Control Techiques for Bentley Motors

Control Techiques for Bentley Motors Control Techniques for Bentley Motors The control processes at Bentley Motors are complex and present at all levels of the organizational activities. The control techniques are vast and they include actions such as the control of the staff members, the control of the product quality or the control of the financial statements. In terms of financial statements, the actual involvement of Bentley is limited to the verification of the correctness of the information to be integrated in the construction of the financial statements.

Since Bentley is not an individual and independent organization, but an integrant party of the German Volkswagen Group (Automotive Intelligence), the parent company is the one creating the financial statements. At the level of the group however, the control of the financial statements is a dual one -- it is first conducted by internal parties within the group and this is called internal audit. Once the internal audit is completed, external audit organizations commence to conduct their own controls; these actions are organized under the generic name of external audit.

Despite the limited power and interference of Bentley in the control of the financial documents, the automobile manufacturer plays a pivotal part in the quality control. The control of quality is an ongoing business operation by which the quality of the products and services is continually assessed during both production as well as delivery (Tutor2U).

The managerial team at Bentley Motors takes great pride in the highly "rigorous quality control" (Website of Bentley Motors, 2010) they implement and on the fact that this rigorous quality control is integrated at all organizational levels and ensures high quality of the automobiles as well as the annex services and product. The detailed quality control commences with the automobile components to be integrated in the final product and spreads through all operations up until sales and marketing, as well as post purchase customer service.

The strong emphasis on quality control has allowed the company to create and consolidate its reputation as manufacturer of high quality, exclusivist automobiles, preferred by both "nouveau riche rap artists and the old money aristocracy" (Hoovers, 2010). Aside quality and financials, control techniques are also present in other organizational departments, such as engineering, logistics, information systems, pre-series center, production technical support, purchasing and sales and marketing. While all these organizational processes are thoroughly controlled, incremental emphasis is placed on control techniques at the level of logistics operations.

At this organizational stage, the control functions refer to the following: Timely delivery of the vehicles Adequate supply of automobile components (achieved through an ongoing fruitful relation with the purveyors) The sequence of vehicles and forecasting of future needs The creation and verification of time schedules before production is launched and ensuring that the times are respected (during production) At the level of automobile distribution: correctness of the receipts, verification of product sufficiency or shortness, global distribution of products through global access to the Bentley automobiles and finally, freight upon delivery, such as road freight, sea freight or air freight (the Bentley Motors Website, 2010).

Based on this analysis, two distinctive recommendations are made. The first refers to an increased implication of Bentley in.