Administration - Its role and importance

Generally, in a business, although administration is often a misrepresented concept, in reality it contributes significantly to business success. Specifically, administration is:

1. The medium for ensuring the overall stability and balance of a business and its structure.
2. The cohesion factor among all primary elements of a business in securing clear multidirectional internal and external communications.
3. The gauge for measuring performance of a business and its continual adherence to these objectives and direction.

 
To appreciate the importance of the Administration in the context of CSA (Cash, Sales, Administration) approach, let’s consider an average scenario, where a business has an advanced product/service to offer to the market. From a bird’s-eye view, following are the minimum steps:

1. To define the niche market and its subsets of target markets, and to develop the corresponding marketing plan, a business needs to conduct a market analysis.
2. The business is required to establish the most appropriate communication methods in executing the marketing plan. This step further includes acquiring expertise of the most talented individual/team, capable of delivering a business message impressively.
3. Upon completion of initial sales, to translate the Voice Of Customer (VOC) in to internal product/service needs, development of a reliable communication infrastructure is an absolute must.
4. An adequate internal hierarchical system (people, tools, process, standards, and communication methods) is essential in addressing a client’s requirement.
5. To ensure recurring business, implementation of a coherent after market/post-sales follow up system (CRM) is necessary. Collectively, all above mentioned steps constitutes the Administration aspect of a business. Therefore, if a business experiences challenges, the issue will be rooted in any or many of these steps.

 
Consequently, to overcome the emerging challenges:

• Issue is needed to be identified. During the process, cause must be separated from symptom(s).
• Interactions among the affected step and other ones are to be recognised.
• Problem is needed to be isolated and rectified.
• The effectiveness of implemented solution is required to be monitored and fine tuned, as deemed necessary.
• Preventive measures are to be developed to control and/or alert possible recurrence.