UNIT V

CONTROLLING
DEFINITION
Control is the process through which managers assure that actual activities conform to
planned activities. In the words of Koontz and O'Donnell - "Managerial control implies measurement of
accomplishment against the standard and the correction of deviations to assure attainment of
objectives according to plans."

Nature & Purpose of Control

• Control is an essential function of management
• Control is an ongoing process
• Control is forward – working because pas cannot be controlled
• Control involves measurement
• The essence of control is action
• Control is an integrated system

CONTROL PROCESS
The basic control process involves mainly these steps as shown in Figure
a) The Establishment of Standards:
Because plans are the yardsticks against which controls must be revised, it follows logically that
the first step in the control process would be to accomplish plans. Plans can be considered as
the criterion or the standards against which we compare the actual performance in order to
figure out the deviations.
b) Measurement of Performance:
The measurement of performance against standards should be on a forward looking basis so
that deviations may be detected in advance by appropriate actions. The degree of difficulty in
measuring various types of organizational performance, of course, is determined primarily by
the activity being measured
c) Comparing Measured Performance to Stated Standards:
The performance evaluated can be for the organization as a whole or for some individuals working within
the
organization. In essence, standards are the yardsticks that determine whether organizational
performance is adequate or inadequate.
d) Taking Corrective Actions:
Corrective action is managerial activity aimed at bringing organizational performance
up to the level of performance standards. In other words, corrective action focuses on correcting
organizational mistakes that hinder organizational performance

BARRIERS FOR CONTROLLING

There are many barriers, among the most important of them:
• Control activities can create an undesirable overemphasis on short-term production as
opposed to long- term production.
• Control activities can increase employees' frustration with their jobs and thereby reduce
morale. This reaction tends to occur primarily where management exerts too much
control.
• Control activities can encourage the falsification of reports.
• Control activities can cause the perspectives of organization members to be too narrow
for the good of the organization.
• Control activities can be perceived as the goals of the control process rather than the
means by which corrective action is taken.
REQUIREMENTS FOR EFFECTIVE CONTROL
The requirements for effective control are
a) Control should be tailored to plans and positions
This means that, all control techniques and systems should reflect the plans they are designed
to follow.
b) Control must be tailored to individual managers and their responsibilities
This means that controls must be tailored to the personality of individual managers.
c) Control should point up exceptions as critical points
This is because by concentration on exceptions from planned performance, controls based on
the time honored exception principle allow managers to detect those places where their
attention is required and should be given.
d) Control should be objective
This is because when controls are subjective, a manager’s personality may influence judgments
of performance inaccuracy.
e) Control should be flexible
This means that controls should remain workable in the case of changed plans, unforeseen
circumstances, or outsight failures.Much flexibility in control can be provided by having
alternative plans for various probable situations.

TYPES OF CONTROL SYSTEM

BUDGETARY CONTROL
Definition: Budgetary Control is defined as "the establishment of budgets, relating the
responsibilities of executives to the requirements of a policy, and the continuous comparison of
actual with budgeted results either to secure by individual action the objective of that policy or to
provide a base for its revision.

CLASSIFICATION OF BUDGETS
Budgets may be classified on the following bases –
a) BASED ON TIME PERIOD:
(i) Long Term Budget
Budgets which are prepared for periods longer than a year are called LongTerm Budgets. Eg: Capital
Expenditure Budget and R&D Budget.
(ii) Short Term Budget
Budgets which are prepared for periods less than a year are known as ShortTerm Budgets Eg: Cash
Budget.
b) BASED ON CONDITION:
(i) Basic Budget
A Budget, which remains unaltered over a long period of time, is called Basic Budget.
(ii) Current Budget
A Budget, which is established for use over a short period of time and is related to the current conditions,
is called Current Budget.
c) BASED ON CAPACITY:
(i) Fixed Budget
It is a Budget designed to remain unchanged irrespective of the level of activity actually attained.
(ii) Flexible Budget
It is a Budget, which by recognizing the difference between fixed, semi variable and variable costs is
designed to change in relation to level of activity attained.
d) BASED ON COVERAGE:
(i) Functional Budget
Budgets, which relate to the individual functions in an organization, are known as Functional Budgets,
e.g. purchase Budget, Sales Budget, Production Budget, plant Utilization Budget and Cash Budget.
(ii) Master Budget
It is a consolidated summary of the various functional budgets. It serves as the basis upon which budgeted
Profit & Loss Account and forecasted Balance Sheet are built up.

BUDGETARY CONTROL TECHNIQUES

The various types of budgets are as follows
i) Revenue and Expense Budgets:
The most common budgets spell out plans for revenues and operating expenses in rupee terms. The most
basic of revenue budget is the sales budget which is a formal and detailed expression of the sales forecast.
ii) Time, Space, Material, and Product Budgets:
Many budgets are better expressed in quantities rather than in monetary terms. e.g. direct-labor-hours,
machine-hours, units of materials, square feet allocated, and units produced. The Rupee cost would not
accurately measure the resources used or the results intended.
iii) Capital Expenditure Budgets:
Capital expenditure budgets outline specifically capital expenditures for plant, machinery, equipment,
inventories, and other items.
iv) Cash Budgets:
The cash budget is simply a forecast of cash receipts and disbursements against which actual cash
"experience" is measured.
v) Variable Budget:
The variable budget is based on an analysis of expense items to determine how individual costs should
vary with volume of output. Some costs do not vary with volume, particularly in so short a period as 1
month, 6 months, or a year.
vi) Zero Based Budget:
The idea behind this technique is to divide enterprise programs into "packages" composed of goals,
activities, and needed resources and then to calculate costs for each package from the ground up.
NON-BUDGETARY CONTROL TECHNIQUES
There are, of course, many traditional control devices not connected with budgets, although
some may be related to, and used with, budgetary controls. Among the most important of these
are: statistical data, special reports and analysis, analysis of break- even points, the operational
audit, and the personal observation.
i) Statistical data:
Statistical analyses of innumerable aspects of a business operation and the clear presentation
of statistical data, whether of a historical or forecast nature are, of course, important to control.
Some managers can readily interpret tabular statistical data, but most managers prefer
presentation of the data on charts.
ii) Break- even point analysis:
An interesting control device is the break even chart. This chart depicts the relationship of sales
and expenses in such a way as to show at what volume revenues exactly cover expenses.
iii) Operational audit:
Another effective tool of managerial control is the internal audit or, as it is now coming to be
called, the operational audit. Operational auditing, in its broadest sense, is the regular and
independent appraisal, by a staff of internal auditors, of the accounting, financial, and other
operations of a business.
iv) Personal observation:
In any preoccupation with the devices of managerial control, one should never overlook the
importance of control through personal observation.
v) PERT:
The Program (or Project) Evaluation and Review Technique, commonly abbreviated PERT, is a
is a method to analyze the involved tasks in completing a given project, especially the time
needed to complete each task, and identifying the minimum time needed to complete the total
project.
vi) GANTT CHART:
A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the
start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. Terminal
elements and summary elements comprise the work breakdown structure of the project. Some
Gantt charts also show the dependency (i.e., precedence network) relationships between
activities.

PRODUCTIVITY
Productivity refers to the ratio between the output from production processes to its input.
Productivity may be conceived of as a measure of the technical or engineering efficiency of
production. As such quantitative measures of input, and sometimes output, are emphasized.

COST CONTROL
Cost control is the measure taken by management to assure that the cost objectives set
down in the planning stage are attained and to assure that all segments of the organization
function in a manner consistent with its policies.
Steps involved in designing process of cost control system:
• Establishing norms: To exercise cost control it is essential to establish norms, targets or
parameters which may serve as yardsticks to achieve the ultimate objective. These
standards, norms or targets may be set on the basis of research, study or past actual.
• Appraisal: The actual results are compared with the set norms to ascertain the degree of
utilization of men, machines and materials. The deviations are analyzed so as to arrive at
the causes which are controllable and uncontrollable.
• Corrective measures: The variances are reviewed and remedial measures or revision of
targets, norms, standards etc., as required are taken.

PURCHASE CONTROL
Purchase control is an element of material control. Material procurement is known as the
purchase function. The functional responsibility of purchasing is that of the purchase manager
or the purchaser. Purchasing is an important function of materials management because in
purchase of materials, a substantial portion of the company's finance is committed which affects
cash flow position of the company. Success of a business is to a large extent influenced by the
efficiency of its purchase organization.

QUALITY CONTROL
Quality control refers to the technical process that gathers, examines, analyze & report
the progress of the project & conformance with the performance requirements
The steps involved in quality control process are
1) Determine what parameter is to be controlled.
2) Establish its criticality and whether you need to control before, during or after results are
produced.
3) Establish a specification for the parameter to be controlled which provides limits of
acceptability and units of measure.
4) Produce plans for control which specify the means by which the characteristics will be
achieved and variation detected and removed.
5) Organize resources to implement the plans for quality control.
6) Install a sensor at an appropriate point in the process to sense variance from
specification.
7) Collect and transmit data to a place for analysis.
8) Verify the results and diagnose the cause of variance.
9) Propose remedies and decide on the action needed to restore the status quo.
10) Take the agreed action and check that the variance has been corrected.

PLANNING OPERATIONS
An operational planning is a subset of strategic work plan. It describes short-term ways
of achieving milestones and explains how, or what portion of, a strategic plan will be put into
operation during a given operational period, in the case of commercial application, a fiscal year
or another given budgetary term. An operational plan is the basis for, and justification of an
annual operating budget request. Therefore, a five-year strategic plan would need five
operational plans funded by five operating budgets.
Operational plans should establish the activities and budgets for each part of the organization
for the next 1 – 3 years. They link the strategic plan with the activities the organization will
deliver and the resources required to deliver them.
An operational plan draws directly from agency and program strategic plans to describe agency
and program missions and goals, program objectives, and program activities. Like a strategic
plan, an operational plan addresses four questions:
• Where are we now?
• Where do we want to be?
• How do we get there?
• How do we measure our progress?
The OP is both the first and the last step in preparing an operating budget request. As the first
step, the OP provides a plan for resource allocation; as the last step, the OP may be modified to
reflect policy decisions or financial changes made during the budget development process.
Operational plans should be prepared by the people who will be involved in implementation.
There is often a need for significant cross-departmental dialogue as plans created by one part of
the organization inevitably have implications for other parts.
Operational plans should contain:
• clear objectives
• activities to be delivered
• quality standards
• desired outcomes
• staffing and resource requirements
• implementation timetables
• a process for monitoring progress.