Co-ordination: The Essence of Management

Co-ordination brings unity of action and integrates different activities of organisation. Coordination is considered as the essence of management because of following reasons:

1.      Coordination is needed to perform all functions of management :

(i)     In planning coordination is required between main plan and supportive plans of different departments.

(ii)   In organizing coordination is required between different resources of an organisation and also between authority responsibility and accountability.

(iii) In staffing coordination required between skill of a person and job assigned to him, between efficiency and compensation etc.

(iv)  In directing function coordination is required between superior and subordinates, between orders, instructions, guidelines and suggestions etc.

In controlling function coordination is required between standards and actual performance.

2.      Coordination is required at all the levels :

(i)     Top level requires coordination to integrate all the activities of organization and lead the efforts of individuals in one common direction.

(ii)     Coordination is required at middle level to balance the activities of different departments so that these can work as a part of one organisation only.

(iii) Lower level requires coordination to integrate the activities of workers towards organisational objectives.

Coordination is the most important function of an organisation.          Any company which fails to coordinate its activities cannot survive and run successfully for a long period of time.

For example, Allwyn Company, established in 1942, was the first company to produce a double-decker bus. It was running successfully as a leading electronic industry, especially in refrigeration industry. By the end if 1980 the company faced the problem of co-ordination. There was lack of balance of integration of different activities; as a result the company started facing huge looses and by 1993 company had an accumulated loss of Rs.168 crore. Company failed to balance its departmental activities and product folios.

So in short we can say without coordination no company can work efficiently and earn profit.