Page 36 - iimv-news-Vol-2-e

IMPRESSIONS

Company Gaps: Gaps that help recognize and appreciate the limitations/deficiencies in the capacities
and capabilities;

Culture Gaps: Gaps that help take stock of readiness (culture and capacity wise) to adopt and adapt
to change in response to the context and complexities.

Drawing upon the above, Objectives need enumeration, one by one. They need to be clear and crisp. They
should reflect the raison d'être (reason for existence) of the organization.

Opportunities

Opportunities give us the options for closing the identified gaps. Opportunities need exploration, without
losing sight of the Objectives (backward linkage) while being alive to the Outlays (forward linkage). There-
fore, only those Opportunities that are practical and practicable should be pursued. Opportunities should
be appropriate (to the Objectives), available, accessible, affordable and must hold out a promise of an

acceptable level of assurance on the achievement of Objectives.

Outlays
The chosen avenues (Opportunities) for pursuit of Objectives determine the Outlays. The Outputs that can
be produced (downstream) are also a function of Outlays. This stage therefore is the “Organizing” function

of management. Resources that need to be identified and allocated (financial, human, infrastructural, time
and space) are always bounded by the constraints of availability in quantity and quality and hence need
economizing. Sometimes Outlays are pruned due to severe resource-shortages or austerity measures, with

a rather harsh view taken, independent (irrespective) of Outputs (i.e., even if the Outputs were being
produced in the most efficacious manner!).

Since it’s the human resources (and the Outlays therefor) that determine and drive the deployment and use
of other resources, the “Leading” function of management is a concomitant requirement at this stage,
comprising the nurturing and fostering of communication, motivation, delegation, training, creativity, inno-

vation, influencing etc.
Outputs

Outlays lead to Outputs that should in turn result in Outcomes. Hence the Outputs too are linked with the
stages on both sides. Efficiency / productivity, in measurable, quantitative and tangible terms are the hall-

mark of Outputs. Ratios, with the Output as the numerator and the Outlay (Resources) as the denominator,
normalize the Outputs and lend comparability.

Take the example of health-care spends under a government scheme.

Outputs can be the No. of health centres established and their size (sq. feet), doctors hired, nurses
recruited, quantum of medicines bought, medical devices and equipment procured etc.
Resources can typically be time and money.

Efficiency of spends could be determined by dividing (a) with (b). Efficiency could also be determined by
comparing two Outputs e.g., No. of doctors per health centre; No. of nurses per health centre; No. of (a

particular type of) equipment per health centre etc.

34 VOL. / ISSUE /MAY AUG