What is Management?
There are many definitions.
Generally speaking, we can say that on the top of each organisation or structure, is the ability to obtain an organisational behaviour from the staff-company that the enterprise economic strategy means necessary.
See History. After the 1st industrial revolution, business management changed completely. Today, almost everything that was like a dream has become a reality and there is still a lot of novelty to come with robotisation and artificial intelligence. It all started with the human hand, moving on to steam. From then on everything began to be planned and projected.
In the 60s, Peter Drucker spoke about the growth of the consumer market according to the demands of customers rather than the business itself. A radical change. Customer became King.
Initially, the management considered the sale of the product to be of particular importance and focused its activity and strategy on it. But much has changed.
According to Igor Ansoff, companies should manage the competition for the consumer market, in a win-win perspective.
The 2nd revolution occurred with the standardization and mass production of management models with Henry Ford and Henri Fayol.
Still, in the '60s, technology took a step forward with the creation of computers and the Internet, the moment of the acclaimed 3rd revolution. With new equipment, companies got more data from their customers, from consumers. It was thus created the individualization of marketing strategies. The focus was on the customer and the consumer. The technology evolved and marketing changed.
Consumer movement behaviour began to be studied in-depth, and from 1990, onwards companies began to be much more attentive to this behaviour to avoid obsolete technologies and obsolete business models, due to the shock of the so called "disruptive" innovations (Professor Clayton M. Christensen- in the book "The Innovator's Dilemma" - 1997).
Today we can consider that we are in the period of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Technology has completely transformed our lives, our way of acting at work, in families, in society and consequently in organizations. This has changed the consumer. Today marketing is also used to create consumer needs. Everything happens very fast and sometimes we don't even notice.
Maybe this combination of the physical, biological and digital world makes companies acquire new knowledge in order to integrate them in their projects, in other words, the classic vision of management is far from what it was. Now the almost total focus is on the consumer.
Based on this assumption, today it is considered that the organizations that are governed by the classic models are as if condemned to death. Revolutions also take place within companies. Peter Drucker affirmed that organizations are social entities and should reflect the movements that happen in society as a whole.
So, today, what do Managers really do?
Under a leadership position, managers allocate human, financial, physical and digital/informative resources.
They use many functions such as planning and organizing, such as leadership and control to achieve the most efficient and effective SMART objectives.
Above all, they make important decisions about the future of the company with their teams and are the highest corporate and administrative authority. They run the business.
It's Human Power!