Question

What do you mean by centralisation of office services ? state its merits and demerits?

Answer 1

Meaning of Centralisation:

An office is not established for its own sake. An office is necessary for an enterprise. Every enterprise has its own objects, either trading or non-trading. According to the nature of the objects an organisation needs to perform some functions and for each function there is a department. Functions cannot be done in vacuum. Every function needs some services and a place for functioning.

The office fulfills both the needs. The services consist of communication, computation, and recording. When all the common services are done jointly by the same people for all the departments, there is centralisation of office services. For example, the telephone is needed by every department.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

If there is one telephone line having internal branches with P.B.X. or P.A.X. system it is enough. There is no need for having a separate telephone connection for each department. That part of an office where centralised functions are done is called the General Office and the secretary is normally in charge of that. Another good example is the Cash Department.

When the office services are separated and each functional depart­ment like production, marketing, etc. has its own office services then there is a case of decentralisation. For example, each department has its own typists instead of having a typists’ pool. All the files may be kept at one place in a centralised manner.

Need of Centralization:

Centralisation and decentralisation are tendencies. It is a matter of policy whether the former or the latter system will be followed. In fact, there is a very little scope for a choice between the two. Certain services need be centralised for the sake of convenience and economy while certain services can be better decentralised.

Centralisation has great advantages but decentralisation is not totally bad. There may be a typists’ pool for typing out letters of different departments but at the same time the secretary requires the exclusive services of a typist so that he can have the confidential matters typed out.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

All files cannot be preserved in a centralised manner so that anyone can look into them. It is desirable to have an ideal combination of both, centralisation and decentralisation. There are some advantages of centralisation which are, more or less, the disadvantages of decentralisation and vice versa.

Advantages of Centralization:

There are many advantages of centralisation. (They are the disadvantages of decentralisation). They are:


(a) Specialisation:

Since each employee does a particular type of work repeatedly, may it be for different departments, he becomes a specialist in that line of work and by that his efficiency is enhanced.

(b) No Duplication of Work:

In case of decentralisation every department has to do the same types of functions but if there is centra­lisation a group of employees does the same nature of work for all the departments. If there is a typewriter for each department then for each department there are expenses for paying the salary of the typist, oiling and cleaning of its typewriter, etc.

(c) Economy:

With the avoidance of duplication of work, there is economy too. If there are four departments then under decentra­lisation four typists have to be employed. But if there is centralisation and there is a typists’ pool then probably two or maximum three typists will be enough. Less capital will be required as the number of machines to be purchased will be less as well as there will be less payment of salaries.