Discuss about the Digital Media in Business Communication.
Digital media platforms are gaining traction throughout the globe. The advancement of digital media in the workplace is occurring at a mammoth pace. This advancement has helped organizations in enabling effective communications among internal and external stakeholders of the business (Markovitch & Willmott, 2014). Digital marketing in business serves various purposes including improving employee communication, enhancing customer management efficacy and enabling a competent feedback mechanism (Cameron & Bazelon, 2011). There are sundry tools available in the market that are being used by organizations. This report highlights upon the importance of digital media in business, its challenges and recommendations to overcome the same.
Slack is a unique tool which is used by various organizations. The tool is being used with the intention of ensuring transparent communication in the workplace. It is a cloud based tool which keeps information secure. It was founded by Stewart Butterfield in 2013. The term SLACK is an acronym for ‘Searchable Log for All Conversation and Knowledge’. The tool has various features like chat rooms, searchable files and conversations as well as the ability to integrate services such as Google drive, Trello, DropBox, and Zapier.
Salesforce is a leading software which is being used by organization in order to maintain the data of their existing and potential customers. The tool can be customized for different organizations based upon the nature of the business. Salesforce allows organizations to keep a track about various details about their existing customers including their conversations with the company employees and the emails sent by them. This tool is operative in maintaining customer relationships and eradicating communication discrepancies between the organization and its clients.
There are various advantages of the advancement of digital media in business. Digitalization of the workplace has increased overall efficiency of the organization and reduced redundant information from the system. Various advantages of this advancement are as below:
Digitalization has enabled organizations to build and maintain effective relationships with their stakeholders outside the business (Gulati & Soni, 2015). Digital tools like Salesforce allow employees to keep a track about various customer details. This also assists new employees of the firm in garnering information about a client before starting a conversation with them. Potential customers can be targeted effectively by using Salesforce (Damant et. al., 2016). The sales team can also follow up with clients in an efficient manner by setting notifications and reminders about client conversations. This overall helps the organization in delivering competent service to clients and in turn deepens the overall relationship between the client and the organization (Bourne, 2016).
These tools can be used to instil transparency of internal communication among employees (De & Van, 2015). The scope of miscommunication and redundant communication drastically reduces with the help of digitalization of the workplace. Different employees can communicate with each other through a single platform. Files shared by the employees with each other can be saved and tracked as and when required. These tools are specifically beneficial for diverse organizations where people from different parts of the world can communicate through a single platform. This transparency of communication builds trust and creates a positive work culture (Quirke, 2017).
Along with transparency of communication, documentation of communication plays a significant role in ensuring effective communication and timely follow up between two parties (May, 2011). Documenting communication leaves no room for discrepancy and ensures that there is no miscommunication. This is usage of these tools in businesses makes sure that all the data shared and communications held between different stakeholders of the organization are documented.
Digital tools that are used in businesses make it easier for businesses to provide and obtain feedbacks. Feedbacks are important for the growth and development of any organization (Saedon et. al., 2012). Social media presence of businesses has allowed customers from across the globe to provide any feedback to the organization on a public forum. This enhances the need for the organization to address these feedbacks and improve upon their services.
Even internal feedback within employees becomes stress-free. There are various tools like balanced score card that are being used by organizations that store employee performance and evaluating the same (Maurer, 2011). The entire process of providing feedback to employees has become much faster. Usage of digital tools to provide feedback to employees also eliminates the probability of personal bias.
A target market of a customer refers to the set of customers whose needs the business aims to satisfy (Armstrong et. al., 2015). Digital tools of the business allows the organization to target customers in an effective manner. Various tools for digital marketing and geo targeting are being used by various organizations which allow businesses to target consumers on the basis of their preferences, past purchases and even location (Blegen, 2011). This has allowed organizations to efficiently target consumers which are most likely to purchase their products. This leads to increased sales and strategic management of the business.
Using digital tools like Slack and Salesforce increase the overall productivity of the organization. The employee feedback process consumes less time and therefore allows managers to invest that time elsewhere. New sales employees can quickly get a history about a particular client or prospect by using these digital media tools. Being aware of this background, gives the sales employees an edge over a fresh call. Storing client details can also allow relationship managers to wish clients on their birthdays and anniversaries and this will lead to establishment of a deeper relationship. Overall the use of digital media in business largely saves time and resources of the organization (Liu & Lopez, 2014).
With the use of these tools files can be shared effectively among employees and will be stored on the cloud forever. This protects these files from being tampered or specifically misplaced as opposed to hard copies of files which are difficult to manage and easy to misplace. Therefore digitalization has enabled employees to store confidential and important information in an effective manner.
As every coin has two sides, so does digitalization has certain cons. For any firm to adopt tools of digital marketing, it is better to understand the pros and cons of the tool beforehand in order to avoid misuse. Various disadvantages of this massive growth of digitalization in business are as below:
The speed with which digital advancement is growing in the business field, it has already created a large dependency on these tools. People are losing human contact with each other and are connected through media tools. All the files are stored on the cloud and a single day of IT malfunction in any office can create havoc which would be difficult to overcome by the organization. Therefore, even though it is effective to use digital media, it is recommended that organizations must work towards reducing their dependency on the tools.
While most people find digitization entirely safe, there are many people who are still afraid to share their data on the cloud as they believe it is an invasion of privacy. Security of important information shared on the cloud is very important to ensure that the digitization’s advantages can be availed by the organization. Any data leak may lead to a crisis and the organization will find it extremely difficult to recover from the same. Therefore data security is a crucial aspect of digitization in business.
Digital media tools for various organizations are often customized as per the needs of the business. There are various tools available in the market. In order to use the most appropriate tools that effectively suits business requirements, organization must conduct a thorough analysis of the available tools, their pros and cons and then opt for the tool that best suits the organizational requirements.
Once the tool has been finalized and purchased, a detailed training must be given to all the employees of the organization. Every employee who will use the tool must know the intricacies of the tool in order to implement it effectively. Regular trainings must be given to employees and the trainings must be organized and planned in a manner that best explains the tool to employees. Employee questions and any other grievances regarding the tool must also be addressed in an effective manner.
Ensuring data security is key in maintaining the digitization of any business. Organizations must make sure that confidential data shared through the tools is accessible to only that employees that it is intended for. No employee of the organization must be able to gain access to unauthorized files of the system. Moreover, every employees must be trained to keep difficult passwords for their respective accounts on the tool.
The files shared through the tool get stored on the cloud. However, in the face of any kind of IT failure within the firm, it is recommended that employees must store a backup of their files in a different storage device. This way the employees would have access to their files even at the time of a crisis.
Software used by businesses especially similar tools like Salesforce and slack must be upgraded at regular intervals. Businesses must not use obsolete versions of the tools in order to ensure that their data is protected. If a software is not upgraded for a long time then the developer may discard the old version of the tool and auto-update the software. This may lead to loss of data. Therefore, organizations must take onus and upgrade their respective tools as and when an update is available.
Social listening refers to the ability of a particular business to be fully aware of what is being spoken about the brand on social media (Schweidel & Moe, 2014). In order to make the best of the digitization, it is important for the business to keep a track of the feedback given by the customers across different social media channels. These channels may include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even Pinterest.
Effective social listening is recommended to all the organizations in order to ensure that customer need is efficiently analyzed and catered to by the business in an appropriate manner (Crittenden, V., & Crittenden, 2015). Social listening would also enable customers to find a platform where they can criticize or compliment a brand.
The future of digitization of businesses is bright. The advancement of digitization seems unstoppable. New technologies will continue to be adopted by various organization. There is still time for developing and under-developed economies to adapt to the digitizing world. The recent data leak by Facebook has made other organizational aware of the consequences and have been putting efforts to secure their data.
The digital media tools used by organizations would become more complex as well as more effective. In the long run, digitization of the business may lead to increased unemployment too. A lot of job done by these tools would reduce manpower requirements in the organization. Organizations must adapt to this increasing digitization because there is more to come in the future. Improving research and IT departments of business would ensure that organizations become more tech savvy and their technology becomes more user friendly.
Conclusion
Digitization in business has been taking place since the advent of business. Most businesses have moved forward in order to take advantage of the growing technology. There are various tools that are used by organizations in order to improve their overall productivity. These tools have allowed businesses to maintain and build effective relationships among all stakeholder and enhance the quality of internal communication in the firm (Howard & Hussain, 2011). Digitalization has also ensured the customers of the business are targeted in a competent manner and data is stored securely (Pros and cons of using social media for business, 2018). Digitization is sure to continue in the era of growing technology and it is about time that every organization must take advantage of digitization to the best of their abilities.
References
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Bourne, L. (2016). Stakeholder relationship management: a maturity model for organisational implementation. CRC Press.
Cameron, L., & Bazelon, C. (2011). The Impact of digitization on business models in copyright-driven industries: a review of the economic issues. Brattle Groupe paper prepared for the US National Research Council, available at: https://www.brattle. com/_documents/UploadLibrary/Upload951.pdf..
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Pros and cons of using social media for business. (2018). Business.gov.au. Retrieved 13 April 2018, from https://www.business.gov.au/info/run/advertising-and-online/pros-and-cons-of-social-media
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