Management Skills Case Study

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MANAGEMENT SKILL

DEVELOPMENT

NCD CONSULTANTS (PVT) LTD

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PREFACE

It is very important to have a sound knowledge in management of an organization to increase

the productivity of that organization. This case study, about the management skills in NCD

consultants (PVT) Ltd, gave us a great opportunity to apply our knowledge in a real life

situations.

This report includes five chapters which describes the details of the company and its’

management skills.

The first chapter comprises of information about NCD consultants (PVT) Ltd including its

main functions, complete projects and organizational structure. The second chapter contains

details about its current situation, specially company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities

and threats. Also the current managerial skills in fields such as human resources, document

management and performance management are described in detail in this chapter.

The third chapter gives information about positive and negative factors that affect for the

efficiency of the company which had been identified during the case study. Chapter four

contains recommendations to mitigate those negative factors and fifth chapter contains the

summary of the case study on management skills in NCD consultants (PVT) Ltd.

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Table of Contents PREFACE ...................................................................................................................................................ii

BACKGROUND/ CONTEXT ........................................................................................................................ 1

1.1. Basic information about NCD consultants (pvt) ltd ................................................................. 1

1.1.1. Information of the company ................................................................................................. 1

1.2. Organizational Structure ........................................................................................................... 2

OVERVIEW OF THE CURRENT SITUATION ............................................................................................... 5

2.1. SWOT Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 5

Strengths ......................................................................................................................................... 5

Weaknesses ..................................................................................................................................... 6

Opportunities .................................................................................................................................. 6

Threats ............................................................................................................................................. 6

2.2. Human resource Management ................................................................................................... 9

2.3. Hiring and Recruitment ............................................................................................................... 9

2.4. Compensation and Benefits ...................................................................................................... 10

2.5. Training and Development ........................................................................................................ 10

2.6. Performance Management ....................................................................................................... 10

2.7. Document Management ........................................................................................................... 10

2.8. Financial Management .............................................................................................................. 11

FINDINGS ............................................................................................................................................... 11

3.1. Facts that help to improve the efficiency .................................................................................. 12

3.2. Facts that negatively affect the efficiency of the company ...................................................... 13

RECOMMENDED COURSE OF ACTION ................................................................................................... 14

CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................... 16

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BACKGROUND/ CONTEXT

Before approaching to the management skills in the selected company it is better to

understand the nature of the company and the work carried out by the company. With current

economic development construction field is an upcoming sector which will be directly

contribute to the economic development. Although there are higher amount of repudiated

construction companies, there are very few repudiated well known consultancy firms among

the construction field. NCD Consultants can be recognized as a one of those best consultancy

firms. Hence because of that it is very important maintain their quality of work by continues

evaluations as according to their request as the Zircon Consultant we accepted to evaluate

and have a detailed overview of their present organizational management system.

1.1. Basic information about NCD consultants (pvt) ltd

NCD Consultants was established in 1997 with the purpose of providing consultancy services

in the fields of structural engineering, architectural design, electrical engineering, building

services engineering, quantity surveying and project management. NCD Consultant (pvt) ltd

was established in 2007 under the company act no 7 of 2007 in order to provide consultancy

services in large scale both locally and internationally.

NCD Consultant (Pvt) ltd is specialized in variety of design areas such as concrete, steel,

masonry and timber structures. Because of their innovativeness and competence they obtain

the recognition from the Institute of Engineers Sri Lanka (IESL) for training of graduate

engineers for corporate membership from March 2004.

1.1.1. Information of the company

Name : NCD Consultants (Pvt) Ltd.

Registered Address : 70/5, Melder Place, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka

Office Address : 1/A, Ananda Road, Melder Place, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka

Managing Director : Nandana Abeysuriya

Chartered Civil Engineer

BSc.Eng(Hons),CEng,MIE(SL),MEng.(Struct.Eng design)

Registration No. : PV 61589

Nature of the company : limited liability

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Logo of the company :

Figure 1 Company Logo

As a beginning of our work, at first organizational structure is considered since because it is

the main skeleton of a any company if the structure is firm and rigid then higher the strength

of the organization.

1.2. Organizational Structure

When considering the organizational structure of the company managing director Mr.

Nandana Abeysooriya is the key person in the company. Under him there are two other

directors in quantity surveying and architectural. There were structural engineers, construction

engineers, draftsman, and architects….etc. Detailed information about the organizational staff

is given below.

Managing Director

Director Engineering

Managing Director

Director Engineering

Director

Quantity Surveying

Director

Quantity SurveyingChief Structural

Engineer

Chief Structural

Engineer

Structural Engineer 1Structural Engineer 1

Trainee Structural Engineer 1


Draftsman 1Draftsman 1






Construction Engineer

Construction Engineer

Ass. EngineerAss. Engineer

T.OfficerT.Officer

Director

Architectural

Director

Architectural

ArchitectArchitect

DraftsmanDraftsman

AccountantAccountant


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Table 1.1 Organizational staff of the company

Consultants Name and Designation

Architectural Consultant

Nihantha Munasinghe.

Chartered Architect

B.Sc.(B.E) Hons, M.Sc(Arch),AIA (SL)

Electrical Consultant

Eng. Terrance Gunasekara

Chartered Electrical Engineer

BSc.Eng.(Hons).,CEng, FIE(SL),FIEE(Lond

Building Services Consultants

Wijitha perera

Chartered Mechanical Engineer

BSc.Eng.(Hons),CEng.MIE(SL),

MIProdE(UK)

Managing Director

Nandana Abeysuriya


BSc.Eng

(Hons),CEng,FIE(SL),MEng.(Struct.Eng

Design)

Chief Structural Engineer

Lionel Gunawickrama


BSc.Eng (Hons), CEng,MIE(SL),

PG Dip.(Struct.Eng Design)

Structural Engineer

Suneth Indika Jayasuriya

BSc.Eng.(Hons)

Structural Engineer

Eng.Palitha Perera

Charted Civil Engineer

Bsc .Eng(Hons) , CEng,MIE(SL),

MEng.(Struct.Eng Design)

Structural Engineer

Dr.Deepal Suriarachchi

PHD(Struct.Eng )

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AutoCAD Draughtsman

Duminda Muirathna

J.A. Indika Lakmal

Lahiru Meepage

Director Quantity Survering Palitha Dissanayake

M.A.A.C.I.E

Quantity Surveryer

Director Interior Design and Landscape Chandana Fernando

DLSc(SL), DLScH(India)

Quantity Surveyor Shalika Gayathri

Accountant Sadupa Perumathanthri

Trainee Structural Engineer Dilrangi Perera

When considering the organizational structure of the NCD Consultants it is clear there is a

proper way of distributing responsibility among key personals. There are three key characters

with in the company, three directors of three divisions named as structural, Architectural,

Quantity surveying these three key personals have handled their divisions. Under their

supervision there are design engineers, construction engineers, Quantity surveys and

architectures. Same time there accounts division is an essential part of the any company. To

handle their day to day cash incoming and outgoing also deal with the clients is the key

responsibility of the accounts division. All the design engineers, Architects, Draftsman are

worked in the head office and the construction engineers are worked in the head office all the

construction engineers are appointed to the construction sites. Their main practice is to

appoint their construction engineers to the far away sites because the inability of the director

to visit their very frequently and the size of the construction.

We have the opportunity to go for the one of the construction sites that NCD Consultants

worked as a structural consultant in there we have seen that they have maintain their all

documents well systematic way and quality of the construction work is closely inspected.

Our main aim of this is to evaluate the management system of the NCD Consultants before

going for the further analysis of the management system, we have conducted a SWOT

analysis to get an overall idea about the company performance, strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities and threats.

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OVERVIEW OF THE CURRENT SITUATION

Currently there are so many projects on design stage and also under the construction stage.

Those projects includes high rise buildings, resident apartments, two storied houses,

swimming pools, transmission towers, water tanks, rehabilitations of the existing buildings

etc. Not only the local projects but some of the foreign projects are designed by the company.

Currently, company design a residence apartment which is going to construct in Omen. Some

of the projects carrying out by the company now a days are as follows.

Dialog Commercial Building, Colombo 02

Dialog Car park Building , Foster lane

Mercedes Benz Centre, Colombo 04

Air port garden Hotel, Seeduwa

Sun TAN Beach Resort, Pasikuda

Weligama Hotel Courtyard, Weligama

Cirtus Hotel, Hikkaduwa

Riverina Hotel , Beruwala

2.1. SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Company consists of not only structural design but also architectural design, quantity

surveying, electrical, services. So it is easy to client to handover the project to this

company because it consists of all the design parts in one company.

The dedicated staff (Human Resource)

Facilities provided at the office such as laptops, printers, office rooms, green environment,

magazines, holidays, tours, office vehicles.

Highly recognized company since 1998

Working with the highly reputed companies

Evidence of the excellence of their consultancy services by the land marks which are

designed by them.

Working experience with foreign companies such as STUDIO 906 Thailand.

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Weaknesses

Proper concentration is not towards the architectural design and services design, company

mainly concern on the structural design.

Few numbers of chartered engineers are worked in the company.

There was not proper arrangement for advertising.

Poor coordination between the site and the head office.

Head office is situated bit away from the capital.

Head office is closed during the weekends.

Opportunities

With the rapid economic development construction field is an upcoming industry. So

there are lots of constructions companies but fewer number of design companies. So it is

a great opportunity to be well known in the industry by taking over variety of projects.

Some of the foreign companies are now involved in the some of the major construction

projects. It would be a great opportunity competes with them.

Since the company give the chance for undergraduate students to have their implant

training under this company, after passing out most of them joined to the company with

any advertising.

Threats

Since there are lacks of design companies in near future there will of lots of upcoming

companies, there will be lots competition among companies.

In present company more concern on the structural design. So architectural part is

currently inactivated. But the some other competitive companies are consisted with

highly operated architectural devising so those companies will be a threat to the

company.

Some of the leading companies will try to tackle the highly experienced designers in

other companies. So that there should be a proper method to convince them that this the

best place for them gain the knowledge and same time the wealth.

The working staff should be updated about the new design theories coming to the

industry by arranging seminars by giving chance to participating in conferences over

other competitive companies.

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For a company main type of resource can be named as the its employees they are key

characters who are mainly contributed to the success of a company so at first it is better to

evaluate that the employees are satisfied with their job and their employment environment to

evaluate that there are several method that can be used but interviewing them is the most

appropriate method.

To analyze the company management system we decided to conduct a questionnaire survey

among the all employees of the company. In that we mainly focused to check whether the

company management system is supported to enhance the following three skills

Personal skills of the employees

Interpersonal skills of the employees

Group Skills of the employees

As according to the survey we can summarized our findings as follows,

As we mentioned following skills can be seen with in the staff in order to maintain high

quality management system.

Personal Skills

Developing self-awareness,

Values – Respect for others and their ideas

Divide responsibilities among the staff with according to their

qualification.

Staff members are guided towards achieving certain goals

Cognitive style – proper response for their clients

Concern on their designs

Easily handled information system (maintain a data base)

Interpersonal Orientation – keeping contacts with the other parties

Higher ability of handling people and

Maintaining relationships with others

Higher Compatibility – Most of them have the high ability of compatible

with others.

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Managing the personal stress

One of the main problems of the employees is the mental stress most of

the employees are working with high stress level due to several reasons

within the company.

Interpersonal skills

Supportive Communication

Communication is one of the key features behind the success of any consultancy company. In

this company also there are several methods of communication among the employees,

They have official email address for each individual

They have official mobile number to use for office work

Same time they have certain methods to have proper communication between

their construction engineers and the clients.

Motivating employees

To motivate the employee’s, director board arranged annual functions

also celebrating festivals.

Appreciating their performance

Guided them for training sessions

Updating their knowledge by supplying facilities to participate workshops

training sessions..etc.

Try to build a motivating environment for the employees

Take them tours around the world

Diagnosing the work performance problems

Managing the conflicts

To managing the conflicts company have not taken that much concern since because that they

are not faced that much conflicts up to now but according to our concerns there can be certain

issues that can be lead to conflicts. Such as personal differences, information deficiencies,

working stress…etc.

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Group skills

Leadership – Correct leadership is main success behind this company as the managing

director, the company is well handed by Mr. Nandana Abeysooriya. His dedication,

attitudes and the way of approaching to the situations and the way he handled it will

reflections of his leadership.

Delegation – This is also need in day today working environment of a company. This

quality can be seen employees of the company.

Team Work – In an office environment most of the time employees have to work as a

team to achieve a certain target it is quite important to developing abilities that will

helpful to work in a team.

2.2. Human resource Management

Human resource (HR) management is a vital part of any company. To be truly effective,

company human resource team must be experts in a number of important areas. The HR team

is responsible for diverse aspects of each employee's career, from recruitment to hiring to

various aspects of their job while employed at the company. An effective human resource

team effectively executes their policies and procedures and keeps their workforce motivated

and productive.

As we see we can summarized the main four factors that will maintain high level of human

resource management.

2.3. Hiring and Recruitment

Human resource manager must be adept at hiring and recruiting new employees. Identifying,

recruiting, interviewing and hiring high-performing employees is essential for the long term

success of a company. Creating policies and procedures for the hiring and recruiting process

and teaching these skills to all of employees is also critical for the future of the organization.

NCD Consultants all ways following certain guide lines for recruiting new employees and

trainees they conduct a interview and check the personality and the experience of the

interviewees. They have selected the best person from the interviews who are willing work

according to the company rules and guide lines.

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2.4. Compensation and Benefits

Human resource managers must also create, administer and improve the compensation and

benefit structures. Retaining excellent associates depends on many factors. Outstanding pay

and benefits are two critical factors that will ultimately determine how well your employees

feel about your organization and the likelihood that they will remain with your company in

the future. Crafting an effective compensation system and determining the best benefits

package for all of employees are skills that are mandatory.

2.5. Training and Development

Training and development skills are also vital assets for human resource management in a

company. The ability to create training programs that solve human performance problems will

yield important benefits for organization. In structural design skills, as well as outstanding

facilitation and presentation abilities, result in training programs that produce tangible results

for the company. Talents in program evaluation and employee feedback are also needed to

constantly improve the quality of all of training programs. NCD Consultants also conducting

training sessions for their trainees and also guided and encouraged them to participate for the

workshops and seminars organized by certain institutions such as IESL.

2.6. Performance Management

The ability to effectively manage the performances of employees is an integral part of your

human resource management of a company. Establishing and implementing a complete

performance improvement process is an essential skill. Designing performance review

process, maintaining it and effectively monitoring its implementation are challenging tasks.

Coaching employees on how to use the performance management program is also an

important function of human resource management.

2.7. Document Management

Document management is also vital part of a systematic management system when consider

the NCD Consultants they have followed set of methods keeping proper document

management.

Placed a Notice Board in the meeting room which will show their current

involvements in both construction and design stage.

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Keep the details of their designs in the mode of both soft and hard.

All the design drawings are placed in a systemic way.

Each and every design has a job number to easily find.

Each job has a specific email address to coordinate with the client and the other

parties.

All the minutes that have taken within the company and the outside parties are also

maintained in several modes.

All the drawings are issued after final approval of the respective director.

All the revised drawings are issued through the director structural with their final

approval.

It is common customary to organize a monthly meetings with in the company to

discussed issues that are faced by the employees.

2.8. Financial Management

It is quite difficult task to search on the financial procedure of a private company. As we

experienced NCD Consultants managed their finance in well-structured manner they keep

their accounts in a private bank all the financial matters are handled by the accounts division

of the company. As they revealed they earn certain amount of profit for year it may divided

among shareholders of the company and same time used pay incentives for the employees.

Also annually they organized social activities like helping for students in rural villages and

some charity work.

FINDINGS

By the investigations carried out regarding NCD consultants (pvt) ltd, some information was

noted. These findings can be basically categorized in to two sections. They are the facts that

help to improve the efficiency and facts that causing inefficiency of the company. Those

factors are separately listed below.

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3.1. Facts that help to improve the efficiency

Highly qualified and experienced management

The managing director of the company is a charted engineer and currently he is the secretary of

the structural engineers association of Sri Lanka. Before start this company he has given his

service to many other local and foreign companies. The experience he gained by working with

people belong to different cultures and different countries have become useful to manage the

current company.

Events to control the stress levels of the staff

NCD consultants are one of the leading consultant companies in Sri Lanka. They have

projects both in Sri Lanka and out-side of the country. Handling matters of this large number

of projects with limited number of staff is not an easy task. So when the demand for work is

high the staff members often get stressed. To limit the stress levels of the staff they have

various kinds of activities. On Fridays they change their normal dress to a T-shirt with the

company logo and to a comfortable pair of trousers and shoes. This change in dress has

caused a change in the mindset of the staff. They seemed to be more relaxed on those days.

Also they organize various social events for the staff members and their family. In these

events they go to various beautiful places away from Colombo and have lunch their and enjoy

themselves.

Foreign tours for the staff members

As mentioned above the company handles large number of projects. The management is keen

to allocate some amount of profit for the satisfaction of the staff. As an example, when a large

project is successfully finished, the company provides free foreign tours to staff members. By

those kind of events the staff is fully motivated to give their 100% contribution for the success

of the company.

Relationship between the management and the staff

To be success in business field all the members of the company should work as a one family.

For that the relationship between higher management level and lower level staff is important.

In this company, the managing director personally interferes with the problems faced by the

staff regarding their jobs such as accommodation and transport. Due to these kinds of reasons

the staff has a high respect about the management.

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3.2. Facts that negatively affect the efficiency of the company

Effective communication

Regarding a company communication can be categorized in to two sections. They are the

communication between the different levels of the company and communication with the

society or industry. The communication between the company and the industry is important to

survive in the industry. For that advertising is necessary. But currently the advertising of the

company is poor. Mainly they gain their jobs by industry relationships. But outside of this

certain group, the company is not so popular. The other aspect of effective communication is

the communication between the different levels of the company. Here the communication

between site engineers and office engineers was mainly considered. Mainly the

communication between site engineers and office engineers is done through telephones and e

mails. When the design is finished, it passes to the draftsmen unit for detailed drawings.

These detail drawings are sent to site by the draftsmen. So sometimes office engineer, site

engineer or both don’t know whether the details have been sent or received.

Responsibilities below the management level

Another key aspect noted regarding this company is the non-awareness of the responsibilities

of themselves. Below the level of managing director, there are several engineers in the same

level. But when the managing director is out of the country, they don’t know who should take

the leadership. So all the work accumulated and finally the efficiency goes down. This is also

same for the draftsmen unit. All the draftsmen are in the same level and finally there is no one

to take the responsibility.

Distribution of power

In building construction, various components should be added to the original design when the

construction is going on. Sometimes the design drawings to those components may be urgent.

In those situations, the managing director may be out of the country. On these situations the

design engineer has no power to send the drawings directly to the site office. He has to first

inform the managing director. So sometimes work can be delayed.

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No proper office environment

The first impression we got about the company is seems too small. All the sections are closely

established.so it can be bit uneasy for the staff. Also the company building doesn’t give an

image about the strength of the company.

RECOMMENDED COURSE OF ACTION

We can present following suggestions for improving the efficiency of the company by

reducing negative aspects.

Developing proper communication within staff

As mentioned earlier under findings the communication between site engineers, design

engineers, draftsmen and management are done by using e-mails and telephones. Due to that

sometimes the real issue in the site is not communicated accurately to the particular level of

the staff. Therefore holding several number of meetings and discussions between the several

levels of the staff the communication can be done properly and effectively.

Distributing responsibilities through the staff

In this company managing director is the only person who participates for every meeting

which is held in the construction sites. Although there are another two chartered structural

engineers in the company, they do not participate for the meetings. Also almost all the

inspections in the sites are done by managing director. Therefore the time spent for one site by

a highly responsible person is very low. Therefore real issues cannot be identified. If the

responsibility of sites can be divided for the other two engineers also, the time taken for

inspections, site visits, meetings, etc. done by a responsible person will increase as a result of

this effectiveness will increase. Since there are another two consulting site engineers the

responsibility relevant to the site can be given to the consulting site engineer who stays in the

construction site.

Increasing the number of staff

The staff of the company is relatively small. There are only two permanent site engineers and

four structural engineers. Number of consulting site engineers is not adequate for the projects.

Sometimes several sites are inspected by one site engineer. Also there are only three

draftsmen. Since one person in particular staff level has large work load he/she may not do the

work properly and effectively. When someone takes a leave then there is nobody for doing

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his/her work. Due to that delays can take place. So increasing number of staff for different

levels will increase the effectiveness of the company.

Increasing the physical facilities of the office

The office building of the company is relatively small and facilities of the building are also in

moderate condition. Condition of the work place and the facilities of the building will

improve the mental equilibrium of the employees and it will cause to increase the

effectiveness of the company. Also when someone come to the office, he can get a very

positive idea of the performance by seeing the nature of the office. Air condition facilities,

very quality equipment like new computers, printers and very speed internet facilities can be

provided for achieving that purpose. A new very comfortable conference hall can also be

provided instead of the current conference hall. Also new bathrooms and toilet facilities also

can be provided.

Increasing advertising

Although the company is engaging in lot of large projects, it is not a popular among the

society. By paper advertisements and internet advertisements a vast advertency can be

obtained among the construction field. By these advertising methods large area in the society

can be covered and due to that lot of projects can be obtained from several sectors in the

society.

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CONCLUSION

The NCD consultant (PVT) Ltd is a consultancy firm which provides their services in

building and construction sector. Through this case study their managerial skills were

evaluated and both positive and negative factors which affects for their efficiency were

identified.

Well-qualified and experienced human resources in the management team, dedicated staff,

good relationship between management and the staff are main positive factors that could be

identified. It could be found out that the efficiency of this company is reduced due to poor

communication between staff members, lack of enough staff members, uneven distribution of

responsibilities and power among staff members, lack of physical facilities for the staff

members etc.

Therefore in order to mitigate their negative factors and improve the company’s efficiency,

suggestions that can be applicable can be summarized as follows.

Poor communication between staff members can create problems due to misunderstanding.

This problem can be mitigated by arranging meetings with different level of staff. So that they

will get chance to identify the real issues properly. Furthermore this company is not much

popular in the society due to the poor communication between society and the company. Use

of paper or internet advertisements will make the company popular among the society and it

will help to create more business opportunities.

The company expanding the number of staff members should be recruited to reduce the work

load on one person. This will increase the efficiency of the company and will be able to

provide a better service for the clients. It will also create a very relaxed environment for

employees due to reasonable work load which will again help to increase the efficiency.

Improving the company’s physical properties will be helpful to enhance the mental stability of

employees which will guide them to work in a peaceful mind.

These are the suggestions to mitigate the factors which could create inefficiency in the

company. By improving the suggested factors the company will be able to increase its

efficiency while creating a good reputation within the society which will also be helpful to

increase business opportunities.

Management Skills Case Study

Documents

management skills

document management

performance management

human resource management

case study

g e preface

current managerial skills

current situation