Unit-5

COORDINATION
• Coordination refers to the orderly arrangement of individual and
group efforts to ensure unity of action in the realisation of
common objectives. It involves synchronisation of different actions
or efforts of the various units of an organisation to provide the
requisite amount, quality, timing and sequence of efforts so that
the planned objectives may be achieved with minimum of conflict.
• According to Brech, "Coordination is balancing and keeping
together the team by ensuring suitable allocation of tasks to the
various members and seeing that the tasks are performed with the
harmony among the members themselves."
• According to McFarland, ",Coordination is the process whereby an
executive develops an orderly pattern of group efforts among his
subordinates and secures unity of action in the pursuit of common
purpose."
NEED AND SIGNIFICANCE OF COORDINATION

• Increase in size and complexity of operations : The

advantages of economies of large scale production
and distribution have led to the establishment of
large business organisations. This has made the
operations of the organisation more complex.
Moreover, in a big organisation, a large number of
people are employed to carry out a variety of tasks.
This complex structure of the organisation has given
rise to problems of supervision and communication.
Therefore, coordination plays an important role in
integrating all these activities in the organisation.
• Specialisation : In this age of specialisation, highly skilled people are
employed to perform technical jobs. Division of work into specialised
functions and departments leads to diversity and lack of uniformily.
Specialists in charge of various departments focus on their own functions
with little regard to other functions. Coordination helps in synchronising
the activities of different units and creates unity in the midsts of diversity.

• Clash of interests : There is a possibility of conflict between the personal

goal of the employee and the organisational goal. Sometimes they may
pursue their own specialised interests at the expense of the larger
organisational goals. Coordination helps to avoid conflict belween
individual and organisational goals. It brings about harmony between the
two types of goals.

• Different outlook : Every individual has his own way of working and
approach towards problems. Capacity, talent and speed of the people differ
widely in any organisation. Therefore, it becomes imperative to reconcile
differences in approach, ' timing and effort to secure unity of action. By
resolving the differences and bringing about unity coordination helps in
creating congenial atmosphere in the organisation.
• Interdependence of units: Various units of an organisation
depend upon one another for their successful functioning. The
output of one unit serves as the input of another unit.
Therefore, the need for coordination increases with an increase
in the interdependence between organisational units.
• Human nature : There is a wide variation of human nature and
attitudes in the organisation. Managers are confined with the
job of their own departments. They do not involve in the
activities of other departments. This is more so when managers
are compensated on the basis of their performance.
Coordination helps in the integration of the activities of different
departments in the organisation,
 OBJECTIVES OF COORDINATION
1. Reconciliation of goals : Conflicts in organisation arise because of
differences between organisational goals and individual goals and the
individualistic perception of goals and its realisation. Coordination is the
only means by which such conflicts can be avoided.Through personal
contacts and better communication conflicts are minimised and unity of
purpose is achieved. Commitment to organisational goal is also brought
about.

2. Total accomplishment of goals : Although individuals are firmly committed

for the achievement of organisational goals individual contribution to work
bring about total accomplishment which is in excess of the aggregate of the
individual contribution. This is realised thiough the establishment of a
reporting system and cIear-cut spellifig out of business objectives.

3. Harmonious relationships : Another objective of coordination is to maintain

harmonious relationship between individuals and the brganisation.
Individuals derive satisfaction when their work performailce brings about
realisation of the desired goal. This keeps their morale high.
As the organisation is structured with clear lines of
authority and responsibility, conflict between line and staff
personnel is minimised and better reIationship is
established. ' This not only helps in reducing labour
turnover, but also enables workmen to stick to their jobs in
the organisation. Thus, coordination in an organisation is
expected to promote good personal reIationships.

4. Economy and efficiency : Coordination aims at bringing

about economy and efficiency of operations through
synchronisation of activities and individual efforts whereby
wastage of resources is minimised and there is saving of
time and expense. Reduced rejection and minimum delays
in execution lead to efficiency of operations in the
organisation.
 TYPES OF COORDINATION
On the basis of scope and flow in an organisation coordination may be
classified as internal and external, and horizontal and vertical.
• 1 Internal and external coordination : Synchronisation of the activities
and efforts of individuals within each of the respective units, departments,
plants and offices of an organisation is known as internal coordination.
External coordination relates to synchronization of the activities and efforts
between organisation and its external environment comprising market,
technology, government; shareholders, etc. External coordination is very
essential for the survival and growth of the organisation just like internal
coordination.
• 2 Vertical and horizontal coordination: Vertical coordination refers to
synchronisation of activities and efforts of people at different levels in the
organisation. Vertical coordination is ensured by top management
through .delegation of authority. Horizontal coordination means
coordination between various positions at the same level in the
organisation, which is brought about through mutual consultation and
cooperation.
 PROBLEMS OF COORDINATION
• Though coordination between different departments, groups and activities
is essential for the success of an organisation, some limitation must be
overcome. They are discussed below:
• i) Uncertainty: A constant threat comes from an uncertain future. Natural
phenomena " like rain, flood , disease, uncertain political condition,
abnormal changes in the behaviour of individuals etc., pose uncertainty
and challenge to coordination.
• ii) Personal limits: Coordination is limited to the extent of managers
knowledge, experience, ability and wisdom in business operations and also
his personal character.
• iii) Organisational limits: There is a lack of orderly method of developing
and adopting new and appropriate ideas and programmes in the
organisation structure. Because of its particular structure, managers are
not able to develop and use administrative skills which limit the degree of
coordination.
 Principles of coordination
Better and effective co­ordination, according to Mary Parker Follett, can
be achieved if the following principles are adhered to:

• 1. Principle of Direct Contact:

• Co-ordination can be best achieved by direct personal contacts among
the responsible people concerned. A must for effective co-ordination, as
per this principle, is direct face to face contact between important and
responsible persons in the enterprise, through interpersonal, horizontal
relationship. People can interact with each other by exchanging their
views, ideas and face-to-face dialogue.
• Personal communication is more effective than any other method. Direct
contact is possible in small size organisation but in large organisation it is
difficult to keep and maintain direct contact with the responsible
persons. This difficulty can be removed by providing mechanical devices
like telephones, fax machine, telex, e-mail etc. for the direct and effective
personal communication through which better co-ordination can be
achieved.
• 2. Principle of Achieving Co-Ordination in the Early Stages of
Planning and Policy:
• Co­ordination must start at the earliest stage of planning,
organising, policy making and control. Departments, for
which a policy is to be framed, must be consulted before
hand. Secondly if any department is going to be affected by
such policy, that department also should be consulted before
hand. For example if the production manager plans to
produce something in a particular period, he must contact all
departmental heads viz. purchase, stores, finance, sales and
marketing, plant engineer etc.
• All the departments then can co-operate, synchronize and
harmonize their activities. Lack of co-ordination in the early
stage may result in business failure. Therefore the general
manager should try to co-ordinate all departmental activities
right from the beginning of the management process
• 3. Principle of Reciprocal Relationship:
• Co-ordination must involve a reciprocal relationship
i.e. willingness to give and take among the persons
and activities concerned. This principle indicates that
all factors in a situation are reciprocally related. For
instance, financial manager has reciprocal relationship
with production manager. Production manager, in
turn, co- ordinates with sales and marketing manager
and other managers.
• All the above managers find themselves influenced by
all people in the total situation. In simple words every
member of the organisation maintains relationship
with each other in the total situation. All the aspects
or part are influenced by other aspects or parts.
• 4. Principle of Continuity:
• Co-ordination is a continuous process. It is a never ending function
of management. If it stops somewhere, it will be harmful for the
entire business organisation. Hence adequate care must be taken by
the top executives regarding the continuity of co-ordination of
various activities etc.
• Adoption of the above mentioned principles ensures effective co-
ordination at all levels of management during actual operation and
supervision of business activities. Along with the above principles
there must be democratic participative management as well as
clear-cut and careful delegation of authority.
• There should not be any overlapping of irresponsibility to achieve
vertical and horizontal co-ordination and for prevention of conflicts.
Co-ordination helps in anticipating the problems and measures to
avoid them can be taken. All these principles are required to be kept
in mind while performing co-ordination function.
 Features of coordination
• The principal features of co-ordination may be stated as follows:

• 1. Co-ordination is concerned with the integration of group efforts

and not individual effort:
• It involves the orderly arrangement of the activities of a group of
people. However, individual performance is related to the group
performance. Co-ordination makes the individual efforts integrated
with the total process.
• 2. Co-ordination is the concerted efforts of requisite quality and
quantity given at the proper time:
• In other words, co-ordination denotes co-operation i.e. collective
efforts, plus time element and direction element. According to
Haimann : “Co-ordination is the orderly synchronization of efforts
of the subordinates to provide the proper amount, timing and
quality of execution so that their unified efforts lead to the stated
objective, namely the common purpose of the enterprise.”
• 3. Co-ordination is a continuous and dynamic process:
• It is a continuous concept in the sense that it is achieved through the
performance of functions. And it is dynamic in nature because the functions
themselves are dynamic and may change over the period of time.
• 4. Co-ordination has three important elements, namely, balancing, timing
and integrating:
• Co-ordination of different activities becomes possible only when different
duties are performed in the right time and in the right quantity.
• As for example, if the purchase department of an enterprise buys the required
raw material in right time and in right quantity and supplies them to the
production department, the production department produces the
commodities in right time and in proper quantity; and the sales department of
the enterprise can execute the order placed by a customer within the specified
time.
• 5. The task of co-ordination and co-operation do not mean the same thing:
• Co­operation simply means that two or more persons are associated voluntarily
in the performance of some work through collective efforts. But it has no
bearing with time, amount and direction-dimensions in group efforts. In
contrast, co-ordination implies application of requisite amount of group efforts
in the right time at the right direction through deliberate executive action.
• 6. Co-ordination is the responsibility of every manager:
• Co-ordination is the responsibility of every manager in the organisation, because he
tries to synchronize the efforts of his subordinates with others.
• 7. Co-ordination may be internal or external:
• Co-ordination, as a blending factor of all activities and efforts, is to be exercised both
within and outside the enterprise. That is to say, co-ordination may be internal and
external. Internal co-ordination means the co-ordination of activities between the
employees, between the departments and managers at different levels inside the
enterprise.
• Outside the enterprise, the work of co-ordination is extended to bring about a
harmonious relationship with the activities of the competitors, suppliers and customers;
the technological and technical advances of the time, the regulatory measures of the
government, the national and inter-national inter-dependence as well as with the
wishes and wants, likes and dislikes of the consumers, employees and owners.
• 8. Co-ordination may be horizontal and vertical:
• Horizontal co-ordination refers to co-ordination between the horizontal departments of
the same level in the managerial hierarchy. For example, co-ordination is necessary
between the sales manager, works manager, finance manager and the buyer, so that
when the sales department is ready to sell the new product, the production department
will be in a position to fill the orders; and the financial arrangements have been made
so that the necessary funds are available to have the suitable raw material and other
factors.
 Techniques of coordination
• Technique # 1. Scalar Chain:
• Scalar chain identifies every person’s position in the organisation
structure. It identifies the authority and responsibility attached to
each position in the scalar chain. When one knows his position, the
position of his boss and subordinates, it facilitates coordination.
• People issue orders according to their position to ensure that work is
done according to rules and policies. The chain of command
harmonizes work at different levels and brings discipline and order in
the work of various departments.
• Technique # 2. Rules and Procedures:
• In organisations where simple and routine activities are performed,
rules and procedures provide established standards of performance.
Organisational members perform according to rules without going to
top managers every time they face a problem. Rules and procedures,
thus, provide effective guidelines to achieve coordination.
• Technique # 3. Plans and Goals:
• Well defined plans and goals help to achieve
coordination by ensuring that efforts of all
individuals and departments are directed
towards organisational goals.
• Technique # 4. Information System:
• People of different departments at all levels
need information for making various
decisions. Effective information systems, like
computers and networking facilitate free flow
of information and facilitate coordination
throughout the organisation.
• Technique # 7. Cooperation:
• Cooperation helps in achieving coordination.
Cooperation is voluntary actions of members to work
collectively as a group. If all members cooperate with
each other, it will result in coordinating their activities.
• Technique # 8. Independent Units:
• If organisation is structured in a manner that different
units carry out all functional activities (production,
finance, marketing and personnel) with respect to
their units independently, the need for coordination
gets reduced. Though this is financially costly, it will
reduce top manager’s burden to coordinate the
activities of these units.
 Quality circles
• Quality Circles can be described as a small group of
employees of the same work area, doing similar
work that meets voluntarily and regularly to iden­
tify, analyse and resolve work related problems.
• This small group with every member of the circle
participating to the full carries on the activities,
utilising problem solving techniques to achieve
control or improvement in the work area and also
help self and mutual development in the process.
• Quality circles built mutual trust and create greater
understanding between the manage­ment and the
workers. Cooperation and not confrontation is the
key element in its operation. Quality Circles aims at
building people, developing them, arousing genuine
interest and dedication to their work to improve
quality, productivity, cost reduction etc.
• Thus we can say that a quality circle is a group of 5
to 8 employees performing similar work, who
volunteer themselves to meet regularly, to identify
the cause of their on-the-job problems, employ
advanced problem-solving techniques to reach
solutions and implement them.
 Characteristics of Quality Circle
• Quality circle are small primary groups of employee whose
lower limit is three and upper limit twelve.
• The membership of quality circle is most voluntary .
• Each circle is lead by area supervisor .
• The member meet regularly every week or according to an
agreed schedule.
• The circle members are specially trained in techniques of
analysis and problem solving.
• The basic role of circles to identify and solve work related
problems for improving quality and productivity.
• Quality circle enable their member to exercise their hidden
• talents for tackling challenging tasks
 Total quality management(TQM)
• Total Quality management is defined as a continuous
effort by the management as well as employees of a
particular organization to ensure long term customer
loyalty and customer satisfaction. Remember, one happy
and satisfied customer brings ten new customers along
with him whereas one disappointed individual will spread
bad word of mouth and spoil several of your existing as
well as potential customers.
• Total quality management ensures that every single
employee is working towards the improvement of work
culture, processes, services, systems and so on to ensure
long term success.
 Principles of TQM
• Produce Quality Work the First Time
• Producing quality work (the first time) means quality is built into the
processes for producing products or providing services, and 
continual improvement measures are taken to ensure the processes work
every time. Employees are empowered to make decisions to improve a
process and are provided with continual training to develop their skills.
• The purchasing department at Fun Time Travel evaluates data on client
purchases to determine which packages are most popular with clients.
This helps them to determine what stays and what goes. The information
technology technicians monitor the website continually to assess whether
clients are just browsing or actually making purchases. The IT guys also
evaluate how long a booking takes to determine whether changes need
to be made to the check-out process.
• IT technicians monitor the website for client activity continuously to
determine how it can be improved.
• Focus on the Customer
• Focusing on the customer involves designing products or services that meet or
exceed the customer's expectations. This involves the product itself, its
functionality, attributes, convenience, and even the means by which the
information about a product is received by a client.
• The marketing department is responsible to get the cyber-word out to potential
clients. Marketers use a wide variety of media sources, like social networking,
email and even texting, to get the word out about Fun Time's website. If they
notice traffic is not moving toward the website or that clients are not staying
online long enough, they will make strong suggestions to the IT department and
the research and development department to make changes immediately.

• Approach Improvement Strategically

• By having a strategic approach to improvement, processes are developed and
tested to ensure the product or service's quality. This also involves making sure
suppliers offer quality supplies needed to produce products.
• The purchasing department monitors client reviews to determine whether the
ratings on the website are similar to those of actual past customers. This makes
it possible for purchasing to add more travel packages to the company's
inventory.
• Improve Continuously
• Improving continuously means always analyzing the way work is being
performed to determine if more effective or efficient ways are possible,
making improvements and striving for excellence all the time.
• The human resources department is interested in making sure
employees are qualified to perform their jobs. By having qualified and
trained employees on the team, the website will run effectively. Calls to
the travel desk will be handled efficiently. Any interruption to the
booking process will be quickly fixed, and improvements will be made.
• Encourage Mutual Respect & Teamwork
• Encouraging mutual respect and teamwork is important because it
fosters a single-organizational culture of excellence by knowing that
every employee from top to bottom of the hierarchy holds the same core
principles at heart.
• The entire team at Fun Time Travel works together to make viewing,
planning, and booking a vacation on their website a pleasurable and easy
experience. This requires an inter-departmental approach to TQM.
 Reengineering
• Business process re-engineering is the radical redesign of 
business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in
critical aspects like quality, output, cost, service, and speed.
Business process reengineering (BPR) aims at cutting down
enterprise costs and process redundancies on a very huge
scale.
• Business process re-engineering (BPR) is the act of changing
an organization’s major functions with the goal of increasing
efficiency, improving product quality, and/or decreasing costs.
This starts with an in-depth analysis of the business’
workflows and identifying key areas that need improvement.
People who do this kind of work, often referred to as BPR
specialists, are hired by companies to facilitate transitions to
more standardized processes.
 Why reengineering?
• Clarity of Purpose - With the exception of a few high-profile processes that execute in line of
business applications and a few compliance-related ones, most organizations cannot describe
and have not documented their processes from end-to-end. The first step of any successful
BPR implementation is to have a solid grasp on the current state  of your business processes
to ensure you are automating the right things while reducing risk for future costly mistakes.
• Simplified and Streamlined Operation - At the end of this entire project, the business is left
with a streamlined operation that has cut out superfluous processes (or unnecessary steps in
a process) that used to slow things down. By doing this, efforts become more directed
towards organizational objectives, employees have a clear path to take, and customers will be
much happier with the service they receive.
• Increased Efficiency - By eliminating redundancy in your operations and tweaking processes,
things will move through the process more easily and faster, greatly increasing overall
efficiency.
• Better Results and Products - Greater efficiency and focused goals enable you and your
employees to put more energy towards building relationships with your customers through
streamlined, digitized processes. In addition, by building better lines of communicating
between cross-functional teams, information is passed through the channels faster, making
your business more resilient to market changes.
• Maximized ROI - All of the above benefits together help maximize the ROI on your
automation investment.
 Benchmarking
• Benchmarking is a process of measuring the performance of a
company’s products, services, or processes against those of
another business considered to be the best in the industry,
aka “best in class.” The point of benchmarking is to identify
internal opportunities for improvement. By studying
companies with superior performance, breaking down what
makes such superior performance possible, and then
comparing those processes to how your business operates,
you can implement changes that will yield significant
improvements.
• Benchmarking can also help organizations identify areas,
systems, or processes for improvements—either incremental
(continuous) improvements or dramatic (business process re-
engineering) improvements.
 Objectives
The objectives of benchmarking are:
• To establish a system of measures for internal
management, and to use these measures to identify
best practices
• To support decision-making and support transport
agencies in achieving their operational, environmental
and strategic goals.
• Provide comparative information for senior
managements and stakeholders, such as governments
and regulators
• Share knowledge and best practices in a confidential
environment
 Process of benchmarking
• If a company is to be successful, it needs to evaluate its
performance in a consistent manner.
• In order to do so, businesses need to set standards for themselves
and measure their processes and performance against recognized
industry leaders or against best practices from other industries,
which operate in a similar environment.
• This is commonly referred to as benchmarking in management
parlance.
• The benchmarking process is relatively uncomplicated. Some
knowledge and a practical dent is all that is needed to make such a
process a success.
• Therefore, for the benefit of corporate executives, students and the
interested general populace, the key steps in the benchmarking
process are highlighted below.
 A Step-by-Step Approach to Benchmarking
• Following are the steps involved in benchmarking process:
• (1) Planning
• Prior to engaging in benchmarking, it is imperative that corporate stakeholders identify
the activities that need to be benchmarked.
• For instance, the processes that merit such consideration would generally be core
activities that have the potential to give the business in question a competitive edge.
• Such processes would generally command a high cost, volume or value. For the optimal
results of benchmarking to be reaped, the inputs and outputs need to be redefined; the
activities chosen should be measurable and thereby easily comparable, and thus the
benchmarking metrics needs to be arrived at.
• Prior to engaging in the benchmarking process, the total process flow needs to be given
due consideration. For instance, improving one core competency at the detriment to
another proves to be of little use.
• Therefore, many choose to document such processes in detail (a process flow chart is
deemed to be ideal for this purpose), so that omissions and errors are minimized; thus
enabling the company to obtain a clearer idea of its strategic goals, its primary business
processes, customer expectations and critical success factors.
• An honest appraisal of the company's strengths, weaknesses and problem areas would
prove to be of immense use when fine-tuning such a process.
• The next step in the planning process would be for the company to
choose an appropriate benchmark against which their performance
can be measured.
• The benchmark can be a single entity or a collective group of
companies, which operate at optimal efficiency.
• As stated before, if such a company operates in a similar environment
or if it adopts a comparable strategic approach to reach their goals,
its relevance would, indeed, be greater.
• Measures and practices used in such companies should be identified,
so that business process alternatives can be examined.
• Also, it is always prudent for a company to ascertain its objectives,
prior to commencement of the benchmarking process.
• The methodology adopted and the way in which output is
documented should be given due consideration too. On such
instances, a capable team should be found in order to carry out the
benchmarking process, with a leader or leaders being duly appointed,
so as to ensure the smooth, timely implementation of the project.
• (2) Collection of Information
• Information can be broadly classified under the sub texts of primary
data and secondary data.
• To clarify further, here, primary data refers to collection of data
directly from the benchmarked company/companies itself, while
secondary data refers to information garnered from the press,
publications or websites.
• Exploratory research, market research, quantitative research,
informal conversations, interviews and questionnaires, are still, some
of the most popular methods of collecting information.
• When engaging in primary research, the company that is due to
undertake the benchmarking process needs to redefine its data
collection methodology.
• Drafting a questionnaire or a standardized interview format, carrying
out primary research via the telephone, e-mail or in face-to-face
interviews, making on-site observations, and documenting such data
in a systematic manner is vital, if the benchmarking process is to be a
success.
• (3) Analysis of Data
• Once sufficient data is collected, the proper analysis of such information is
of foremost importance.
• Data analysis, data presentation (preferably in graphical format, for easy
reference), results projection, classifying the performance gaps in
processes, and identifying the root cause that leads to the creation of such
gaps (commonly referred to as enablers), need to be then carried out.
• (4) Implementation
• This is the stage in the benchmarking process where it becomes mandatory
to walk the talk. This generally means that far-reaching changes need to be
made, so that the performance gap between the ideal and the actual is
narrowed and eliminated wherever possible.
• A formal action plan that promotes change should ideally be formulated
keeping the organization's culture in mind, so that the resistance that
usually accompanies change is minimized.
• Ensuring that the management and staff are fully committed to the process
and that sufficient resources are in place to meet facilitate the necessary
improvements would be critical in making the benchmarking process, a
success.
• (5) Monitoring
• As with most projects, in order to reap the maximum
benefits of the benchmarking process, a systematic
evaluation should be carried out on a regular basis.
• Assimilating the required information, evaluating the
progress made, re-iterating the impact of the changes and
making any necessary adjustments, are all part of the
monitoring process.
• Conclusion
• As is clearly apparent, benchmarking can add value to the
organization's workflow and structure by identifying areas
for improvement and rectification.
• It is indeed invaluable in an organization's quest for
continuous improvement.