• Importance of Controlling
• Levels of Control
• Basic Control Process
• Types of Control
• Requirements for Effective Controls
INTRODUCTION
Control is an essential function of management in every organization. The management process is incomplete and sometimes useless without the control function. The management process includes planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. Planning sets forth the objectives a manager intends to achieve. Organizing provides the structure of an organization by determining how and where the employees will be placed in the organization and the responsibilities that they will need to fulfill to attain predefined objectives. Staffing involves the managerial function of placing the right person in the right job in the organization. Leading involves the managerial function of influencing, motivating and directing the human resources of the organization to achieve organizational goals. The control function is concerned with ensuring that the planning, organizing, staffing and leading functions result in the attainment of organizational objectives. In other words, control is a tool that helps organizations measure and compare their actual progress with their established plan.
The term ‘control’ has different meanings in different contexts. In the management context, ‘control’ refers to the evaluation of performance and the implementation of corrective actions to accomplish organizational objectives. Some people confuse ‘control’ with ‘supervision.’ Supervision is a part of control; it helps identify deviations from the established standards of performance.
IMPORTANCE OF CONTROLLING
The control function is gaining importance in today’s organizations due to a number of factors. These factors include the need for accountability in organizations, the need to detect environmental changes that significantly affect organizations, the growing complexity of present day organizations and the need to identify operational errors in organizations to avoid incurring excessive costs.
In addition to addressing the above mentioned factors, controlling plays an important role in helping managers detect irregularities, identify opportunities, handle complex situations, decentralize authority, minimize costs, and cope with uncertainty.