Halliburton is an international oilfield services corporation operating in more than 70 countries; it’s the world’s second largest company in the industry; to manage the large number, the company has a workforce of over 50,000 employees operation in its outlets mostly composed of hundreds of subsidiaries, branches, affiliates, brands and divisions.
To remain competitive and continue meeting its customers’ needs and expectations, the company has maintains an effective management team; generally.scholars have realized four major functions of managers as planning, organising, controlling and monitoring; managers undertake this role via the decisions they make (Halliburton’s, 2011).
This paper discusses planning roles of Halliburton Company management and factors affecting planning role of the company’s management.
Planning as a function of management
The control and direction taken by a firm is dependent with the decision that managers have made, when quality and timely decisions are made, then the company will be seen to successes.
Planning is a vital function of management as it implements strategies and footpaths that a company follows into the unpredictable future; ensures that activities are well thought and coordinated. It considers the past, current and uses the information to predict and come up with policies to face the future with some certainty.
Planning is all about coming up with the right decisions that can see the company into the future, it aims at understanding the unpredictable future and developing policies that are likely to tap the opportunities offered by the future business environments as the company manages risks in the future.
When making a strategic plan, the company ensures that they have utilized internal and external information at the exposure of the company; information can be sort form government, research firms and self-developed information’s through research.
Halliburton is among the world most successful oilfield services company, the company does not limit its operations in the United states or in Dubai but it has diversified in other regions of the world.
When communing up with the decision of where to diversify, the management has to plan not only the operations of the company in the foreign company but also the strategy it will implement to remain competitive in the foreign country. After a successful venture, then to remain competitive, the company management plans and develops different strategies to make the company competitive.
Planning has some objectives that it aims to attain; it is the managements who have the role of ensuring the planned strategies can be attained effectively. when planning the best plan is the one that will offer the expected results within a certain time framework. it should come to the rescue of a company by solving the issues at hand (Williams, 2001).
Effects of legal issues, ethics, and corporate social responsibility on Halliburton International planning role of the management
When planning and developing strategies: managers have to consider both internal and external environment that a company operates. Halliburton is an international company, the external environment that it has to consider is thus widened by the diversity approach. Different countries have their set of legal requirements that a company must comply: other than the domestic ones, other international laws that must be respected.
When planning the company considers all these laws and ensure their decisions are compliant with the legal rules. Some of the laws include taxation, labour laws, and environmental laws among others.
Globalisation and increase in people awareness of their rights have called on businesses to for conduct business ethically. Ethics in business means conducting a business in socially, economically, politically and environmentally friendly manner.
The company ensures it has policies that are compliant with the expectations of the customers and the public; for example when making the products, it ensures it buys the materials from the local communities in the efforts of promoting the economies of such places.
On the other hand, a number of corporate social responsibilities that the company has initiated, they include environmental conservation, fair trade and health clinics with time.
The company adopts a CRM (customer relation management) approach to public relation, under the approach the company ensures that it satisfies the needs of the customers as well as those of the customers; this is in the effort of having good business relation with the people around (Crane & Matten, 2004).
Three factors that influence the company’s strategic, tactical, operational, and contingency planning
When planning Halliburton’s managing team must ensure that their plans are well thought and executed, to make tactical decisions, the managers consider the past, currents and expected future to come up with decisions.
Effective plans must be both operational, and contingent, they should be accepted in the organisation by all parties and be supported. Before making a decisions, the management needs to elaborate and understand the problem at had so as they can plan how to tackle the issue.
The operating environment (external environment)
When making tactical, operational, and contingent strategies, Halliburton appreciates the influence of external environment; external environment effects are those things that influence the direction of an organisation but they are above the control of the organisations.
When making plans they are interpolated as the risk that the decisions are likely to suffer from, they include, global economies, politics, and social movements. To understand these forces, the company undertakes P.E.S.T.L.E. analysis and uses Porters five forces to interpolate the environments.
There is no single point that an organisation should expect to have an environment that fully fits its needs, with the situation at hand, management should always devise a way of handing situations and different occurrences, with such moves then Halliburton’s will continue to dominate in its industry.
Organisational objectives, Mission and Vision
when making strategic, tactical, operational, and contingency planning decisions, Halliburton aims at fulfilling the needs of stakeholders and fulfilling corporate mission and vision; it aims at fulfilling the promise that it makes to the stakeholders.
For example when planning on expansion strategies and the sources of funds, the company ensures that the financial obligation that it has on shareholders and owners are met. Human resources are also taken as an integral part of the organisation and need to be managed effectively for an effective business, when planning their needs is considered.
The objectives and missions that the management will have for the company will determine how the company will be management and the kind of plans that management should be having in store for the company. In the event that there are shortcomings on management planning role, then the objectives and missions cannot be accomplished effectively.
Internal potential
The company has to interpolate the potential it has in the manufacturing sector, when the potential is interpolated, then the plans made are to put them in optimal use.
Internal potential include factors like human resources, brand name, intellectual property, or innovativeness, the advantage that can be taken from the internal potential should also be interpolated for an effective business and knowing areas of competitive advantage (Williams, 2001).
Halliburton’s management has the role of mobilizing the internal strength that the company ahs and using the same for its own benefit; in the case there are some potential that are offered by the market, the management should have ready plans to deal with the issues in time.
When dealing with threats and weakness that the company has, the management should ensure that its strengths are strong enough to outdo the weaknesses, in the case of management knowledge and experience shortcomings, the management should be willing to seek assistance from consultants and people who have wide knowledge on particular issues.
The management makes strategic decisions when to ensure that the firm remains competitive in the fiercely competitive world. Research and development team is mandated with the task of advising the management on the best products and services to offer the market; the department works closely with sales and customer service to incorporate customer needs and demands.
To improve their market volume, the company should use strategies advocated by Blue-ocean theory; the approach focuses on establishing niche markets instead of concentrating with highly concentrated markets.
Conclusion
The success of Halliburton in the international business arena can be attributed to effective management team; the team is able to plan for the future using past and current experiences. When coming up with a future strategy, it is the policy of the company to involve all cadres of staffs; the involvements boosts decisions acceptance.
References
Crane, A., & Matten, D.(2004). Business Ethics. Oxford: Oxford university Press.
Halliburton’s. (2011). Halliburton’s. Web.
Williams, S. (2001). Making better business decisions: understanding and improving critical thinking and problem-solving skills. London: Sage.