Understanding the Control Function in Management

A well-crafted plan is only as good as the system used to track its execution. In agribusiness management, managers spend significant effort setting goals, allocating resources, and directing teams – but without a reliable mechanism to monitor what’s actually happening on the ground, those efforts can easily go off course. This is precisely where the controlling function comes in. It is the management process that closes the loop between what was planned and what is actually being achieved, keeping the entire organization aligned with its objectives.

What is the controlling function? 🔗

Controlling is the management function that involves monitoring actual performance, comparing it against established plans, and taking corrective action when needed. As defined in the study of Principles of Agribusiness Management, the controlling function monitors performance and makes adjustments if needed – and it is one of the five core tasks that every agribusiness manager must carry out alongside planning, organizing, staffing, and directing.

It is important to note that controlling does not mean micromanaging people. It is about having reliable systems in place to track organizational performance over time. Adobe Workfront describes a successful control management system as one that stimulates action by spotting significant variations from the original plan and highlights them so they can be corrected. Without this, even the most detailed operational plan remains merely a set of good intentions with no way to verify its execution.

Why is controlling necessary? 🔗

The need for control in any organization stems from a simple reality: plans are made based on assumptions, and reality rarely matches assumptions perfectly. Prices shift, workers face unexpected challenges, equipment breaks down, and in agriculture specifically, weather and biological factors introduce constant variability.

According to OER Commons, managers must continually watch for changes in the business environment and monitor business indicators such as returns on equity or investment, economic cycles, and resource utilization. Controlling provides the structured framework for doing this systematically rather than reactively.

There are six major purposes that controls serve in an organization, as outlined in IASRI’s agribusiness management course:

• Making plans effective – managers need tools to measure progress and offer feedback.
• Ensuring consistency – policies and procedures keep organizational efforts integrated.
• Making organizations effective – controls help achieve and accomplish stated objectives.
• Making organizations efficient – efficiency depends more on controls than on any other management function.
• Facilitating delegation – controls allow managers to delegate with confidence, knowing there are checkpoints in place.
• Supporting decentralization – distributed teams can be trusted to operate when strong controls are in place.

Key characteristics of an effective control system 🔗

Not every control system works equally well. Effective ones share a set of characteristics that make them practical tools rather than bureaucratic burdens. According to the IASRI Agribusiness Management course, these characteristics include the following:

Focus on critical points 🔗

Effective control systems concentrate on the areas where failure cannot be tolerated or where costs could exceed acceptable limits. In a food processing plant, this means prioritizing temperature control and sanitation over minor administrative details. Trying to control every variable simultaneously spreads management attention too thin and reduces overall effectiveness.

Integration into established processes 🔗

Controls must work within existing workflows rather than disrupting them. A control mechanism that slows down operations or frustrates employees will eventually be bypassed or ignored. The best controls are ones that feel like a natural part of the process.

Employee acceptance 🔗

When employees are involved in designing control systems, they are more likely to accept and support them. Resistance from employees who view controls as surveillance rather than support is one of the most common reasons control systems fail in practice. A participative approach to designing these systems significantly reduces that resistance.

Timely and accurate information 🔗

Controls are only as useful as the information they produce. As emphasized in the management control literature, information feedback must be both timely and correct to be effective – providing an accurate picture of where the system currently stands. Delayed or inaccurate data can lead managers to take the wrong corrective actions, or to miss problems entirely until they become crises.

Continuous and forward-looking nature 🔗

Controlling is not a one-time review. It is a continuous process that persists throughout the life of the organization. While it measures past and current performance, its primary purpose is corrective and forward-looking – adjusting current actions to achieve better future outcomes.

The four steps of the control process 🔗

The control process follows a structured, repeatable sequence. As described in the Fort Hays State University management textbook, this process begins during the planning phase and continues throughout implementation. Here is how each step works:

Step 1: Setting performance standards 🔗

Standards are the benchmarks against which actual performance will be measured. They can be quantitative – such as a target yield per hectare, a sales growth percentage, or a production cost per unit – or qualitative, such as expected customer service levels or product quality criteria. The key requirement is that standards must be specific and measurable. Vague directives like “maintain quality” or “do better” provide no actionable reference point for comparison.

For complex goals, standards should also include intermediate milestones. For example, a 14% annual improvement in sales should be broken down into monthly targets, so managers can detect shortfalls early rather than discovering the problem only at year-end.

Step 2: Measuring actual performance 🔗

Once standards are established, the next task is to systematically measure what is actually happening. CliffsNotes management resources identify several approaches: personal observation by managers on the field or production floor, formal statistical reports, performance appraisals, and sample checking – such as inspecting a portion of output to assess overall quality. Modern technology has made this step considerably more reliable. GPS-based field monitoring, automated production sensors, and digital farm management systems now allow for continuous, real-time data collection that was previously impossible.

Step 3: Comparing performance with standards 🔗

This step involves evaluating the gap between measured performance and the established standards. Not every deviation signals a problem – some variation is normal and expected. The manager’s task here is to determine whether the gap is within an acceptable range or whether it requires action. According to Wikipedia’s entry on management control, general plans are translated into specific performance measures – such as market share, earnings, or budget adherence – and the control process reviews and evaluates performance against these norms.

Step 4: Taking corrective action 🔗

If performance deviates beyond acceptable limits, managers must decide what to do. Sometimes the corrective action is straightforward – adjusting an irrigation schedule, reallocating labor, or increasing advertising spend. Other times it requires deeper investigation: changing a supplier, retraining staff, modifying production procedures, or even revising the original plan if it was based on flawed assumptions. Importantly, corrective action is not always reactive. When performance exceeds expectations, managers should investigate why so that successful practices can be replicated elsewhere in the organization.

These four steps must be repeated periodically, forming a continuous cycle for as long as the business operates.

The planning-controlling link 🔗

Controlling cannot function in isolation – it is inseparably linked to planning. Planning sets the objectives and standards that controlling uses as reference points. Controlling, in turn, generates the performance data that informs future planning cycles. As noted in resources on the control process, planning without controlling is wishful thinking, and controlling without planning has nothing to measure against. The two functions work together in a reinforcing cycle. If actual performance consistently falls short of plans, that signals a need to re-examine the planning process itself – perhaps the assumptions were unrealistic, resources were underestimated, or timelines were too aggressive.

North Dakota State University’s farm management guidance frames this well: the purpose of monitoring and control is to take advantage of opportunities to improve a situation – making changes when alternatives are available, and avoiding crisis management. For farming operations specifically, this means being prepared to make necessary adjustments during the production season rather than waiting until between seasons, when it may be too late.

Control as a feedback system 🔗

One of the most important ways to understand controlling is to view it as a feedback system – a continuous loop through which information about performance flows back into management decisions. This concept is well-established in organizational theory. Control theory explains that any system seeking to achieve a predetermined goal must have constant access to information about its degree of attainment. Every goal-seeking system, in other words, employs feedback.

In organizational terms, this means that the outputs of performance measurement (how well the organization is doing) are fed back as inputs into planning and corrective decision-making. A seed company, for example, might discover through sales data that a new crop variety performs well in certain soil types but poorly in others. That feedback directly shapes future product development priorities and market targeting. Without the feedback loop, this insight would remain hidden, and resources would continue to be deployed ineffectively.

Types of control based on timing 🔗

Feedback systems in management can operate at three different points in time, each serving a distinct purpose:

• Feedforward controls are preventive – they are put in place before activities begin to reduce the chance of problems occurring. Examples include safety protocols, staff training programs, input quality inspections, and pre-season budget approvals.
• Concurrent controls operate in real time, monitoring activities as they happen. Equipment sensors on a production line, or a supervisor observing field operations, are forms of concurrent control. According to Study.com, concurrent controls rely on performance standards, rules, and regulations to guide employee tasks and ensure ongoing activities produce the desired results.
• Feedback controls take place after an activity is completed. They review outcomes against standards and provide information that improves the next cycle. According to management research, feedback controls are particularly valuable for repetitive processes because lessons learned from one cycle can be applied before the next begins.

Most effective control systems combine all three types rather than relying on just one.

Controlling in agribusiness: unique challenges 🔗

While the principles of controlling apply broadly, agribusiness presents distinct challenges that make the function both more complex and more critical. Biological production systems introduce variability that cannot be fully planned for – a drought, a pest outbreak, or an unexpected disease in a livestock herd can quickly push actual performance away from planned standards. Market price volatility adds another layer of uncertainty that affects revenue targets and cost controls simultaneously.

This context makes flexible, well-designed control systems especially valuable. Standards in agribusiness may need built-in tolerances for environmental variability. Measurement methods must account for the fact that production outcomes emerge over time – crop yields cannot be assessed at planting, only at harvest. And corrective actions must often be made under time pressure, since biological cycles do not wait for a convenient management review meeting.

The management of logistics and supply chains in agribusiness also requires control. As covered in Purdue University’s agribusiness management textbook, operations management in food and agricultural firms involves scheduling, controlling, storing, and shipping – all of which require active monitoring to ensure that raw materials move through the production chain efficiently and that output meets quality standards before reaching the consumer.

Why controlling matters for organizational effectiveness 🔗

At its core, controlling is about maintaining alignment between intent and action across every level of an organization. It promotes accountability by making it clear who is responsible for which outcomes. It facilitates better decision-making by providing managers with timely, accurate data. And it creates organizational learning – each cycle of planning, implementing, measuring, and adjusting builds a growing body of knowledge about what works and what does not in that specific business context.

Critically, controlling is not just about catching failures. It is equally about recognizing success, understanding why it happened, and systematically replicating it. An agribusiness that monitors performance well is one that continuously improves, adapts to changing conditions, and sustains its competitive position over time.

What do you think? If actual performance consistently falls short of planned targets in an agribusiness operation, should managers first revise their control systems, or revisit the original plans – and how would you decide which one to address first? How do you think the increasing use of digital farm management tools is changing the way agribusinesses measure and respond to performance deviations?

References

1. https://www.academia.edu/40734182/Principles_of_Agribusiness_Management
2. https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/what-control-management-and-why-it-essential
3. https://oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/105289/student/?section=2
4. http://ecoursesonline.iasri.res.in/mod/page/view.php?id=123614
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_(management)
6. https://fhsu.pressbooks.pub/management/chapter/controlling/
7. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/principles-of-management/control-the-linking-function/types-of-organizational-controls
8. https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/aglawandmanagement/agmgmt/reference/strategic-business-planning/step-9-monitor-and-control
9. https://study.com/academy/lesson/organizational-controls-feedforward-concurrent-feedback.html
10. https://zalamsyah.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/6-agribusiness-management.pdf