BUSS2 Flashcards
What are the two main approaches to budgeting?
Historical
Zero based
What is historical budgeting?
Use last years figures as a basis
Realistic as based on actual results
Circumstances may have changed
Does not encourage efficiency
What is zero based budgeting?
Budgeting costs and revenues are set to zero
Built from the bottom up
Based on new proposals for sales and loss
Makes budgeting more complicated and time consuming
What are three times of budgets?
Income
Expenditure
Profit
What are ways budgets are used in a business?
Establish priorities and set targets Provide direction and coordination Assign responsibilities Delegate without loosing control Monitor performance Control revenues and costs
What do budgets do?
Set out financial targets
Expressed in money
Provide a yardstick against which success/failure can be measured
Motivate staff to make it clear what they must achieve
Ensure there is no under or over spending
What are the potential benefits of training?
Better productivity Higher quality More flexibility Less supervision Improved motivation Better recruitment
What is off the job training?
Employee receives training away from the workspace
What are benefits of off the job training?
Wider range of skills of qualifications can be obtained
Can be learnt from outside specialists
Employees more confident
What are the drawbacks of off the job training?
More expensive (transport) Lost working time
What is on the job training?
Receives training whilst remaining in the work place
Benefits of on the job training?
Most cost effective
Employees are productive
Opportunity to learn whilst doing
Drawbacks of on the job training?
Quality depends on the ability of the trainer and time available
Bad habits passes on
Potential disruption to production
Benefits of external recruitment
Outside people give new ideas
Larger pool of workers to find best and suitable candidate
Wide range of experience
Drawbacks of external recruitment
Longer process
Expensive (advertising, interviews, training)
Selection process may not be effective to someone suitable
Benefits of internal recruitment?
Cheaper and quicker
People know how business operates
Provides opportunities for promotion
Drawbacks of internal recruitment
Business already knows strengths and weaknesses of candidate Limited number of applicants No new ideas Demotivate others who weren't chosen Creates another vacancy
What is internal recruitment?
Jobs given to staff already employed by the business
Promotion and reorganisation
What is external recruitment?
Job centre Job advertisement Recruitment agencies Headhunting Personal recommendation
What are the factors affecting absenteeism?
Significant business cost Sickness Bereavement Bullying Stress "Playing the system" Predictable
What are possible solutions for absenteeism?
Understand causes
Set targets and monitor trends
Have a clear sickness policy
Positive rewards for attendance
What are the factors affecting labour productivity?
Extent and quality of equipment
Skills, ability and motivation of the workforce
Methods of production organisation
External factors (suppliers)
Possible ways to improve labour productivity
Measure performance and set targets
Streamline production processes
Invest in capital equipment
Invest in training
What are the factors affecting staff turnover?
Industry practice Employee loyalty Economic conditions Size and ownership of business Financial rewards Working conditions
Possible improvements of staff turnover
Effective recruitment and training
Provide good and competitive pay
Job enrichment
Reward staff loyalty
What are the key costs to a business of staff turnover?
Higher recruitment and training costs
Increased pressure on remaining staff
Disruption to production
Harder to maintain required standards of quality and customer service
What is staff turnover?
Percentage of staff who leave during a period
What is labour productivity?
Output per employee
What is absenteeism?
Percentage of staff who are absent from work
What is delayering?
Removing layers of management from the hierarchy of the organisation
Advantages of delayering?
Low labour costs
Fast decision making
Disadvantages of delayering?
Less opportunity for promotion
Demotivating effect of disruptions, stress?
What are tall hierarchies?
Many layers of hierarchy
Narrow spans of control
Allows tighter control and less delegation
Promotion opportunities
Larger communications
More layers means more staff means more costs
What are flat hierarchies?
Few layers of a hierarchy Wide span of control Less direct control, more delegation Fewer promotion opportunities Vertical communication improved Fewer layers meaning fewer staff meaning fewer costs
What is delegation?
Assignment to others of the authority for particular functions, tasks and decisions
Advantages of delegation
Reduces management stress
Subordinates are motivated
Good on the job training
Disadvantages of delegation
Depends on the quality or experience of the subordinate
Harder in a smaller firm
May increase work load and stress of subordinates
What are the challenges faced for management when changing organisational structure?
Manager and employee resistance
Disruption and de motivation making potential problems
Costs (redundancies)
Negative impact on customer service or quality
Why change the organisational structure?
Growth- formal structure is appropriate
Reduce costs and complexity
Employee motivation is boosted
Customer service or quality improvement
How does the size of the business determine the organisational structure?
Small businesses tend to have flat hierarchal structures
Large businesses tend to have complicated structures with more layers of hierarchies
How does the type of business influence the organisational structure?
Operate in several locations? Service or manufacturing? Overseas?
How skilled is the workforce?
How does the management and leadership style influence the organisational structure?
Autocratic- result in a different structure compared with where leaders delegate responsibility
How does the competitive environment influence the organisational structure?
Use of distribution channels, suppliers, competitors actions
Problems in setting budgets
Lack experience of knowledge in the main costs
Arrogant boss may impose rather than discuss targets or budgets
Takes time to manage
Needs to be changed as the circumstances do
Results in short term decisions to keep within the budget
Features of a narrow span of control
Allows for closer supervision of employees
More layers in the hierarchy may be required
Effective communication
Features of wide span of control
Give subordinates chance for more independence
More appropriate if labour costs are significant which reduces the number of managers
What are income budgets?
Target set for amount of revenue to be achieved in a set time period
Split by products, services or departments
Translated into individual sales targets for staff
What are expenditure budgets?
Split by department, function or product
Responsibility can be passed onto individual managers
Cash outflow
Monitors under and over spending
What are profit budgets?
Target set for the surplus between income and expenditure in a given period of time
Highlight potential and feasibility of the business
What are the main causes of cash flow problems?
Low profits Too much production capacity Too much stock Allowing customers too much credit Seasonal demand
What are the main causes of cash flow problems?
Low profits or losses Too much production capacity Too much stock Allowing customers too much credit Overtrading-growing too fast Unexpected changes in the business Seasonal demand
Short term ways to improve cash flow
Cut costs
Reduce current assets
Increase current inabilities
Sell surplus fixed assets
Long term ways to improve cash flow
Improve efficiency and productivity
Increase equity finance
Increase long term liabilities
Reduce spending on fixed assets
What is debt factoring?
A firm buys the amounts outstanding from customers
Factoring firm chances the debts
Benefit of factoring
Short term cash inflow
Cost of factoring
Usually 10 to 15% of value of debts bought, not all money is gained back
What are the sales of assets?
Converting fixed assets
Can be significant depends on the assets held
Can only be done once
Do the assets contribute towards profitable activities?
What are variances?
Difference between actual and budget figures
What is a favourable variance?
Actual figures are better than budgeted
What are adverse variances?
Actual figures are worse than budgeted
Why should businesses aim to improve profit?
Earn better return for investors
Stop businesses from suffering losses
Improve internal sources of finances
Provide s better return on investment made in new products of capacity
What is motivation?
The will to work
Comes from enjoyment of work itself and/or from desire to achieve certain goals
Methods to motivate employees
Financial
Non-financial
Advantages of a well-motivated workforce
Better productivity Better quality and customer service Lower levels or absenteeism Lower levels of staff turnover Lower training and recruitment costs
What are the key motivational theorists?
Taylor Mayo Maslow Herzberg McGregor Drucker Peters
What are the main financial incentives at work?
Wages- paid per hour worked and received money at the end of the week/month
Salaries-annual salary which is paid at the end of each month
Bonus system- usually only paid when certain targets have been achieved
Commission- pay based accordingly to value or volume of sales
Profit sharing- employees receive a proportion of company’s profits
Fringe benefits- company car, private health care, free meals
What are key non-financial incentives for employees?
Empowerment- delegate power to employees so they can make their own decisions
Praise
Promotion
Job enrichment - giving more challenging and interesting tasks
What is job enrichment?
Giving workers more interesting and challenging tasks
Seen as more motivating as it gives workers chance to further themselves
What is job enlargement?
Giving workers more tasks to do of a similar nature
Increasing the number of responsibilities that an employee has in order to increase motivation
What is the difference between time based pay and merit based pay?
Merit based- quality of work
Time based- number of hours worked
Two advantages of time based pay
Exact amount of work you do even overtime
Easy to work out pay
Two disadvantage of time based pay
If the staff work lots it could cost the business lots of money
Company controls the amount of hours worked
Less incentive to work hard