Managing a business invariably includes a great deal of repetitive and routine tasks. Computers and ...

1. Business Management Software Cannot Replace Strategic
Management
Managing a business invariably includes a great deal of repetitive and routine tasks. Computers and
software will carry out these tasks fast and without computational errors at comparatively low costs.
Speedy and accurate computations can also make it possible to do many essential tasks that were
simply impossible before, such as developing complex designs or generating meaningful reports
from vast amounts of data.
What can Business Management Software do?
Communications: Word processors transformed the process of written communications. Instead of
retyping whole documents, you could make corrections just where you want. E-mails made delivery
of written communications almost instantaneous. Voice mails made it possible to talk even to a
recipient who was not present at the other end. Webinars enabled conferencing over the Web with
participants from all over the globe.
Accounting: Instead of recording transactions in registers, transcribing the recorded details to
ledgers, totaling and extracting balances of all ledger accounts, preparing and troubleshooting trial
balances and painstakingly classifying and summarizing the balances to prepare income statements
and balance sheets, computers and software reduced the entire process to just data entry, and then
clicking a few keys to get all the different reports you want.

2. Inventory: Where dollar values alone were inadequate, as in the case of inventory management,
software helped keep track of quantities, locations, usage patterns of individual materials and non-
moving items, and computing re-order levels and economic order quantities.
Customer and Vendor Management: Systems like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and
Supply Chain Management (SCM) helped improve the experiences of customers and vendors in
dealing with the enterprise. They also helped the enterprise to get better value from these agents
through streamlined, automated processes.
E-commerce: On-line catalog display and selling can reduce costs and expand reach.
Marketing: Websites can help build brands, maintain communications with customers and vendors,
and get feedback, over and above conducting e-commerce as above.
Project Management: Complex exercises such as constructing a PERT/CPM chart and the more
routine tasks like recording and monitoring the progress of projects help manage projects more
effectively to achieve completions within time and budget.
Administration: In addition to the traditional functions of improved time and attendance recording,
and payroll, a centralized portal can act as a bulletin board and meeting place for an enterprise's
employees even if they happen to be located all over the globe.
Individual Productivity: Tasks such as contacts management, tasks scheduling, live chat, automated
document workflows and fast retrieval of needed documents from centralized document repositories
are specific examples of management software that help improve individual productivity.
Industry specific software such as retail business management, construction business management
and law practice management software can tailor the packages to the typical practices of the
businesses. One problem with general business management software is that they are designed with
many different user groups in mind, and will need to be configured to meet the specific
requirements of a particular user. This can discourage users from using the system to its potential.
What Business Management Software Cannot Do
Management is not just routine tasks. The most critical elements of successful management consist
of strategy and people management. And these are things where creativity and perceptiveness are
more important than routine task-performance. The number-crunching computers are nowhere near

3. humans when it comes to these qualities.
Strategy involves identifying a niche or arena where an enterprise can compete successfully using
its core competencies and strengths. It requires identifying customers, their requirements and
preferences, looking at competitors and their practices/strengths, at industry trends including
technology developments, and at other issues such as environmental, political and economic
developments.
While computers can help gather much of the supporting information, it is creative and perceptive
human thinking that can best identify the best strategy options based on intuitions developed
through experience.
People management invariably involves emotional inputs and outputs, for recognizing individual
needs and identifying the most appropriate responses. Done right, these can energize whole
organizations to superior performance, something that even the most sophisticated computer
systems cannot do.

4. Business management software can indeed help businesses complete tasks with unprecedented
speed and efficiency. However, effectiveness of business management depends on identifying and
implementing a strategy that is best suited to ground realities in a complex environment, and also on
energizing the people in the organization to perform at their peak. These are tasks in which humans
do better than computers.
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