Another hard-working week has gone with Management Communication, Operations and Marketing lessons. These lessons are continuous and applicable to my work life. Management communication deals with planning, communication, and writing in business. I am still taking online courses on presentation and expect to finish by the end of today.
On work matters, we are at the end of the financial year, and preparations for reporting are ongoing. This entails a review of controls for the year to ensure that they are still effective and that the rules under each control have been executed. In addition, meetings are ongoing with affected departments, and everybody’s functions and roles are re-emphasised. This allows for a smooth financial reporting closure process. The cut-off date for receipt of vendors’ invoices is 12 December 2023, after which invoices received will be paid in 2024. All divisions must participate in the closure process by meeting their deadline for submission of data and reports to the corporate reporting team.
Communication is key, and memos are issued on matters considered significant to the closure process. The memos can be informative or persuasive depending on the substance of the matter involved. Informative memos are usually straightforward and are commentaries on deadlines, new developments, etc. In contrast, persuasive memos are on issues, conclusions, arguments and action points. Again, for purposes of clarity, the role of each Division is restated, and the performing party acknowledges ownership.
For me, as an individual, planning my work is essential. I have to review the controls I am responsible for to ensure that my team has executed their role in compliance with the controls. In addition, queries raised in the previous year’s closure process must be addressed and resolved before the commencement of the closure for the current year. Operations management looks at the input and value-added process. I have learnt much from the course and have been able to apply it to my work experience so far.
From my studies, the Analysis of Business Problems blends a future wheel with the process of analysing cases. The future wheel refers to the direct consequences of an action, which in turn has one or more indirect consequences. I am currently trying to view the impact of alternatives in a case study to bring out the direct and indirect consequences of the action points. I consider this entangling and hope not to confuse issues as I work on the future wheel impact of the criteria/alternatives of the case. Also, from my studies, the Management communication course on Presenting for business brings to the forefront what Presentation is all about. It documents the tone, clarity, readability simple and relevant characteristics of a good presentation using slides. It states that the slides should not be overloaded with information but should be sparsely populated. Visuals are preferable to spreadsheets as the audience tends to remember what they hear and see rather than having to understand what the spreadsheet may be conveying.
#MEMBA 12
Modeleola JEGEDE
