A business is usually divided into a number of departments, each being responsible for a specific range of work (such as production, finance, personnel, marketing). The structure of the departments and sub-departments can be shown in an organisation chart. This shows the departments how they are related to each other, and the lines of communication between them.
Organisation charts differ from personnel charts. These show the posts held by individuals, their job titles and, sometimes, the span of control. The charts, therefore, indicate how responsibilities are divided between different individuals, and who is responsible to whom.
Despite their advantages, the charts have three serious limitations.
The amount of work involved in running a large business is usually too much for the senior managers to cope with entirely on their own. This means that responsibilities, authority and duties have to be passed "down the line" to others – i.e. to middle management and first-line management. This is known as delegation. One of the arts of management is to know to whom particular tasks can be delegated – and to whom they should not. Proper delegation means the spreading of the work load. It also means that particular tasks can be delegated to those who have special experience or qualifications to deal with them. However, there is always the risk that the person a task is delegated to will prove to be incompetent. There is also the risk that unless there is proper "reporting back", the senior manager will not know what is going on.
Plans are pointless unless there is a periodic check – a control – on what is being achieved. Whereas planning is concerned with the future, control is concerned with the (immediate) past. Problems can arise at any point during the implementation of a plan. Furthermore, unless a specific check is made on them, they can go unnoticed for so long that they become impossible to remedy. The controls should therefore be carefully planned so that they spot-light the problems which are likely to arise. Also, they should take place regularly.
There are several different types of control. Some can be measured in
specific "quantity" terms. With these, an actual figure proposed in the plan
(often known as the budgeted or standard figure) can be compared with the
figure actually achieved. For example, the planned quantity of raw material
expected to be used, together with its anticipated cost, can be compared
with the actual quantity used and the actual cost. Similarly, the "standard"
(i.e. anticipated) wage rates and the time a job is expected to take can be
compared with the actual.
перевод на русский