• What is business management?
• Origin of business management
• Importance of business management
• Business management functions
• Business management techniques

We explain what business management is, its origin, functions and techniques. Also, why is it becoming more and more important.

Kaoru Ishikawa created the private business management method called Kaizen.

What is business management?

Business management is the discipline that studies the relationships between management business, Productive processes and the elements of cost, quality, logistics and distribution, among others. Its objective is to guarantee and continuously increase the effectiveness and competitiveness of a organization or a certain corporation.

In other words, it is about applying constant innovation, from every point of view, to the world of business administration, as defined by the prominent Austro-American economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950). In a strict sense, it is a specific branch of the administration of Business, often called today Business management.

Business management goes hand in hand with the ever-changing world of technology, and finds in dynamics such as automation, computing and new technologies, a set of usable tools for updating and improving business performance in its different facets and levels.

See also: Management, Management in administration

Origin of business management

Although its antecedents can be traced in one way or another to any form of organization or company throughout the history, This discipline took its first formal steps in the first half of the 20th century (academically in 1933 in Madrid, Spain), especially in the public and military sectors.

Its application to the private field came immediately, especially from the hand of specialists in certain productive stages, such as the Japanese Kaoru Ishikawa (1915-1989), one of the main exponents of the scientific or systematic method of constant improvement of administrative processes . This process of continuous improvement in the quality sector is known by the Japanese name of Kaizen.

Importance of business management

Business management is a very broad discipline, to which more and more attention has been paid today. This is due to the growing demand from the business world for professionals capable of (re) thinking the business world according to the changing needs of the time, which requires experience or, failing that, academic training.

Thus, as the business world demands more and better professionals to direct it and guarantee its survival, business management is a fundamental discipline when it comes to updating or updating production processes.

Business management functions

Like other similar disciplines, business management focuses on the analysis of the organizational structure, attending to the different aspects that can be improved upon. To do this, it usually emphasizes the four basic points of any production process:

• Planning. The prior provision of objectives to be achieved, of the methods and other characteristics of the business project.
• Organization. The ideal distribution of company resources, taking into account their similarities, differences, destinations and other usable factors.
• Communication. Exchanging data and of information relevant between the different parts of the organization, and also vis-à-vis the outside.
• Control. Strategic decision making based on the dynamics of feedback (feedback) possible from the information emanating from the production process itself.

Business management techniques

Business management is put into practice through a set of techniques applied to the different administrative processes of the organization, with the purpose of guaranteeing the viability long-term entrepreneurship. Some of these techniques are:

• Strategic analysis. It consists of the review of the social, political and economic environment in which the company is inserted, to identify external scenarios that may affect its performance.
• Organizational management. Centered on administrative process, consists of the review of the structure business for the future, to plan in advance the dynamics that the organization will need to approach the goals set.
• Information technology management. It consists of the study of strategies communicational aspects of the company, from the point of view of the new TIC or advanced communication platforms.
• Financial management. It consists of the review of the processes of obtaining, handling and investment capital of the company, to achieve the greatest possibility of performance in the short, medium and long term.
• Management of human Resources. It consists of the review of the strategies for obtaining and maintaining the organization's staff, from the point of view of the human and professional improvement of the company.
• Environmental management. It consists of evaluating the performance of the company in the face of environmental needs or the physical environment in which it is located: the pollution, social responsibility, etc.
• Operation management. It consists of the study of the logistics, supply and distribution processes that are specific to the company, and that usually involve raw material, Energy, supplies, routine services, etc.