Communication Technique That Eliminates Issues – KT Haulage Case Study

Background of the company

Discuss about the Communication Technique That Eliminates Issues.

The purpose of this report is to provide a brief description about the details of the company KT Haulage and its communications strategies as well. The report will cover the background information about the company, its marketing strategies, internal as well as external communication, strengths and weakness of these methods and challenges. The report also provides ways to the company with the help of which they can easily resolve the issues effectively. Further it should be noted that communication is one of the most effective way to implement changes and initiate success for the company in the target market. In an organization, the management requires effective communication to organize the strategies of the company bring effective outcomes (Drucker 2017). More details about the report are discussed below:

The KT Haulage Company is a well renowned organization that is involved in the business of one stop logistics and forwarding service provider. The company is headquartered in Port Klang, Malaysia in the year 1987. So, now the company has gained an experience of 30 years and has attained specialization in warehousing, containers and breaks bulk cargo handling, custom brokerage services, air & sea freight forwarding, project cargo management, and local & cross border transportation management. The organization is expanding its scope of business to total 15 trucking fleets with 75 trailers. This aspect helped the company to provide complete services with effective management, cost, and service quality and time as well. Further, the philosophy of the organization is to never compromise in terms of quality of service that they provide to customers in the market. They aim to provide cost efficient logistics along with quality services to the customers in the target market (KT Haulage 2018).

The mission of the organization is to continue providing innovative, top-quality and effective services to the customers in the market. The aim of the organization is to become a part of top 10 comprehensive logistics and forwarding service provider in Malaysia. Further, it should be noted that the organization aim to continuously improve their services and expand the market share as well.

The marketing mix is a tool that helps business process to understand the type of products and services that the company can offer to the customers. The marketing mix strategies of an organization include 4P’s that are price, product, promotion and place.

Marketing Strategies

Product: The Company offers many products and services like, warehousing, containers and breaks bulk cargo handling, custom brokerage services, air & sea freight forwarding, project cargo management, and local & cross border transportation management etc. The company has gained excellence in the market of Malaysia in providing such services in the target market (Church, and Waclawski 2017).

Price: The Company KT Haulage makes use of the price penetration strategy for their business. They make use of this to initially attain satisfaction of customers in the market. With the use of this strategy the company provides bets quality products at low rates that increase the satisfaction level of the customers. This aspect helps the organization in creating differentiation as well. Like, currently the prices marked by the organization are nominal so that they can attract more people (Fearn-Banks 2016).

Place: The services of KT Haulage are available in all parts of Malaysia. The organization uses effective distribution channel provides its services in the country. Further the organization is aiming to expand its services in the external market but for that they need to make use of strong and effective distribution channel.

Promotion: There are not many activities that the company initiates for the purpose of promotion as they are not placed in the international market. And in domestic market people get attracted towards the company due to their strong brand image in Malaysia. Further, the organization is now thinking to enter in the international market and expand its customer base. In response to which they should initiate social media promotions technique (Scott, and Davis 2015).

Communication is the most effective ways that helps a business process to initiate its activities in the target market. With the help of effective communication, most of barriers at workplace get resolved easily whereas in external market this aspect helps in building a strong brand image and addressing the problems of customers as well. Further, this section of the report explains the use of internal and external communication in the KT Haulage organization (Appendices 1).

• In the process of internal communication the logistics company makes use of oral communication technique to approach to people. The organization wants to maintain a personal relationship with the employees in response to which they initiate this type of communication to build an internal relationship. This type of communication helps the company in maintaining positive workplace environment (Austin, and Pinkleton 2015).
• Further, as a part of internal communication, the organization uses various techniques for example telemeetings, visio conferences and web conferences with the employees. The top management of the organization initiates group meeting with all other departments of the organization together.

External communication is mainly initiated outside the organization between the employees and other stakeholders of the company. With the help of external communication facility, the company KT Haulage initiates effective communication with the customers of the organization (Quirke 2017). Further, the ways in which the company used external communication are discussed below:

• The organization provides product and service manual with the help of which the customers get to know about the services of the company. Such literature convinces the potential customers as well (Appendices 2).
• Trade fairs and shows are also a part of external communication that is used by KT haulage to endorse their products and services in the right market. This aspect helps the business to increase market share (Gargiulo 2014).
• Further, the management of organization believes advisements are the best way to communicate with the customers at large.

Basis	Internal Communication	External Communication
Meaning	Takes places between the employees in the organization	Takes place between the external stakeholders of the organization.
Form	Formal as well as Informal	Formal
Flow	Within organization	Entire area where business activities are initiated
Participants	Employee and Management	Customers, suppliers. Shareholders, creditor, general public, government etc. (Brummans, et. al., 2014).

There are many ways like Telemeetings, Visio conferences and Web conferences, advertising, trade fair etc. in which, the company initiates both internal and external communication in the business. Further the strength of KT haulage internal communication adopted are:

Internal and external communication of KT Group

Strength	Weakness
Creates a web for the business that helps in effectively understanding the decisions of top level management.	Informal internal communication also acts as barrier for the productivity of the organization as it increases gossiping at office.
Increase in productivity, as the internal communication increases the employees start coordinating their activities that increases productivity (Quirke 2017).	More mouths, more conflicts. As more diverse people interact with each other that increases conflicts in the organization (Cornelissen, and Cornelissen 2017).

Strength	Weakness
External communication spread awareness in the external market about the products and services offered by the company. It promotes the activities of the company in the market (Huang, Baptista, and Newell, 2015).	External communication can aggressively hamper the image of the company in external market if the employees do not perform well or communicate properly with the stakeholders.
It creates reputable brand image of the company KT Haulage in the target market. It helps the company to position its product according to their expectations in market.	External communication includes the use of social media. The organization should provide information to people that is required. Also, they should be accountable for the information shared by them in the external market (Sosa, Gargiulo, and Rowles 2015).
Efficient external communication attracts customers to the maximum level. With the help of this type of communication, the customers initiate sales of the company. Also the after sales services are also implemented properly with the use of this type of services that satisfies the employees to the maximum level (Haslam, et. al., 2014).	The external communication is a two-way process in the organization. The management takes feedback from the clients and informs it to the employees so that they can work on it to improve. But barrier in this phase can create ineffectiveness in internal as well as external process of communication of organization.

Difference in Perceptions: People that are employed in the KT Haulage organization come from different cultures. As the country Malaysia itself includes diversified population, due to which the company has employed culturally different people resulting to which communication issues occur in the organization. Every person has their different mindset and process to initiate actions in the organization. So, the problem arises when the team has to complete the task and the employees’ faces difference in perception. Difference in perception makes it difficult for the company to complete the work together (Keyton 2017).

Technology: Technology is the tool that can be said as an advantage as well as disadvantage for the process of communication in the organization. Ineffective use of technology can create several barriers of communication in the process of the organization. Like, in the case of KT Haulage, the company relies on technology that make dependent on it to initiate communication. Video conference, phone calls etc. are good but not better than face to face communication. It is important for the organization to initiate physical meetings but technology has eliminated such communication (Dawson 2018).

Miscommunication: The process of communication becomes effective when it helps one employee to receive the message from other on time. But many times due to no personal communication, the message share by one person is mis-communicated by other employee in the organization. Resulting to which, the outcomes of the action performed by employees becomes different. Also, availability of many levels in the process of communication acts as a barrier for organization.

Conclusion

Thus, in the limelight of above mentioned events, it should be noted that the communication can be regarded as the most important tool that helps business to overcome their issues and expand in the external market. The above mentioned report explains the different types of communications, issues and its recommendations for the company KT Haulage. If communication is not used in an adequate manner then it can affect the activities of the organization and reduce its competence as well. With the help of process of communication, an organization builds strong brand image but if the communication not effective then that brand image depletes. The company KT Haulage uses communication in different ways that are discussed above.

In order to help the company improve its communication, many suggestions are discussed below:

• The company should initially focus on eliminating the intermediaries present in the process of communication. More number of intermediaries increases the chances of miscommunication for the organization. Also, the information is transmitted from one person to another on time by eliminating these intermediaries (Shockley-Zalabak 2014).
• Further, it should also be noted that as much as technology is important for communication, personal contact is also important. The management should not forget conducting personal meetings and visiting other branches even if they had initiated web conferences with them. Personal contact will help the employees to understand each other more accurately and understanding the emotional requirement.
• Lastly, the organization should clarify deliverable from both the ends so as to make communication more effective.

References

Austin, E.W. and Pinkleton, B.E., 2015. Strategic public relations management: Planning and managing effective communication campaigns (Vol. 10). Routledge.

Brummans, B.H.J.M., Cooren, F., Robichaud, D. and Taylor, J.R., 2014. Approaches to the communicative constitution of organizations. The SAGE handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods, pp.173-194.

Church, A.H. and Waclawski, J., 2017. Designing and using organizational surveys. Routledge.

Cornelissen, J. and Cornelissen, J.P., 2017. Corporate communication: A guide to theory and practice. Sage.

Dawson, V.R., 2018. Organizing, Organizations, and the Role of Social Media Conversations. In Transformative Practice and Research in Organizational Communication (pp. 62-78). IGI Global.

Drucker, P.F., 2017. What Makes an Effective Executive (Harvard Business Review Classics). Harvard Business Review Press.

Fearn-Banks, K., 2016. Crisis communications: A casebook approach. UK: Routledge.

Gargiulo, T.L., 2014. The strategic use of stories in organizational communication and learning. Routledge.

Haslam, S.A., Van Knippenberg, D., Platow, M.J. and Ellemers, N., 2014. Social identity at work: Developing theory for organizational practice. Psychology Press.

Huang, J., Baptista, J. and Newell, S., 2015. Communicational ambidexterity as a new capability to manage social media communication within organizations. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 24(2), pp.49-64.

Keyton, J., 2017. Communication in organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 4, pp.501-526.

KT Haulage., (2018) About Us [online]. Available from https://ktlog.com.my/ [Accessed on 2 June 2018.]

Quirke, B., 2017. Making the connections: using internal communication to turn strategy into action. Routledge.

Scott, W.R. and Davis, G.F., 2015. Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural and open systems perspectives. Routledge.

Shockley-Zalabak, P., 2014. Fundamentals of organizational communication. Pearson.

Sosa, M.E., Gargiulo, M. and Rowles, C., 2015. Can informal communication networks disrupt coordination in new product development projects?. Organization Science, 26(4), pp.1059-1078.