Management as the effective use of human and material resources

Meaning of the statement

The statement defines management by its purpose: an enterprise has objectives, it has people and material resources (money, materials, machines and methods), and management is the activity that combines them so that the objectives are reached. It is close to the definition of Robert L. Trewelly and M. Gene Newport, who define management as "the process of planning, organising, actuating and controlling an organisation's operations in order to achieve coordination of the human and material resources essential in the effective and efficient attainment of objectives". The statement keeps their stress on resources and objectives but leaves out the functions through which the coordination is achieved.

What the statement brings out

1. Management is goal-oriented. It exists because the enterprise has objectives to achieve, and it unites the efforts of different individuals towards them.
2. Both kinds of resources matter. Input resources are money, materials, equipment and people. Materials and machines produce nothing until people use them, so the human resource is the one that puts the others to work.
3. Effectiveness. Being effective means doing the right task and finishing it, that is, achieving the goal.
4. Efficiency. Being efficient means doing the task correctly at minimum cost, getting more output from the same inputs or the same output from fewer. The statement's word effective utilisation should be read to cover both, since management must keep the two in balance.

What the statement leaves out

• The process. Management is not only a result but a process of planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling through which resources are used.
• Working through people. Management gets things done with and through others, so it is a group activity and not only the handling of resources.
• The environment. Resources are limited and the environment keeps changing, so management is a dynamic function that must adapt.
• People's own goals. Employees join to satisfy their own needs, and management has to reconcile these with the enterprise's objectives; people are not just another resource.

An example

During a measles vaccination drive, a district hospital in Odisha has a fixed stock of vaccine, a few cold boxes and a team of nurses. Management decides which villages to cover on each day, routes the vans so that no vial is wasted in transit, trains the local health workers to register families in advance, and compares the doses given with the vials opened each evening. If every planned village is covered, the drive has been effective; if this is done with few doses wasted and no extra vans hired, it has also been efficient. The statement's effective utilisation asks for both together, and they are reached through planning, organising, training and checking.

Conclusion

The statement captures the core of management: using people and material resources well to reach the enterprise's objectives. It is fuller when read with the process through which this is done, the people through whom it is done, and the changing environment in which it is done.