Tactical Strategies for Planning and Controlling Budgets for Union Electric (E & C)

Author

Souleymane Konte, Fontbonne College

Year of Award

1990

Degree

Master of Business Administration (MBA)

College

College of Business & Professional Studies

Degree Program

Business

Department

Business Administration

Keywords

accounting, pricing, management, decision making, strategy

Abstract

The big question is why budgets? A budget represents accounting formalization of plans as a language of figures, every time one is creatively talking about business after the choice of objective. What he wants and how he wants to accomplish this will be confronted. Resources needed to make one's objective plan comes in. If he wants to succeed, he'll have to pick a better utilization plan of how to allocate resources so that they match his expectations, in terms of investment expenditures so that they and others, because of his awareness of the only two possible facts that can lead business to disaster: "Good plans poorly implemented, and bad plans well implemented." The practical "know how" necessary to the avoidance of mistakes of this kind and the addition of complexity of dynamic environment which disturbs forecasting and makes plans change their course of action to become no longer appropriate requires an understanding of concepts and a high technicality for problem solving. For this reason, it is not surprising to hear business people complaining about how much they hate dealing with situations of that nature. It came to my attention in the preceding semester that Union Electric's E & C Department was experiencing budget difficulties for the last twenty-five years in terms of variances which some employees think there is nothing to worry about, because according to them, there is not the existence of any problem. In other words, they could live with it, not knowing that variances constitute a signal of MBE to show where the problem exists. I was assigned the study of their case for my final exam project. I arranged and taped interviews of Engineers, Accountants, and Supervisors (on the job, in their house and on the phone). I listened to their opinions without interrupting and clashing with them, asking them what they know, what they think they know which they don't and what is their scope. During my research, which sometimes made me wake up in the middle of the night to think or write some ideas or questions, I consulted accounting books and technical tools available at St. Louis University Library. When I finished my work, where I suggested solutions to their problems, I submitted a copy, which some of them criticized-as being a "pure fine theory," not practical despite the "A" grade work I did. This constituted a challenge which made me take it over for my thesis, this time not to tell them what to do, but to show them what to do and how to do it. I resumed further research in a business literature survey of old age, middle, and modern accounting tools and software. I awoke every Saturday at 6:30 a.m. to watch PBS broadcasting, "The Business Files," in which Ph.D. professors and highly successful executives and technicians were being interviewed via satellite from Harvard to UCLA and the giant companies and their experts all over the U.S.A. which all share their experiences, feelings and fears. For the last semester, my whole life became one of a budget officer. I crossed experience with MBA students of different schools such as Washington University and St. Louis University, which led to the discovery of Construction Management Modern Software for Estimation (Quicknet). During my six daysa week research from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. in that semester, many SLU students and Pius XII Library personnel mistook me for a staff personnel member. I have tested and retested all demonstrations in the content to be absolutely sure of accuracy of theories, as the reader will notice, because you have been given opportunities to verify the consistency of the theories. The scope of this research is limited exclusively to the E & C Department, even though knowledge of some techniques in the document could be applied elsewhere.

Document Type

Restricted Thesis

Recommended Citation

Konte, Souleymane, "Tactical Strategies for Planning and Controlling Budgets for Union Electric (E & C)" (1990). All Theses, Dissertations, and Capstone Projects. 450.
https://griffinshare.fontbonne.edu/all-etds/450