Rodolfo Business Today, Most Business Enterprises Function

Rodolfo Business

Today, most business enterprises function in an integrated way. Decisions, for example, are based not only on what is best for the bottom line, but also how the bottom line interacts with other elements of the business. Other elements include issues such as accounting and ethics. Many and varied integrations need to be made to ensure that business decisions are as sound as possible not only for the profitability of a business such as Rodolfo, but also for how such a business interacts with is environment in terms of both human and non-human elements. In this way, Rodolfo needs to take into account the general ethics of its operations and its interaction with the environment to ensure optimal operations and as much longevity as possible. Hence, Rodolfo needs to consider its budget, performance reports, ethics, and accounting information when creating its decision-making processes for future excellence.

The first important component of the decision-making process is budgeting. Indeed, this is a major important component of both individual life and business. Without a sound budget, sound decisions are impossible. The company budget includes several components. For Rodolfo, staffing, sales and marketing, employee motivation, and expansion are among the most important decisions to be made on an annual basis. These need to be budgeted carefully to ensure that the company does not spend more money than is viable. At the same time, the balance between what is deemed necessary to maintain the company's competitive edge and the funding allocated for such actions need to be maintained (Anderson, 2013).

For Rodolfo, staffing needs are considered in terms of whether any key personnel need to be replaced on a temporary or permanent basis. Additional staff need to be appointed on an as-needed basis, when new departments or expansion is intended. At the start of each financial year, an analysis and planning effort will reveal staffing needs, with a budget allocated for recruiting and salaries.

Sales and marketing are a far more constant budgeting need than personnel appointments. Decisions regarding a budget for this are therefore also more straight-forward to carry out than staffing needs, which are at best a projection of possible eventualities. For such decisions, Rodolfo's marketing and sales team need to be actively involved. Indeed, detailed reports of data from previous years can effectively guide marketing budget decisions for the year to come.

Motivation is an extremely important part of budgeting. To maintain a happy and motivated workforce, Rodolfo needs to allocate a proportion of its budget to ensure not only employee satisfaction and safety, but also motivation. Decisions regarding bonuses and incentives such as awards and employee holidays should be part of the budgeting process.

On the other hand, expansion is perhaps the least important part of budgeting decisions. A company should expand when it has sufficient surplus funding to do so and when the size of its operations warrant it. This part of the budgeting process should be managed very carefully to ensure that expansion does not occur prematurely. Rodolfo's business has been doing well on the local scale and could possibly expand, but only with caution and only when it can ensure favorable competition with local dealers.

Competition and accounting, however, cannot occur without a sound basis of ethics. Too many companies in both early and recent history have fallen prey to unethical accounting practices. While these could be profitable in the short-term, the revelation of such practices in the past have led to the downfall of many a giant, including Enron and others like it (Senaratne, 2011). Hence, contemporary businesses should take great care to let ethics be the guide of their accounting practices and decisions. For Rodolfo, the scenario is no different. A company like Rodolfo will be employing accountants for the management of its incoming funding and outgoing expenditures. It is vital to ensure the ethical nature of accounting practices, since this is what will determine the long-term reputation, and possibly the longevity, of Rodolfo. One way in which to ensure that accounting practices are sound is to outsource auditing to external entities. Furthermore, Rodolfo could also ensure that different accountants are alternated for different components of the company's finances, hence establishing an internal accountability process. Finally, a company policy and culture of honesty can be established at the interview process whenever new accountants are employed. In other words, ethics should play a major role in accounting, since this is the area of business in which it is easiest to succumb to ethical blunders. It is therefore important to keep as close an eye as possible on the practices of each individual accountant while also maintaining a cultural ideal of ethics and reputation for the Rodolfo company as a whole.

Another good way to ensure the sound reputation of a company is via performance reports. From both the employer and employee perspectives, these have several advantages. According to McMillan (2012), one of the main flaws in leadership is faulty decision making that is too often based on politics. In other words, rather than focusing on employee performance and how this can be enhanced, many leaders focus on popularity to the detriment of effectiveness. To avoid this pitfall, Rodolfo needs to use performance reports that are accurate, timely, and sufficiently frequent to, as McMillan (2012) puts it, identify trends and/or to show abnormal trends. In the decision making process, this will help leaders to handle employees who may have lost their way somewhat and award those who truly deserve it. Employees who have proved to slip in their performance once or twice, for example, may benefit from being aware that their managers know about their shortcomings. This will create a sense of urgency to ensure that future performance is up to par. Similarly, problematic trends can be handled by either a written or oral warning, or by counseling the employee in question. As mentioned, high-performance employees can be rewarded with bonuses or other financial or non-financial benefits. These need to be in line with the mentioned budget decisions. What this comes down to is that decisions regarding employees are far easier with accurate and honest performance reports. Rodolfo would perform optimally with good performance bonuses for employees who deserve it as a result of dedication and results. Those who do not deliver dedication and results should be dealt with swiftly and in line with the specific performance shortcomings they have displayed.