To achieve objectives, managers need to maintain the balance among the conflicting demands of the stakeholders of an organization. Stakeholders are all those, who have a stake in an organizational success, including employees, owners, customers, creditors and others. Owners seek a satisfactory return on their investment; employees want good pay and comfortable working conditions; management must also please its customers, for without them the company will have little purpose; creditors, suppliers, trade associations should also be considered. So, management must balance the interests of different groups.

Management is also needed to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is the ability to get things done correctly. An efficient manager is the one who gets higher output relative to the inputs (labor, materials, money, machines and time). Effectiveness is the ability to choose the most suitable goals and proper steps to achieve them. That is, effective managers select the right things to do and the right methods for getting them done.

Management is a process of managing people. Any manager has some functions. He performs planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Planning is choosing an organizational mission, and then determining the courses of actions (programs, projects, methods, systems, strategies) to achieve them. All other functions depend on this one, for they cannot succeed without sound, thorough planning and decision making.

Organizing determines what resources and alternatives are required and it also delegates the authorities to employees, who are to carry out managers instructions.

Plans and organization are useless without the function of leading. Leading is getting employees to do the things the manager wants them to do. Therefore, the leader’s qualities, style and power are very important. This function can be performed in the face-to-face manner or through written orders and job descriptions.

All the previous functions are ineffective without the last one- controlling. Controlling is ways of assuring that planned action is really performed. Forms of control commonly used by managers are inspections, progress reports and financial statements. Again, effective control cannot be performed without successful planning, organizing and leading.