Management And Organization For Global Management Functions

Budgets and forecasts

Describe about the Management and Organization for Global Management Functions.

Planning is a management function that is concerned with defining goals and objectives of the organization to be achieved for its future growth and development. Planning aims at providing direction to the overall functions of the organization and is done according to the vision and mission of the organization. Planning is the preparatory step, and chalks down future course of action for a business. It determines what activities are to be performed, what resources would be required to successfully undertake the planned objectives, who will be responsible for completing planned activities and how it will add value to the overall organizational efficiencies (Reiss 2013).

Today’s business operates in a highly dynamic and unpredictable environment, therefore, it is important to plan future course of action that an organization should adopt in order to be in the market in the long run and to achieve its objectives. Planning involves analysis of firm’s internal and external environment and understanding their implication on the organization’s functioning. Planning enables managers to select most appropriate course of action for the business from different available alternatives. Planning helps the business to effectively allocate organizational resources and achieve organizational efficiency in meeting its short term as well as long-term objectives (Burke 2013).        

In this context, managers (decision makers) have variety of tools at their disposal that assists in undertaking planning activities. These planning tools help in environmental scanning, forecasting and benchmarking. Planning helps businesses in taking well considered course of action to achieve its objectives, scheduling of various activities, provides control and monitoring of the overall activities and also, assists in taking appropriate measures in case of deviation from the planned objectives (Kerzner 2013). There are multiple planning tools and techniques that are employed for different purposes. For instance, budgeting and forecasting are used for allocation of resources, Gantt Charts are used for production planning and scheduling, PERT networks are used for project planning, sensitivity and scenario planning are used for understanding possible future conditions and enhancing managerial decision making, and so on (McNeil et al. 2015).

The purpose of this assignment is to discuss planning tools and techniques that assist in making strategic decisions and to take the organization to right direction in the unpredictable business environment. The report, therefore discusses various planning tools such as budgeting and planning, PERT networks, Gantt charts, and sensitivity and scenario analysis. The essay discusses in detail about the concepts, application, advantages as well as limitations of these planning tools or techniques and helps to understand how these tools assist in developing effective plans for business organizations in order to achieve their final goals or objectives.

Budget

Forecasting and budgeting is one of the most important and commonly used planning techniques used by managers. It is used to determine and to detail an organization’s long term as well as short-term financial goals. Budgeting and forecasting are financial planning techniques that assist managers in the decision making process. Budgeting technique uses estimation to quantify or to monetize the expectation of revenues a business aims to achieve for a future period, forecasting on the other hand, is used to predict the volume of revenues that will be achieved (Verzuh 2015). Budgeting aims at outlining a plan for an organization concerning where it wants to go; while, forecasting indicates where the organization is actually headed. In addition, budgets provide detailed list of incomes and expenses and provides a realistic guide for planning activities. While, forecast simply presents list of possible income and expenses scenarios. Moreover, budgets are generally based on past performance and include some forecasting; however, a budget that takes into consideration multiple forecasting is more effective as it allows the business to opportunities and downturns more quickly (Bozarth and Handfield 2016).

Budget: A budget is the estimation of revenues and expenses an organization that a firm has to incur over a future period (particular accounting period). It is a detailed financial outline of what business thinks will happen over a period of time financially. Budgets are written documents that include information about business’ revenue, expenses, cash flows and it represents business’ financial position (Leach 2014). Budgets can be understood as a quantified expectation of resources that a business would require in order to achieve some predetermined goals and objectives. Budgets are prepared for future period considering various goals and objectives of the firm such as vision, mission, business strategies, and goals and objectives. It provides necessary direction to the business activities as well as serves the purpose of business control tool to achieve predetermined business objectives (Hope and Fraser 2013).

In order to develop budget that would guide spending, both fixed and variable expenses are considered. Fixed expenses are those expenses that do not change each budgeting cycle such as rents, interest payments and insurance premiums. Variable expenses changes each month and include electricity bills, utilities, commissions, and phone bills. It involves documenting how the organization’s overall plan would be executed over a specified period, outlining expenditures. Budget is a control tool that is frequently employed by managers to compare actual outcomes with expected results to determine variances and to develop strategies to minimize those variances (Kerzner 2013).

Forecast

In order to use budget as useful tool to manage business operations, managers have to consider some important things such as – the budgets should be based on realistic cash flows. The budget should be able to differentiate between essential expenses and discretionary expenses. In addition, incorporating cash reserves into the budget can be good strategy as it acts as cushion future downturns in business (Kendrick 2013). 

Forecast: Forecast is an estimate of what the organization wants to achieve. Forecasting is used to predict company’s income and is undertaken using accumulated sales and revenue historical data of the organization and the industry (trend analysis)s to predict financial outcomes for some predetermined period. Forecasting helps to estimate possible fixed and variable expenses based on different sales and revenue scenarios. Forecasting is used to determine how a company should allocate their budget for a future period. Unlike budgets, financial forecasting is updated more frequently if there is change in business’ market outlook or change in business plan.  It is an important tool that assists managers to make necessary adjustments in expenses and align business functions with changing market conditions within the budgeting period (Acebes et al. 2014).

Further, it is crucial for managers to consider some points while doing forecasts for the company. The most important point that managers have to consider is to develop more than one forecast for the company, preferably three forecasts; one that presents positive outlook, one for pessimistic scenario, and one most likely. This helps managers to plan for growth, but also helps to prepared for unexpected markets conditions that are not originally thought of. Next important point is to keep updated about market conditions and updating forecasts on regular basis. Moreover, it is also important to involve key people from the organization while developing forecast document as they have better understanding of the business goals and market condition, which will improve the accuracy of forecasting document (Goodman et al. 2013).

There are many advantages of budgeting and forecasting in the organizational context, that can be  given as –

Budgeting and forecasting are frequently in business organizations as they provide an effective way of allocating and utilizing resources within the organization. It improves manager’s understanding of future business environment and contingencies. It also acts a motivational tool as it presents overall vision of the organization, helps in identifying roles and responsibilities of employed in achieving organizational objectives and improves inter organizational communication (Reiss 2013).

Advantages of budgeting and forecasting

Drawbacks

Though, there are many advantages of budgeting and forecasting in planning, these tools are not full prove and have following disadvantages such as –

Developing organizational budgets and forecasts requires considerations for a lot activities and factors, which carries real opportunity cost. Moreover, due to changing market conditions, business plans or any other factors, forecasts are required to be frequently updated that makes the previous budgeting and forecasting exercise futile. The frequency of errors and inaccuracies in the budgets and forecast are very high as compared to other planning tool and techniques. In addition, budgeting and forecasting may lead to inter department conflicts as organizational resources are limited and each department wants to get hold of maximum resources (Acebes et al. 2014).

Pert is an abbreviation for Program Evaluation Review Technique. It is a statistical tool that is widely used by business for planning and coordinating business operations or projects. It is developed to analyze and represent various tasks involve in completing a given project. PERT was designed by United States Navy in 1950’s and is generally used in conjunction with Critical Path Method (CPM).  It is a network based tool for planning and scheduling multiple inter related tasks in large and complex projects. It helps to answer the shortest possible time for completing the project and what activities must be undertaken first and in what order to minimize project completion time (Wyatt 2012).

PERT employs statistical techniques to measure to measure and forecast development in business projects. The technique is widely used in manufacturing organizations. It provides a framework for decision making that helps managers to take effective decisions in order to achieve end objectives, and also saves time in taking business decisions. Moreover, the PERT is an effective decision making tool that helps managers to save time in decision making functions for those projects where time is a vital factor. It takes into consideration all the three crucial factors that influence the successful achievement of end objectives. These factors are – time, resources and technical performance specifications (Hajdu 2013).

PERT uses time as a variable factor that presents planned resource applications and performance specifications. PERT helps to quantify uncertainties that may arise in the course of achieving business objectives about which little information is available, thereby allowing management to develop greater understanding of the business environment (market) and formulate appropriate strategies to minimize such risks (Wang 2013). PERT technique is used to processes the data concerning the major events or finite milestones that are necessary to accomplish end objectives, establishes inter dependencies between those events and predicts the time (or range of time) that are necessary to execute activities between two successive events. The time estimates in PERT includes – “optimistic time”, “most likely time”, and “pessimistic time” for individual activity between two successive events (Hajdu and Bokor 2014).

Limitations of budgeting and forecasting

PERT is management control technique that helps the in helps in achieving the objectives of the business in the specified time, highlighting the risks in the market that requires management intervention. It helps in identifying and defining both the methodicaness and slack in the network of sequential activities that has be undertaken to achieve business objectives.  It compares the current expected time with planned completion time; and calculates the probability of meeting objectives on time and simulates effects of various decision options that are available to meet the business objectives. Thus, PERT helps the decision makers (managers) to identify and implement best available decision alternative to meet the business goals and objectives (Heagney 2012).

PERT technique helps simplifying the planning and scheduling of large and complex projects in uncertain business conditions, when details and durations of various activities in meeting the final objective is not known. It is used for one time projects where historical data are not available.  Further, it is used for those non-routine business decisions or projects where time is the critical factor rather than cost (Hajdu 2013).

Pert planning process

It consist of following six steps –

1. Identifying the individual tasks to be performed
2. Identifying the dependencies between the tasks to determine the sequence of tasks to be undertaken
3. Drawing a network diagram representing these tasks
4. Obtaining estimates of time for completing each activities
5. Identifying critical path
6. Keeping the network diagram and critical path throughout the project

Example

In order to, better understand the application of PERT technique, following example can be considered:

Task	Predecessors	a (Optimistic time estimate)	m (Realistic time estimate)	b (Pessimistic time estimate)
A	–	2	5	8
B	A	1	2	9
C	A	0.25	0.5	3.75
D	B	1	1	7
E	B, C	1	2	9
F	D, E	1	3	11

(Source: As created by author)

Activity duration estimates:

PERT technique employs three time estimates (a, m and b), to minimize the error in estimating activity duration. These time estimates are –

a = shortest possible time to complete an activity assuming everything goes perfect.

m = most likely time to complete an activity under normal circumstances.

b = longest possible time to complete an activity for worst case scenarios.

Based on these time estimates, a “weighted average” and “variance” is calculated for individual activity duration as a measure of average duration and corresponding variability.

Nodes represent events and activities are represented by arrows

Weighted average = (Shortest time + 4 x Most likely time + Longest time) / 6

Standard deviation = (b – a) / 6

Average critical path

The estimated duration for the critical path is sum of expected durations of the critical activities i.e. (5 + 3 + 3 + 4 = 15) and expected variance of the critical path is equal to sum of variances of the critical activities i.e. (1² + {8/6}² + {8/6}² + {10/6}²  = 7.33.  Moreover, it is important to note that activities on average critical path are considered for calculation of variance. The network diagram for the above activities are given as –

PERT Networks

Fig: Network diagram and average critical path

(Source: As created by author)

Advantages:

PERT provides the project manager with expected period within which the project can be executed and provides direction to the project functions. PERT chart helps in explicitly defining and making visible dependencies between work breakdown structure (WBS) elements. PERT helps in identifying the critical path of an activity. It helps in reducing overall project duration by providing a better understanding of dependencies between various activities by reducing overlapping of activities and tasks where viable. PERT presents large amount of project data in the form of diagrams that assists in effective decision making (Hazır 2015).

Disadvantages

For a large project, there can be hundreds or thousands of activities and individual dependency relationships, which cannot be represented in a single sheet and therefore, cannot be used for practical reasons. Another limitation is that all the estimates are subjective and depends on the abilities of the managers. PERT focuses on the time aspects of the project in achieving  and does not account for the overall costs. In addition, PERT network charts becomes complicated and unmanageable for large projects that constitutes hundreds or even thousands of activates and dependency relationships. Further, for large and complex projects, PERT charts become expensive to develop, update and maintain (Hazır 2015).

A Gantt chart is kind of bar chart that was developed by Henry Gantt in the 1910’s which depicts project schedules. It is essentially a timeline view of the entire project tasks and helps to visualize data. Gantt chart consists of series of horizontal lines that represents the amount of work done or some activities completed in certain periods of time in relation to the amount of time planned for completing those planned activities. Gantt charts are useful planning and monitoring tool that are commonly used in project management. It is one of the most helpful ways of representing activities (tasks or events) against time.  In Gantt chart, the left side represents a list of activities that has to be undertaken and at the top is represented a suitable time scale that is deemed correct for completing the mentioned activities. In Gantt charts individual activities are represented by a bar; the position and length of bar indicates start date, duration and end date of the activity (Sharon et al. 2014).

Gantt charts are the graphical representation of various activities that are to be undertaken to successfully complete the project. It helps to understand what activities are to undertaken, when each activity begins and ends, how long each activity is expected or scheduled to last, where activities overlap and by what magnitude, and the starting and end date of the entire project. In other words, Gantt chart helps to represent what activities have to perform the schedule for completing those activities.  It in the modern business organizations Gantt charts are frequently used tracking project schedules. It provides crucial information about the various tasks or phases of the a project i.e. how various activities of the project are related to each other, how far the each activity of the project has performed, resources employed for individual activities and other project related information (Ong et al. 2016).

Advantages of PERT networks

In order to complete the project successfully, it is important to manage and control a large number of activities so that the project can be completed on time. Time is an important factor for achieving the desired objectives. Even if a part of a project is delayed, it can have serious implications on the entire project and overall cost of the project will increase manifold. Gantt chart, in this context, helps managers to have complete control on project tasks and effectively eliminate deviations, if any. It provides a quick overview of the entire project, its associated tasks and the order in which it needs to be completed (Baker and Trietsch 2013).

In order to develop an accurate Gantt chart, following steps are required to be taken –

Identify essential tasks

Linking various tasks

Adding constraints

Including resources

Enhancing Gantt charts

Reviewing the project

In the today’s world, there are many software applications that enable manager to develop accurate and holistic Gantt chart. Some of the popular software for developing Gantt cart is – Microsoft Project, MindView Business Edition, and Primavera Project Planner. In order to develop Gantt chart, it is important to first completely understand the complete project plan and various aspects associated with it. The best way to understand project plan is to use work breakdown structure that splits the tasks into sub tasks and presents them in hierarchical order. In this regard, mind mapping of the entire project can be undertaken to ensure that all the activities of the project is included. Once the project plan is completed, data is feed into the application to get the relevant Gantt chart (Dayani and Gelbard 2015).

Example

In order to better understand the importance and application of Gantt chart, following example for a shop floor planning can be used –

Task	Length	Type (sequential or parallel)
A – Brainstorming and high level analysis	1 week	S
B – Preliminary market research	3 week	P
C – Preliminary manufacturing study	1 weeks	P
D – Evaluation and selection of best product design	1 week	S
E -Developing detailed marketing plan	1 week	P
F – Designing manufacturing process	3 week	P
G – Developing detailed product design	3 week	P
H – Building and testing prototype	1 week	S
I – Finalizing product design	2 week	S
J – Ordering product components	1 week	S
K – Ordering production equipments	3 week	P
L – Installing production elements	2 week	S

(Source: As created by Author)

Based on the activities identified for the above project, the Gantt chart can be generated as given below:

Time in weeks
	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
A – Brainstorming and high level analysis
B – Preliminary market research
C – Preliminary manufacturing study
D – Evaluation and selection of best product design
E -Developing detailed marketing plan
F – Designing manufacturing process
G – Developing detailed product design
H – Building and testing prototype
I – Finalizing product design
J – Ordering product components
K – Ordering production equipments
L – Installing production elements

(Source: As created by author)

Advantages

During the process of setting up Gantt chart, all the tasks related to the project are well thought of in advance, this helps managers to avoid any instances of forgetting any crucial aspect related to the project. Moreover, during this process, people responsible to execute various activities, time required to execute various activities and problems that may arise in the process of project completion are considered and remedial measures are planned in advanced.  Thus it can be said that developing a Gantt chart ensures that the project plan is workable, right people are assigned for each task and  management have workarounds for potential problems even before the project starts. In addition, Gantt chart helps to determine minimum time required to deliver the project and the critical path to be followed in executing various tasks related to the project. This also helps the interested stakeholders to keep informed about the project’s progress (Browning 2014).

Limitations of PERT networks

Limitations

One of the greatest limitation of Gantt chart is that it works effectively only for smaller projects. As the project becomes larger and complex, it becomes practically difficult to rely on Gantt charts for the purpose of scheduling and controlling the project objectives. Moreover, Gantt charts do not represents various sub tasks that are important to achieve a milestone (Riol and Thuillier 2015).

Sensitivity analysis

Sensitivity analysis is a mathematical tool that helps decision makers to determine how different values of an independent variable can influence a particular dependent variable under some particular set of assumption and circumstances.  It is data driven analysis that of how some variable variables impacts a single variable. This method is widely use in decision making and is sometimes referred to as “what if” analysis as it provides managers a simulation analysis to predict the outcome of a decision within a particular set of decision variables.  In sensitivity analysis, key quantitative assumptions and computations related to a decision are changed systematically in order to determine their effect on the final outcome (Weglarz 2012).

Example:

In order to better understand the concept, following example can be considered –

Sensitivity analysis can be used to determine the influence of customer traffic on total sales. The sales are dependent on price and transaction volume. Assuming, that the price of merchandise is $1000 and the company sole a total of 100 items last year, for an overall sales revenue of $100,000. Further, it is established that 10 % rise in customer traffic increases transaction volume by 5%. This knowledge can be used to develop a financial model and sensitivity analysis around this equation based on what if statements. The model can be used to explain what would happen if the customer traffic increases by 10%, 20%, 50% and so on. Based on the current data, the 10%, 20% and 50% increase in customer traffic would lead to increase in transaction by 5, 10 and 50 respectively. This analysis also indicates that sales are highly sensitive to change in customer traffic (Fang and Marle 2012).

Sensitivity analysis is one of the important business decision tools. In order to make an effective decision managers have to identify cost drivers as well as other quantities that influence the quality of decision making.   On the other hand, some quantities do not have any influence on overall quality of decision taken by the managers and the collection of information about these quantities can be relaxed. This helps the business to save some valuable resources without any loss in the accuracy of decision (Young 2013).

Gantt Charts

Advantages

Sensitivity analysis helps business managers to identify critical assumptions and compare alternative model structures. It helps the mangers in collecting relevant data for future use and also helps in resource allocation. It helps in testing the robustness of an optimal solution and highlights about the riskiness of the strategy developed by the organization (Gal and Greenberg 2012).

Limitations

In most of the business decision scenarios, variables are interconnected or correlated with each other and thus, it becomes practically difficult to examine each variable individually. Moreover, sensitivity analysis is based on assumptions that employs past data, which may not hold true in future. In addition, the maximum and minimum values used for the analysis is open to subjective interpretation. This can have adverse effect on the overall accuracy of the analysis (Deif 2012)

Scenario analysis

Scenario analysis can be defined as a process of analyzing future course of events by considering alternative possible outcomes. Thus, it helps to predict future scenarios and enables managers to develop greater understanding of the future market conditions to that they can take effective decisions (Ökmen and ÖztaÅŸ 2015). Moreover, scenario analysis does not rely on past or historical data to make projections about the future; instead it tries to possible developments and turning points. It is helpful to develop optimistic, pessimistic and most like scenarios, so that the managers or decision makers can formulate appropriate strategies to deal with future market conditions.  Further, the purpose of undertaking scenario analysis is to improve managerial decision making by allowing consideration of outcome and its implications (Chow 2014).

In order to undertake scenario analysis following steps can be undertaken –

Defining the problem: having a clear understanding of the problem enables the managers to understand final outcome that the business wants to achieve.

For example, if the business wants to launch a new product that cater to corporate clients in managing their financial data. In this context, it is important to access where the business would be headed in the next five years and what future conditions might affect the success of the business.

Collecting data: Once the problem has been identified, the decision makers are required to identify key factors, trends and uncertainties that would influence the business plan. This can be achieved through running a situational analysis comprising of both external and internal business environments. Based on the analysis, key assumptions are required to be identified  on which the plan depends (Hassani 2016).

Advantages of Gantt Charts

In this case, the key assumptions can be – the state of economy i.e. clients have suspended their business development plans due to recession in the economy, perceived importance of the business plan for the clients in enhancing organizational productivity.

Separating certainties from uncertainties: Based on the assumptions identified, it is important to determine the validity of those by thoroughly challenging them and selection of validated assumptions as “certainties”. Other assumptions that are not so significant or crucial for successful implementation of business plans can group as “uncertainties” (Lee et al. 2016).

For the above business plan, certainties are identified as large organizations face problems financial management for diverse group of products and services they deal in and the new product provide by the organization would help corporate clients in enhancing their organizational capabilities.  However, there are other competitors in the proposed business plan category that may significantly hamper the business plan in the long run.

Developing scenarios: Now depending on the uncertainties, different scenarios are developed starting from the top uncertainty. Based on all the uncertainties, optimistic, most likely and pessimistic scenarios are developed (Amer et al. 2013).

The three scenarios for the above example can be – First, the new product would be a success as the economy is growing steadily. Second, the product would be able to pull through the market slowly as the economy is in declining stage and lastly, the product would require time and organizational resources to establish in the market and the intensifying competition and recession in the economy would ultimately lead to product failure.

Using scenarios for planning: Based on the scenarios, the managers can plan accordingly.

Advantages of scenario analysis include –

Scenario analysis helps management in making most appropriate decisions considering all the available alternatives available. It helps the organization to avoid poor investment decisions. Scenario analysis presents best and worst outcomes that an organization might face in the future, therefore, it allows the organization to be prepared for possible future opportunities and threats. This helps organizations to be proactive instead of being reactive (Ökmen and ÖztaÅŸ 2015).

Drawbacks of scenario analysis

One of the major disadvantages of scenario analysis is that it is subjective in nature and its accuracy depends on the capabilities and experience of the planner. Other disadvantage of scenario analysis lies in the fact that it is not possible to accurately predict future scenarios for long-term projects, especially if the project is expected to exceed two or more financial years. Moreover, it is impossible to implement scenario analysis in those conditions where trends change frequently, or some natural disaster or some unprecedented financial events (Chow 2014). 

Limitations of Gantt Charts

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that planning tools and techniques plays an important role in formulating and implementing organization’s plan. Planning tools helps in scheduling and coordinating various organizational plans and assists managers to ensure that the organizational objectives are effectively accomplished. There are different planning tools that assist managers in the planning process. Some of the most commonly employed planning tool include budgeting and forecasting, PERT network diagrams, Gantt charts, and sensitivity and scenario analysis. Although, all these tools and techniques helps managers in planning, they all serve different purposes and are employed according to the type of project, complexity and organizational needs.   Budgeting and forecasting helps in determining future expenses that the organization has to incur to reach its objectives whereas forecasting helps in determining the how these objectives would be achieved. PERT network diagrams help managers to identify various activities that have to be undertaken to accomplish a project. It also helps the managers to identify the shortest possible time within which a project can be completed. Moreover, it also helps to establish dependencies between various tasks necessary to successfully complete the project. Gantt charts on the other presents the project milestone in the form of horizontal bar charts. Gantt charts helps in scheduling the project tasks and provides a overall idea about project’s progress. Lastly, sensitivity and scenario analysis helps in determining future conditions related to the project and presents various situations that might occur at some point in the future, thereby enabling managers to prepare for such contingencies and select most appropriate course of action.

References

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Sensitivity and scenario analysis

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