Ans – Management is the process of planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling people’s efforts and resources to achieve organisational goals effectively and efficiently. Effectiveness means completing the right task and achieving its purpose; efficiency means doing it with minimum cost and waste. Finishing an order on time is effective; doing so with economical use of labour and materials is also efficient. Neither goal attainment at excessive cost nor economy with missed targets is desirable.

1. Planning: decide objectives and the course of action in advance; for example, set an annual sales target and the means of reaching it.
2. Organising: identify and group activities, assign duties and establish authority relationships so that the plan can be carried out.
3. Staffing: obtain, develop and retain suitable people through recruitment, selection, placement, training and appraisal.
4. Directing: guide and influence employees through supervision, motivation, leadership and communication.
5. Controlling: establish standards, measure performance, compare results with standards, analyse significant deviations and take corrective action.

These functions are interdependent. Control information can lead to a revised plan, changed work allocation or additional training. Coordination binds all the functions together.