Management at WorldCom

Introduction:

World com is one of the world leading public relations management companies. It’s an independent partnership of firms that seek to manage the aspects of public relations for their clients that constitutes both national and international companies. WorldCom was established in 1988 and has been able to succeed in its pursuits to offer quality services in the area of public relations management and counseling by developing networks for assisting companies to venture into global businesses without any challenges. On the basis of the above information, this paper will address the following questions with regards to WorldCom case.

Evaluate the planning function of management.

Planning is one of the critical functions that the management of any firm is expected to undertake. This is due to the fact that organizations exist for a specific purpose and hence the people responsible for realization of such purposes must put up structures to achieve. Planning basically entails providing details of the future course of action within an organization so that set objectives can be achieved. Planning therefore describes how all the available resources in the organization will be combined to achieve specific goals. In the planning process the managers also consider all factors that may affect the realization of the organization goals and crafts corrective measures. WorldCom is one of the major providers of intelligence information to enable organizations come up with accurate plans and assess the situations that may affect the business operations. Planning may follow the following processes: The organization will first set the objectives and the key issues to be achieved. The second step will be gathering the information and all resources that will be required in the achievements of the set goals. The third stage normally involves the identification of different objectives that matches the current resources with a view of formulating alternative courses of action. The last stage in planning is the creation of derivative plans that are used in the achievement of the objectives. WorldCom as a company will be vital in the information gathering and setting of the alternatives. This is due to the huge network that enables it to gather valuable information for any organization. It also has experts who are able to assist businesses make the right choices in business strategies.

Influence that legal issues, ethics and corporate social responsibility have had on the company.

Legal, ethical and social responsibility is issues that any company has to contend with in its operations. Legal issues relates to factors that affect the company and the internal and external stakeholders as well as the structure of the business in operations. As mentioned earlier, WorldCom is a partnership kind of business and hence all the members that make up the business have to establish rules and regulations affect their relationships. These laws must be constituted according to partnership laws. One of the key issues that could affect world com is the issue of sharing profits and liabilities. This could be a major challenge for the business especially as more and more member firms joins the partnership’s accounting procedures and processes to record the financial operations of the company can be a major challenge since World com draws its membership from different countries with different accounting policies and procedures. This makes it difficult to consolidate the financial accounting and may lead to legal problems within the company.

Ethical issues in business relates to the ability of all stakeholders to operate within the acceptable standards and remain honest in its dealings with other stakeholders. Ethical issues may include relationship with competitiors, the general public shareholders and the government. Businesses are under obligation to honor and accurately report accurate issues to the above stakeholders. WorldCom was affected by the issues of corporate governance and violation of the rules governing business and poor implementation of accounting policies that led to huge losses of the company. The firm also suffered from managers who lacked integrity and could steal from the shareholders through unjustified loans. All these are ethical issues that can bring down a company. Social responsibility is also another key component of connecting with the community where the company operates and hence businesses are compelled to participate in community activities and also assist in solving community problems. The social responsibility activities must however be done within the management capability and each activity must be properly accounted for. In the case of WorldCom, the management concentrated too much on social responsibility to acquire the sympathy of the public despite the concerns by the accounting department on the impact of such expenditures. This clearly demonstrates that organization must clearly balance social responsibility with their economic strategies in the planning process.(Moberg,2010).

Factors that influence the company’s strategic, tactical, operational and contingency planning.

Planning in organizations may take different forms like strategic or long term plans, tactical plans, operational and contingency plans. Strategic plans are long term organizational plans that seeks to achieve great benefits to the organisatiion.Tactical plans are strategic plans that have been broken down to achieve specific areas within the wider strategy. Operational plans are short term plans by middle level managers to achieve daily objectives of the business and contingency plans are alternative plans that can be adopted in case of adverse results of other plans. Although these plans differ the factors that influence them are similar. The following factors will influence all these types of plans within an organization.

Budget/available financial resources:

The execution of any plans will mostly depend on the organizations financial capability hence its important to consider the available funds. This will allow organizations to fully implement plans derive the maximum benefits from such plans. Strategic plans may lead to heavy losses if the organization lacks the necessary funds to complete them. Operational plans will normally require constant cash flows within an organization.

Ethical issues:

All plans within the organization must be guided by acceptable ethical practices. Its however worth noting that managers decisions will always make part of the plans and hence they need to exhibit high levels of ethics so that they make correct decisions.unthical decisions by the management leads to poor planning and could put organizations into problems with stakeholders. WorldCom management decided to award themselves unjustified loans which really affected the financial position of the company and led to heavy losses (Olsen,2006)

Role of management:

The other factor that affects these plans is the role and responsibility that is put of the management of the company. Managers are essentially the responsibility of creating value for the shareholders and other stakeholders of the business and hence all the plans must be aligned towards the achievement of their responsibilities as indicated in the company mission and vision (Olsen,2006)

References:

Moberg,D. (2010). “WorldCom” scu.edu.Retrieved May 23,2011.From

HYPERLINK “http://www.scu.edu/ethics/dialogue/candc/cases/worldcom.html” http://www.scu.edu/ethics/dialogue/candc/cases/worldcom.html

Olsen, E. (2006). Strategic Planning for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ. : Wiley.