You are required to demonstrate your understanding of the principles of effective business communication explored throughout the unit. You must choose two current examples of business communications: an excellent business communication and a poor one.
Business communication is the idea of sharing information in order to promote their products and services to its potential customers. The ideas are shared inside and outside the organization so that the company will gain the commercial benefits from its people. Communication plays a major role in the business. In smaller companies, they do not spend copious amounts of time to transfer information while the same does not take place in larger companies. Smaller business often do not have huge number of information to be transferred because they have limited number of business operations. Basically there are two types of communication i.e. traditional communication which include memos and written letters. And the other is electronic communication which include email, chatting, texting and other forms of Internet-based communication (Belch et al., 2014).
An effective communication is very important for an organization in order to run smoothly and save time and efforts of the company by reducing the amount of confusing information. Effective communication also helps to increase the employees’ productivity and helps them to complete their business functions and also achieve desired objectives (Gao, 2014).
Principles of Clarity
Every communication cycle gets started with the idea generation. When the idea is generated, there must occur a huge clarity because this is just the initial stage and if the initial stage is damaged then the whole communication process will have to suffer later. A business must have the clarity of the objectives, goals and mission and vision so that it will work on achieving the same. Once the idea is clarified, there must be use of simple language which should create 100% transparency and there should be no use of harsh or complex languages (Sweet, 2013).
Let us take an example of a manufacturing company. The company needs to deliver some goods to its customers. Here, there are two which can be used. The first one is Goods will be sent soon and the second one is Goods will be sent by (Specific Date). So, the second one gives more clarity (Dumitrescu & Vinerean, 2010).
Principles of Completeness
Completeness of facts plays a crucial role in any business communication because incomplete information may often lead to confusion and complexity. Every actions must be taken based on the complete message provided because wrong action taken may create hurdles later. The principles of completeness include all the necessary information regarding facts, figures, color, size, payments criteria, modes of dispatch and many others. One must deliver the message with complete information. Completeness also refer to answering five questions like who, what, where, when and why (Grunig, 2013).
Principles of Conciseness
Every message should be in concise form to avoid unnecessary time wasted on lengthy messages. More the messages will be in brief form, more the reader gets attracted. Moreover, it should always be correct, complete and clear (Mack, 2017).
Principles of Consideration
Whenever a message is delivered to the customer, then it should avoid using ‘I attitude rather than using ‘You’ attitude. Because one must think on the basis of what third party will think instead of developing ‘I’ attitude. While communicating, there must be positive approach and one must avoid saying NO because it crates negative impact (Guffey & Loewy, 2010).
Principles of Courtesy
In every business, there must be friendly approach with every employees. Basically there are three major principles that will help to promote courtesy like answering the letters very quickly, avoiding irritating expressions and apologizing or thanking generously (Jeffrey, 2014).
Principles of Correctness
There must be accuracy while communicating the information in the business. All the facts and figures must be accurate and must be delivered at the right time. When a business starts using unnesaccaery information then it may suffer loss and it will be difficult for it to understand its correct legal positions as well (Guffey & Loewy, 2012).
Excellent Business communication (Google)
Google was founded on 4th September, 1998 in United State by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It is one of the second largest company in terms of revenue. It is an American Multinational Company which aims at providing internet related products and services to its customers.
How things work at Google?
Since, Google is a well renowned company and it provides open organization culture and value its every customers. All the employees there are treated as white collared workers it focuses on using ultra modem communication ways to communicate with its employees (Gupta, 2015).
Upward Communication
Google follows upward communication strategy where employees are given freedom to communicate directly to their bosses. No intermediaries are required if a subordinate wants to talk to any of his bosses. Similarly, every employees have right to put their views if they think is right. These days Google is trying to reduce “top downiness’ from decision making” strategies. Google founders have made themselves available among its employees to interact with them and discuss their views. It is done once a week. Whenever a company uses modern means of communication, then it has the ability to compete with its competitors.
Downward Communication
Google provides services 24*7 and their employees also works 24*7 based on their shift timings. Whenever some employees are at home, they still get emails and other messages by their managers so that the subordinates will remain updated about all the activities of the company. Sometimes they also conduct video calls to discuss the urgent work. Since Google never gets involved in papers, it always works on emails and text messages. For an example, the VP of Google once delivered messages via three minute you tube video and got his message delivered to its employees (Wickre, 2017).
Diagonal Communication
The diagonal communication takes place same as upward and downward communication. They basically use electronic medium to communicate with its employees so that they will focus on their work and set goals to achieve the desired outcomes. Moreover, Google also provides Employees Grievance officer who is responsible to handle all the grievances that place within the employees.
Vertical Communication
Google uses shared documentation technology which basically focuses on managing the work in a team rather than focusing on the individual work. All the employees in the company work together to deliver each product lines. For an example: Android. How beautifully Google converged its products into it by reliable communication network.
Poor Business Communication (Nokia)
Generally it happens that the big companies faces big problems and the same happened with the Nokia. Nokia is a multinational company which was founded in 1985 by Fredrik, Eduard and Leo. Nokia deals in providing electronic products and services to its potential customers. The problems faced by Nokia varies from other companies. The major reasons behind its failure is listed below.
Since a long decade, Nokia has ranked itself in the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer but it was successful unless smart phones were introduced. When smart phones were launched in the market, Nokia lost its edge from the market and turned its products with a great failure. The major problem found was the habits of communication that generated unclear plans about the market competitors (Golen, 1990).
Nokia failed to connect with people though it had strong software configuration. Later when android was announced, it proved that hardware plays more important role than that of software and Nokia was very slow to meet with its pace. Nokia thought that People would not love touch screens and touch screens will not have any better future but then it was beyond the expectation. People loved the touchscreens and Nokia failed to meet its expectation and also failed to create buzz among its customers.
There was no effective communication strategy used by the company. There was lack of innovators and human resources which a company should work on. The lack of updates in technology lead to the major failure of the Nokia. The managers of Nokia failed to realize that was the real need of the customers and what the customers would love to but which other smart phones were capable enough to identify it. The communication channel was not strong enough so that new ideas will be given opportunities and their ideas should be welcomed at least once. Every employees in the organization has to cross the communication channel to express their views. The communication line was too lengthy and the subordinates were not given an opportunity to think something different from the other company. The ideas remained constant in the minds of the employees but they were never implemented which created a great failure (Thakur, 2014).
Compare and contrast between the natures of communication
Bigger the company, more will be the problems. Google and Nokia are both well reputed companies, the business communication strategies of both companies are very different. Google believes in smart work while Nokia focused on working hard. There was a huge communication gap between both companies. Since Google has used very effective ways of communication such as downward communication, upward communication, vertical communication and diagonal communication. Here, every employees are given an opportunity to put their views and the CEO of the company meets every employees once in a week which create a positive environment in the organization. But this strategy lagged behind in terms of Nokia (Chaudhary, 2014). The employees there were never given an opportunity to put their ideas and innovate something different. Google always kept on updating new innovations and worked effectively on the adoption of new technology. Nokia failed to adopt new technology and thus afield to capture the market too.
What worked and what did not?
Google used several communication strategy to remain in the competitive market and place its position successfully across the globe. It treated every employees as a valuable assets to the company and all their grievances were taken into highest priority. But this did not work out in terms of Nokia. All the communication strategy followed by it failed and they became unsuccessful to capture the market and remain in the competition. Nokia never bothered in updating their technology which other smartphones did and worked out. So, it is very necessary to remain competitive in the market and follow effective communication strategy.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that an effective business communication plays a major in the success of the organization. Google has adopted effective business communication strategy and ranked itself in the world’s largest multinational company but Nokia failed to do the same. Nokia failed immensely in the market and also lagged behind among its competitors.
References
Belch, G. E., Belch, M. A., Kerr, G. F., & Powell, I. (2014). Advertising: An integrated marketing communication perspective. McGraw-Hill Education.
Chaudhary, K. (2014). Failure of Nokia. Viewed on 16th February, 2018. Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/karankamboj313/failure-of-nokia
Dumitrescu, L., & Vinerean, S. (2010). The global strategy of global brands. Studies in Business and Economics, 5(3), 147-155.
Gao, C. (2014). We are building a future, together. Corporate Communication Strategy. Viewed on 16th February, 2018. Available at: https://chuckgao89.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/google-communication-strategy.pdf
Golen, S. (1990). A factor analysis of barriers to effective listening. The Journal of Business Communication (1973), 27(1), 25-36.
Grunig, J. E. (Ed.). (2013). Excellence in public relations and communication management. Routledge.
Guffey, M. E., & Loewy, D. (2010). Business communication: Process and product. Cengage Learning.
Guffey, M.E., & Loewy, D. (2012). Essentials of business communication. Cengage Learning.
Gupta, S. (2015). Communication networks at Google. Viewed on 16th February, 2018. Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/yupimdfreak/communication-networks-at-google
Jeffrey, S. (2014). Principles of Effective Communication for Business and Personal Success. Viewed on 16th February, 2018. Available at: https://scottjeffrey.com/principles-of-effective-communication/
Mack, O. (2017). Effective Communication: Five Principles to Perfect. . Viewed on 16th February, 2018. Available at: https://magazine.vunela.com/effective-communication-five-principles-to-perfect-172c9adbe0ee
Sweet, P. (2013). Principles of effective communication. Viewed on 16th February, 2018. Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/Sweetp999/principles-of-effective-communication-24566620
Thakur, A. (2014). Presentation on failure of Nokia. Viewed on 16th February, 2018. Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/abhishekthakur309/presentation-on-failure-of-nokia
Wickre, K. (2017). What Google’s open communication culture is really like. Viewed on 16th February, 2018. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/what-googles-open-communication-culture-is-really-like/
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