Book Review: Management Essentials: A Recipe for Business Success

Prelude

In this era of convenience also known as less time more money, people look for quick solutions which may or may not be easy or simple. Management Essentials: A Recipe for Business Success truly captures the spirit of contemporary times while folding essential management tools in a very crisp manner that can be consumed in a small time. The book, although does not get into details of Management theory does enough justice by diving into the sea and picking only pearls to the shore, discarding everything else brought out with it. The book has been prepared on the backdrop of confusion that pervades inter- and intra-management practitioners and business schools on issues related to the use and development of management as a theoretical discipline opposed to business practice in terms of application. Professor Arindam Banerjee has provided a solution that builds on basic business management principles with a practical orientation. As a person from the academic side of the subject, Professor Banerjee emphasizes the importance and role of theory in building the conceptual foundation for the subject.

Intended Reader

This book is a practical desk keep for every manager, student and educator to glance through the basic principles of success in management in a few minutes.

Subjects Covered

While it has become a general concept and connotation that Management works in functions, this book takes a full circle and returns to the approach of viewing Management as a discipline. This is a radical departure from the current thought where both practitioner and academicians have started operating in specialized silos: finance, marketing, human resources, operations, strategy, information technology to name some and forgotten the real purpose of management education and practice.

The format of the book in the form of a recipe is very reader friendly for ready consumption. The chapters in the book are lucidly written with illustrations that are well explained, detailed and practical. The book has seven chapters along with an epilogue that beautifully sums the volume. The first chapter sets the stage with the ‘ATN’ framework. The chapter starts with the question as to what differentiates a successful organization from an unsuccessful one, and the answer starts addressing the concept of value creation in organization; How, Where, When, What and once created, How could it be Sustained. This involves the discussion on innovation that can happen in any value chain activity of the organization and brings out the importance of Accurate Anticipation (A); Timely Transformation (T) and Money matters (M) in the ‘ATM’. Each of these is complemented with an example.

The second chapter talks of, ‘The power of anticipation’ and it being the ingredient for the business success curry. This essentially is a chapter on research as an aid to Management Decision Making and how to organize for it in terms of multiple sources of information and methods. The third chapter of the book effectively catches the two organizational dimensions of people and rational decision making, which the author addresses as investments in versatility and creating buffers. Organizations must work on employee as assets which can be multidisciplinary and give better value at lower costs. Contingency planning must be incorporated among each business just as individuals save ‘for a rainy day’. The effective fitment of financial and human resources to realize the maximum, ‘bang for the buck’, can be achieved by following certain governing principles which are described as ‘the curry condiments’ in Chapter 4 of the book. The author, however, recognizes human beings as not being completely rational decision makers; hence stochastic predictions about future have to be taken in light of practical and unforeseen conditions which may not be the best optimal solution. The third organizational resource ‘Information’, intangible in nature is yet the deal maker/deal breaker in present times. These three resources need a judicious mix through business acumen in a preparation that could yield effective business outcomes. Chapter 5 starts with the role of analysis in management decision making and what is the purpose of doing analysis, how is it to be done and where does it need to end? This perhaps is an issue posing before most managers as their degrees and education equip them with techniques for number crunching. While the gut feel and experience may supplement analysis, it is basically processes that should be developed as a basis for decision making rather than relying on individuals. In Chapter 6, the author takes up the topic of ‘Branding’, with the notion of a Brand as being a consequence of marketing investments and not as something unique or different that is separate from the marketing effort and offer. In the end, in Chapter 7, the author puts some relevant thoughts on effective management practice and reaffirms that this effort of his although does not cover the entirety of management theory but addresses the most frequently required principles of management in a simple and usable form.