Key co-ordinating activities carried out by managers to enable the effective transformation of inputs into outputs. These include: Forecasting and Planning – setting business goals and objectives, and preparing how to meet them, ie planning what has to be done, when, and by whom, in order to achieve the objectives. This should take into account the organisation’s environment and internal strengths and weaknesses; Organising – transforming the plans into actions by: dividing work into manageable tasks and activities; selecting human and material resources required to carry out the tasks; and creating an organisational structure which will enable activities to be carried out in the most efficient way; Commanding – instructing employees to carry out tasks, ensuring they know what is required and any mistakes that need correcting; Controlling – establishing set standards of performance, measuring actual against standard and taking corrective action as appropriate. This entails understanding and reacting to internal and external factors. The above management functions should help to co-ordinate the business, ie ensure that the people, finance and physical resources required to achieve a business’s objectives are in the right place at the right time, and ensure everyone is working towards a common goal.