A 3-mark question wants 3 points. Points ≈ marks — this is the rule for every answer in this subject, and it starts here.

1. ControllingRakesh is ensuring that activities conform to the plan — the standard of 300 tonnes a week at 2% rejects.
2. Measurement and comparisonThe weighbridge slips and the inspection register are the measurement of actual performance, compared week by week against the standard.
3. Corrective actionChanging the electrode grade is the corrective action that removes the cause of the deviation.

Controlling means ensuring that the activities in an organisation are performed as per the plans — it is the measurement of actual performance against the standard and the correction of deviations.

A 1-mark answer is one sentence, not a list. But it must still contain the examiner's words: as per the plans, standards, deviations.

1. The student is wrongWatching is not controlling. Controlling is a five-step process, and the owner has skipped the first step.
2. No standard, therefore nothing to controlControlling is blind without planning — if no packing target was ever set, there is no benchmark against which the footage can be judged.
3. No deviation can be computedA deviation is the difference between actual performance and the standard. With no standard, the difference is undefined.
4. What it is insteadIt is mere observation — and, because the packers were never told what is expected of them, it will be read by them as restriction, producing exactly the resistance that is one of controlling's limitations.

A 4-mark question wants 4 points. Notice that each point is a bolded heading plus one line — never a paragraph.

1. Making efficient use of resourcesFabric wastage falling from 9% to 5.5% is a direct reduction of wastage and spoilage.
2. Improving employee motivationThe lines know their target in advance and are recognised for beating it — the standard is a motivator, not a threat.
3. Facilitating coordination in actionDyeing, cutting and packing now work to standards derived from one shipping date, so the departments' efforts are coordinated.
4. Accomplishing organisational goalsThe export delivery date is the organisational goal, and every one of these standards is set backwards from it.

Two of these four could be argued in either order. What cannot be argued is the form: heading, one line, quoted proof.

A 6-mark question wants 5 or 6 points — and this one has exactly six available, which is why it is set so often. Six short headed points beat four long ones every time: the examiner is counting headings, not lines.

1. Accomplishing organisational goalsIt measures progress, reveals deviations and indicates corrective action, keeping the organisation on track.
2. Judging accuracy of standardsIt verifies whether the standards set are accurate and objective, and helps revise them as conditions change.
3. Making efficient use of resourcesWork performed to predetermined norms reduces wastage and spoilage.
4. Improving employee motivationEmployees know in advance what is expected and how they will be appraised, which improves performance.
5. Ensuring order and disciplineA close check minimises dishonest behaviour and creates an atmosphere of order.
6. Facilitating coordination in actionPredetermined, mutually consistent standards make every department pull towards the same objective.

1. The standard must be communicated in advanceControlling improves employee motivation only when employees know beforehand what is expected and on what basis they will be judged. Firm A did this; Firm B did not.
2. Firm B triggered resistance from employeesAn unannounced watch is read as a restriction on freedom — one of the four recognised limitations of controlling.
3. Firm A linked the standard to an incentiveA financial incentive attached to the standard turns the control system into a motivator, which is Chapter 7 doing Chapter 8's work.
4. The lessonA control system is not a device; it is a process. Fitting the instrument is step 2. Without step 1 — the communicated standard — the instrument only produces resentment.

1. Difficulty in setting quantitative standards"Maintain the traditional fragrance profile" cannot be measured, so two perfumers reach opposite verdicts on the same batch.
2. Little control over external factorsA change in customs duty is a decision of government — part of the firm's environment, which no control system can correct.
3. Which one she can act onOnly the first. She can define the qualitative standard in measurable proxies — a fixed fixative percentage, a panel score out of ten, a maximum permitted variation against a retained reference cake. The duty she can only revise the standard for.

1. He has misread the limitationThe limitation is not "control is expensive"; it is that the cost must not exceed the benefit. Here the cost is four clerk-hours and the benefit ₹3 lakh.
2. The test is a comparison, not a sizeSmall firms are named in the textbook only because an elaborate system cannot be justified on a small turnover — not because a small firm should not control at all.
3. What he losesWithout the register he loses step 2 — measurement of actual performance — and therefore the whole process; every later step depends on it.
4. The right decisionKeep the register; simplify it. Apply critical point control — inspect the two operations that generate most of the rejects, rather than every operation.

The keyword in the last point is taught three slides from now. If the class cannot supply it yet, that is the point of putting it here.

1. Yes — it is controllingHe measured, compared, analysed the cause, and acted. Only the form of the action is unusual.
2. Judging accuracy of standardsThis is the point of importance involved: a good control system verifies whether the standards themselves are accurate and helps revise them as the environment changes.
3. Taking corrective action — step 5Where a deviation cannot be corrected by managerial action, the standard itself may have to be revised. The expressway diversion is an external factor outside his control.
4. What it provesThe output of controlling became the input of the next plan — he rebuilt the customer delivery promise. Controlling improves future planning, which is why the two are inseparable twins and controlling is not the last function.

1. Firm P — controlling failedA budget existed, so planning was done. Nothing measured actual performance against it during the year.
2. Firm P's principlePlanning without controlling is meaningless — an unchecked plan is only an intention, and by December no corrective action was possible.
3. Firm Q — planning failedMeasurement was excellent, but with no standard there was nothing to compare the numbers with.
4. Firm Q's principleControlling is blind without planning — with no predetermined standard, no deviation can be computed and step 3 of the process cannot even begin.
5. The common lessonNeither function is a complete management system on its own; each supplies what the other lacks.
6. Which is worseFirm Q's failure is more fundamental. P at least knows what it wanted; Q has a year of data that cannot be interpreted, so it cannot even plan next year sensibly.

1. Sample checkingCertain units are checked at random rather than every unit — the standard technique where checking everything is not feasible.
2. Measurement during performance, not after itMeasuring at the drying tunnel rather than at the carton means the deviation is found while it can still be corrected.
3. Same units as the standardMoisture percentage is measured in exactly the units in which the standard was set, so comparison in step 3 needs no interpretation.

Deviation.

1. Management by exceptionAlso called control by exception — an attempt to control everything results in controlling nothing, so only deviations beyond the permissible limit should reach management.
2. Bhanu's shortfall is not an exception10 pieces on 480 is a 2% deviation on two days. It is within any reasonable acceptable range and does not warrant the top manager's attention, let alone dismissal.
3. The dyeing variance is the exception6% against a permitted 2% is a major deviation in a key result area — cost — and demands immediate attention on a priority basis.
4. What she should doSend Bhanu's case back to the supervisor as a routine matter, and open the dyeing variance herself: analyse its cause, then take corrective action.

Notice what the case is really testing: not whether you know MBE, but whether you can see that the supervisor escalated the small deviation and buried the large one.

Arvind Bhalla monitors eleven cost heads at Yamuna Freightways. He decides that only two of them — fuel per kilometre and on-time delivery — will be reviewed every week, because a slip in either would damage the firm's contracts, while the other nine are reviewed once a year. No target has yet been crossed and no action has yet been taken.

1. The words that force the reading"only two of them… will be reviewed", and the reason given: a slip in either would damage the firm's contracts. That is the definition of a key result area.
2. The words that lock the others out"No target has yet been crossed" excludes management by exception, which needs a deviation beyond a permissible limit. "No action has yet been taken" excludes corrective action.
3. Why this is the transferable skillA good case does not merely contain the right answer — it excludes the plausible wrong ones.

A 5-mark question wants 5 points — and this question has exactly five steps, which is why it is the safest long answer in the unit.

1. Setting performance standardsStandards are the criteria against which actual performance is measured; they may be quantitative or qualitative, and must be flexible.
2. Measurement of actual performanceMeasured objectively and, as far as possible, in the same units as the standard — by personal observation, sample checking or performance reports.
3. Comparing actual performance with standardsThe comparison reveals the deviation between actual and desired results.
4. Analysing deviationsFix an acceptable range, apply critical point control and management by exception, and identify the exact cause of each significant deviation.
5. Taking corrective actionNone is needed within acceptable limits; beyond them, act to remove the cause — or revise the standard if the deviation cannot be corrected by managerial action.

1. Step 1 was performedA standard of 2% rejects existed and was written down.
2. Step 2 was performed, wellEvery batch was measured, in the units of the standard.
3. Step 3 was performed"Above standard" against each week is the comparison; the deviation was identified.
4. Step 4 failedNobody analysed the deviation. The cause — the worn electrode grade — was never identified, so no corrective action could be aimed at anything.
5. Step 5 therefore never happenedEleven weeks of 2.6-point adverse deviation went uncorrected until a customer returned the goods — a loss of orders on top of the material loss.
6. Does the firm have a control system?No. It has a measurement system. Controlling is a process, and a process that stops at step 3 produces information nobody uses — the failure mode that "controlling is only checking" always produces.

1. Management by exceptionAlso acceptable: the exception principle / control by exception.
2. When standards cannot be set in quantitative termsFor example where the area being controlled is employee morale, job satisfaction or human behaviour.
3. Capital expenditure and liquidityAlso acceptable: inventories, flow of capital.

A 1-mark answer is a phrase or a sentence. Do not write a paragraph — you lose the time, not gain the mark.

1. The statement refers to management by exceptionAlso called control by exception — a principle of management control applied while analysing deviations, which is step 4 of the process.
2. Only significant deviations are reportedAn acceptable range of deviation is fixed in advance; only deviations that go beyond the permissible limit are brought to the notice of management.
3. Why the alternative failsA manager who investigates every small variance has no time left for the deviations that matter — so managerial attention is spread thin, routine problems are not delegated, and the critical problem is missed.

1. The statement is only partially correctSay this in the first line. An answer that simply agrees cannot score above half.
2. Where it is truePlans are prepared for the future and are based on forecasts, so planning is a forward-looking function; controlling is a post-mortem of past activities to find deviations, so it is backward-looking.
3. Where it is false — planningPlanning is guided by past experience: last year's results and last year's deviations are the premises of this year's plan.
4. Where it is false — controllingThe corrective action initiated by controlling aims to improve future performance. Both functions are therefore backward-looking as well as forward-looking.

1. They are the inseparable twins of managementA system of control presupposes the existence of standards, and those standards of performance are provided by planning. Planning initiates the process; controlling completes it.
2. Planning without controlling is meaninglessOnce a plan becomes operational, control is needed to monitor progress, measure it, discover deviations and initiate corrective measures. An unchecked plan is only an intention.
3. Controlling is blind without planningIf standards are not set in advance, managers have nothing to control. Where there is no plan there is no basis of controlling, and no deviation can even be computed.
4. They reinforce each other, in both directionsPlanning based on facts makes controlling easier and more effective; and controlling improves future planning by supplying information derived from past experience.

Point 4 is the one that separates a full-mark answer from a half one. Most students stop at "planning comes first" — which describes a queue, when the examiner is looking for a loop.

Split the page: any four importances, then all four limitations. A single undivided list of eight points loses the structure marks.

1. Importance — accomplishing organisational goalsMeasures progress, brings deviations to light, indicates corrective action.
2. Importance — judging accuracy of standardsVerifies whether the standards set were accurate and objective, and helps revise them.
3. Importance — efficient use of resources / employee motivationReduces wastage and spoilage; employees know in advance what is expected of them.
4. Importance — order, discipline and coordinationMinimises dishonest behaviour; mutually consistent standards pull departments one way.
5. Problems — quantitative standards and external factorsStandards cannot always be set in numbers (morale, job satisfaction), and the firm cannot control government policy, technology or competition.
6. Problems — resistance and costEmployees see control as a restriction on freedom; and the cost of the control system must not exceed the benefit derived from it.

1. Step 1 — setting performance standards60,000 cakes and 3% wastage, both quantitative, set before the quarter began.
2. Steps 2 and 3 — measurement and comparisonOutput 51,000 against 60,000 and wastage 7.4% against 3%: a deviation of 9,000 cakes and 4.4 percentage points.
3. Step 4 — analysing deviationsShe examined the daily logs and identified two causes: untrained operators, and a supplier price rise.
4. Cause 1 — inadequacy of resources / untrained staffCorrective action: training of the two new operators before the next quarter — a classic step 5.
5. Cause 2 — environmental factors beyond the firm's controlCorrective action: none is possible, so she revised the standard — the permitted response when a deviation cannot be corrected by managerial action.
6. The limitationLittle control over external factors — a change in a government levy is part of the firm's environment, not of its operations.

1. Planning has not failed; controlling hasA detailed plan with route-wise targets exists — step 1 is done. Nothing was ever measured against it.
2. The governing principlePlanning without controlling is meaningless — a plan nobody checks is only an intention, and the firm discovered its failure through lost contracts rather than through its own reports.
3. Benefit — accomplishing organisational goalsControl would have revealed the missed delivery windows month by month, in time to act.
4. Benefit — efficient use of resources and coordinationRoute-wise comparison would show where trucks and driver hours are being wasted, and align the dispatch, loading and delivery sections to the same targets.
5. Benefit — improving employee motivation and judging standardsDrivers would know their targets in advance; and the firm would learn whether the route-wise targets were realistic at all.
6. The steps to followSet route-wise time and on-time-delivery standards; measure actual running times monthly from the GPS logs; compare and compute the deviation; analyse it using critical point control (on-time delivery is the key result area) and management by exception (act only beyond the permitted variance); then take corrective action — or revise the standard where the cause is external.

Sunita Netam weighs every consignment leaving her Bhilai fabrication shop and files a daily despatch report. No monthly tonnage target has ever been fixed for the shop. At the year-end review her reports fill four files, but when the bank asks whether the shop met its capacity, nobody can say — there is nothing the figures can be compared with.

1. The words that force the reading"No monthly tonnage target has ever been fixed" and "nothing the figures can be compared with". Measurement is present; the standard is absent — so step 3 cannot begin and the control system is blind.
2. The words that lock the mirror image outTo make it "planning without controlling is meaningless" you would have to reverse them: a target exists, and nobody measures. If your case has both a target and no measurement, you have written the other question's answer.