FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL, A KEY TO MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY:
A CASE STUDY OF UNION BANK PLC, UMUOCHAM ABA
ABSTRACT
Financial Planning and Control when properly employed can assist management achieve its objectives effectively. The important of financial planning and control cannot be over emphasized although it does not provide a conclusive  evidence of management efficiency due to inadequate planning and control based on some inherent factors. Planning and Control are part and parcel of our activities and it is an essential factor in business decision making.  Financial Planning and control can be used by any size of type of organization that want to survive and operate effectively. For an efficient financial planning and control to exist in an organization, such  factors as:
-      Cost: The cost of planning and control financial will not exceed the cost of running the business itself.
-      Repayment Date:  The period of time fro which the finance is required should be considered to enter into a scheme, with a repayment date.
-      Liquidity, Risk and availability of finance: The low cost finance is usually associated with early repayment. The more risky a project is, the better it is to finance it out of equity capital and where an organization manages its resources judiciously, they enjoy lots of advantages.
 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1                   BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
            It is a fact that we are   living in an era of planning and control, whether it is house wife with her household keeping allowances or an industrialist with his responsibilities to the shareholders or even the government has to plan and control its operational activities in order to achieve their goals. Planning and Control are part and parcel of our activities and it is an essential factor in business decision making.
            In a competitive world where the key factors are cost, price, turnover and profit, planning and control enables every individual firm and government to have a sound appreciation of the financial implications to his plan and action, financial planning and control can be used by any size or type of organization that want to survive from a complete system covering decentralized department to organization with only a single procedure.
As a tool of management, it can increase the efficiency of the organization as a whole since all the departments are involved.
            Moreso, no business prospers unless all its functions, accounting, finance, production, marketing, personnel and so forth are fully staff with competent individual.   The efficiency and effectiveness of any organization therefore depends on a number of factors, which may be categorized as clarity of purpose, management planning, control and communication.
            There is need to have a clear knowledge of the objectives of the organization otherwise it will not be  possible to identify  goals, set target for their achievement in form of planning, control and management of its finance (flow of funds)
            According to Brigham and Campsey “Financial Management involves planning for acquiring and utilizing funds in a way that maximize the efficiency and value  of the firms” Most specifically, finance is the evaluation and acquisition of production assets, procurement of funds and disbursement of funds. It involves four basic, which are the functions, they include:
-     Raising of funds to finance projects
-     Employment of these funds in valuable projects
-     Management of the cash flow arising from these  projects
-     Returning of funds to their findings or original sources.
Financial manager’s duty is to employ the acquisition, location and management of these resources. Finance therefore spreads into all segments of firm activities thus its function must  be understood  by all the managers in the firm. Having known the future financial needs of a firms, the question then is how are this finances or funds  be raised. These required knowledge of the financial market through the manager from which funds are drawn. It also required knowledge of how to make drawn. It is also required a knowledge of how to make sound  investment decisions and to stimulate efficient operations in the organization.
            These are alternative involved in financial decisions, the choices include the use of internal or external sources. According to “Harper” before looking outside a firm for funds, the possibility of providing such funds internally should be examined.
            This internal sources is mostly used for the firms operations and should not be over looked when planning finance.  They are generated from the operations of   the business, or retained profits, depreciation provisions, tax provision and reduction in current assists. The external sources on the other hand are made up of two mainly types namely: short term and long-term funds.  Short term consists of trader credit, Bank overdraft and promisory notes. Long-term finance or funds refers to funds obtainable from loans with a maturity dated several years in the future or funds the owners of the business. Eg. Debentures. The external source consists of two broad types, equity and debt funds. Equity funds represent the total interest of the owners of the business in the firm of original shares contributions plus subsequent addition either by additional investments or by ploughing back profits/reserves into the business. Debt funds on the other hand are the long-term debt obligations of the business and it usually made up of secured and unsecured debentures and bonds. The main sources of these long-term fudns are the banks and capital markets.
            The need for financial planning and control therefore arises because financial resources are limited and costly and even where the resources are available the areas  into which they could be applied  profitably are diverse. Moreover, planning and control act as a device that enable management to anticipate changes and adopts it. No business can exist well without some form  of planning and control. Success in business  is proportionate to its planning and control  and the skill with which it affairs is being managed by the management.
            According  to lenke and Edward  financial planning and control can therefore be said to be “the name given to a system which is being used to increase the overall management efficient”.   It is concerned with  planning for the allocation of resource to assist in achieving the objectives of effectiveness and efficiency of both Long  and small-scale organizations.
 1.2         STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS
 Some business organizations are not performing well as a result of poor financial planning and control, some are left uncompleted after committing a very huge sum of money due to inadequate financial management  while  other  will remain in operation successfully. There has been situations where organizations after many years of establishment will collapse, many of them are even well planned; financed and managed while  others will stand the test of time. The questions to ask in these situations includes:
1.          Whether inefficient Financial management and control  is the reasons for corporate failures;
2.         Most organizations are well planned and managed, yet facing problems of illiquidity.
3.        Some organizations with high capital base and others with, low capital still having the same chances of collapsing as a result inefficient management of working capital.
This research project is an attempt to address these and other problems militating against financial planning and control as key towards achieving management efficiency.
 1.3        PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
 Planning and Controlling are successful ingredients of management at all levels.  Proper exercise of planning and control is often the key managerial efficiency and growth  is view of these ; the purpose of this study are:
i.                     To develop a realistic picture of how financial planning and control can help to make an organization more efficient, effective, successful and ensure growth
ii.                    To find  out the extent to which proper financial planning and control can reduce business failures.
iii.                  To see how financial planning and control can be adopted and improved to aid efficient and effective operation and suggest practical solution to  these problems.
iv.                  To know the extent to which financial planning and control affected Union Bank (Plc)
 1.4        RESEARCH QUESTIONS  
For proper guidance and in-depth investigations of the research work, the researcher presented research questions which form major problems of the investigation:
These questions includes:
-     Has financial planning and control significant relationship with management efficiency?
-     Does proper management of working capital enhance Profitability?
-     Is the use of financial management and control techniques essential for achievement of cooperate goals?
-     Can  it be said that financial management and control are part of internal control procedure?
 1.5        STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESES
 This research project is based on the f hypothesis:
The null hypothesis (Ho) and the alternative hypothesis (Hi)
1.          Ho:       Proper financial Planning and control don’t contribute to management efficiency.
            H1:         proper financial Planning and control do contribute to management efficiency.
2. Ho:     Long-term or straight planning can not affect the company objectives.
H1                   Long term or straight planning can affect the company’s objectives
3. Ho: Proper management of working capital does not enhance adequate profitability.
Hi:         Proper Management of working capital does enhance adequate profitability.
 1.6                SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This research work will go a long way to helping organizational managers to plan and control source resources of meeting the objective of the organization through greater efficiency, productivity and profitability.
            Moreso, how cost of product, price stability increase in turnover and adequate profit remains the overall measure of management efficiency and sign of business success.
            Therefore, the important of this study will be in the development of method of using financial planning and control to help management in making relevant policy decisions which if well applied will result to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the firm. This will in turn help to create avenues for the firm to achieve their optimum profitability which will be beneficial to the shareholders, employees, creditors and government. It is also hoped that the result will be of benefit assistance to students of business and vocational studies as well as others wishing to research into relate topics.
 1.7        SCOPE OF THE STUDY
            The study of financial planning and control as a  key towards achieving management efficiency was based on information collected from the staff of “Union Bank Plc, Nigeria, Books, journals and Newspapers related to financial  planning and control. This study is also limited to one bank basically because of certain factors.
            These factors includes;
a.         Finance: Lack of finance was a major handicap in this research project. This is a result of the huge transport cost involved in the collection of information necessary for the work.
b.        Time:  Time equally posed a very big constraints in this research work in the sense that the time for the study was limited and could not accord the researcher the opportunity to cover some other banks that could be involved in the research.
c.         Accessibility:  During the course of this research project, the researcher found it very difficult to have access to the population of interest and as a result, not all the desired information was collected since enough visit was not made.
d.        Reluctant attitude of Respondents: The  research work was equally saddled with the problem  of the reluctant attitude of respondents who found it difficult  to avail the researcher with information necessary for the work for fear of exposition.
 1.8        DEFINITION OF TERMS
Finance:  The evaluation and acquisition of productive assets, procurement of the funds and disbursement of funds.
Planning: This is the process by which a bank solves problems as relating to its environment.
Control: This is the process employ by the management to ensure that the  to ensure that the course of action are maintained and that the desired ends  are achieved.
Efficiency:  This is concerned with the quality through the resources required  to achieve an organizational  goal in order words it is  the ratio of output to input.
Management: This   is the process by which systems are administered, in other words it is the body of knowledge representing what managers do.
Budgeting: This is an expression in financial and quantitative terms of a bank’s plan of action prepared in advanced of the period to which it relates and with  the aim of attaining a given objective.
Forecast: This is the process of determining what is required of an event that will occur in future use the past behaviour of such an event.
Decision-Making:  This is the purposeful choosing from a number of alternative courses of action.
Working Capital: This is the difference between the inflow and outflow of funds; in other words, it is the excess of the current assets over the current liability and provisions (Net working capital)
 1.9        BRIEF HISTORY OF UNION BANK PLC, NIGERIA.
Union Bank Plc is a large commercial bank serving individuals, small and medium sized companies, as well as large corporation and organizations. In July2009, it was rated the 556th largest bank in the world and the 14 largest banks in Africa with an asset base estimate at  US $826 million. That assets value makes it the 9th largest commercial bank in Nigeria by assets valuation.
            The bank was  founded in1917 as colonial Bank. In 1925,  Barclays Bank acquire colonial Bank, changing the banks name  to Barclays bank (Dominion, Colonial and Diserseas) or  Barclays Bank (DC0).  1n 1969, Barclays Bank  of Nigeria Limited to comply with new banking law  enacted in1968.
            In 1971, the shares of the bank stock were listed on the Nigerian stock exchange. In the saw new year, 8.33% of the bank’s shares were offered to Nigerians. The following year, the Federal Government of Nigeria acquired 51.67% ownership of the bank, leaving Barclays Bank Plc of London with 40% ownership. In 1979, that 40% was sold to Nigerian individuals and businesses to comply with then recently enacted banking and investment laws. The bank changed its name to Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, to reflect its new ownership structure. In 1993, the federal Government of Nigeria completely divested  its ownership in the bank .subsequently, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, acquired  the former universal Trust Bank  Broad Bank Limited. It also absorbed its former subsidiary union Merchant  Bank Limited.
            The bank Maintains a vast network of interconnected branches  in all Nigerian states. It has two wholly owned bank subsidiaries, one in Cotonou, Benin and Another London, in the United Kingdom. It also maintains a representative office in Johannesburg, South Africa.
            The bank’s activities are supervised by a fourteen (14) member Board of Directors chaired by Prof. Musa Gella Yakubu, One of the non Executive Directors, a former Director of the central Bank of Nigeria.
            The management Board is chained by Mrs. Olunfunke Iyabo osibodu, who serves as the maintaining director and Chief Executive Officer of the Bank. She has been at the helm of the bank Since August 2009.