‘The process of dealing with or controlling things or people’; the very nature of management is such that transition and change overtime are innate to it. It is a science which has been practiced as far as history can be dated, from the time of great empires, to the very era we live in now. Management is in a state of flux, constantly influenced by the changing environment around us, therefore I do believe the art of management will change in the next half a decade.
We live in a era were we have seen the rapid development of globalisation, especially with the help of the boom in communication, this has changed the way markets operate and have been some of the key factors in moulding the way management works. Enabling employees and employers to interact in a complete different way with the introduction of high speed internet, alternative ways to communicate such as Skype calls, allowing the markets to gradually manoeuvre towards further efficiency. As our environment evolves so will our markets, inevitably evolving ‘management’.
I believe the change in the art of management in 5 years will be a steady one, however not an enormous one. In, ‘Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow’ by Larry E. Greiner, Greiner has stressed the phases firms will undergo while desiring growth however with staggering moments of crisis, as he called ‘revolutions’, that would then be followed by growth which he referred to as ‘evolutions’, this cycle would repeat, however the size of the organisation would develop in a vertical raising direction, with steepness varying firm to firm. Nevertheless, the key to these ‘evolutions and revolutions’ is the change in operation of management. The ideas of Greiner can be related in today’s market, as I mentioned above, from a international view, having integrated globalisation more deeply into the way markets operate, to a more internal view, having the introduction of new technology and the way we communicate with each other, has without a doubt evolved our markets as well as the way management proceeds within them.
Firms will profit-maximise by specialising and reaping the benefits of globalisation to operate in certain countries in order to minimise their costs, leading on to a more individual level, managers have newer, efficient ways to interact with their employees therefore closing the gap of information failure between them. A professional service firm, KPMG, recently brought the introduction of KGS, where they outsource a huge sum of their audit work to India, as a quick analysis, this would work more cost effective and save time. KPMG is one out of many who have taken advantage of such globalisation, and as a studier of management; this is one of the major changes I believe our markets will undertake, where instead of fewer firms benefiting, markets as a whole will grow. As mentioned before, markets and management are co-existing, the change I believe management will embark on, is the entirely new way employees, employers, colleagues and clients will interact with one another. As technology enhances, innovative ways of communicating have emerged, where managers or employers may not ever have to directly met those working beneath them or their employees. To apply this, I would like to use the example of a business that employs their employees over many countries. Newer techniques would allow employees of a specialised skill/profession to work within the same team however, may be in different continents, permitting individuals to work on the same projects or clients, regardless where they are operating from.
To conclude, I do believe the nature of management will change over the course of 5 years, however only in the way in which it is applied and exercised, nevertheless the fundamentals of management will forever remain the same, as held by Greiner, ‘performance of the company within phases still depend on the fundamentals of good management’, were the art of management may change although, the science will remain as it always has. Returning back to Greiner’s theory of ‘evolution and revolution’, above I have stated the ways management and the market may evolve, however Greiner believed that following every evolution was a crisis. Even though this may occur well after 5 years, where some firms may not be able to adapt to the strong changes in technology and advanced growth in globalisation, it is worth mentioning. This should not be the case to deter new ideas and approaches, as it was famously said by Greiner, ‘Too often, it is tempting to choose solution that were tried before but actually make it impossible for the new phase to emerge’.