A
general manager is any executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the
revenue and cost elements of a company's
income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of the firm's
marketing and
sales functions as well as the day-to-day
operations of the business. Frequently, the general manager is responsible for effective planning, delegating, coordinating, staffing, organizing, and decision making to attain desirable profit making results for an organization (Sayles 1979).