them. When employees get bored because of routine work, then to get more output, managers can make changes or innovations in the working style.

Understanding Employee Needs

Along with the challenges discussed, managers have to make efforts to understand their employees. If managers are able to gel with their employees, only then would the employee be happy to work with the manager He/she will be ready to face or tackle the challenges faced by managers. By knowing their employees, managers will be in a position to understand the working capacity of employees and allocate the work accordingly. This will also help in performance appraisal and to know the liking of an employee towards the job and the work allocated to him/her.

 Considering many changes in the working environment and globalization, todays managers are facing many new challenges compared to previous years. Todays managers are coming up with new ideas and theories about the challenges faced by them. Inflation and changing rates of foreign exchange are also creating challenges to managements To handle all of this, managers have to come up with new innovative ideas.

References

Wikipedia Economic Times

Authors
Hussain K Priyanga E Vishal Nawalgaria