REGENT COLLEGE

BTEC Higher National Certificate in Business

Unit Number 16

Unit Title: Managing Communication,

Knowledge and Information

Managing Communication, Knowledge and information Page 1

Contents
Part 1.....................................................................................................................................................3
Introduction:......................................................................................................................................3
Information that will help to take decision: (LO 1.1 and 1.2)............................................................3
Internal and external sources of information and understanding (LO 1.3)........................................4
1. Internal sources information.................................................................................................4
External sources of information:...................................................................................................5
Recommended method: (LO 1.4)......................................................................................................6
Step 1: Determine about the target:.............................................................................................7
Step 2: Data collection:..................................................................................................................7
Step 3: Data analysis:.....................................................................................................................7
Step 4: Recommendation:.............................................................................................................7
Part 2.....................................................................................................................................................7
Stakeholders (LO 2.1)........................................................................................................................7
Method to contract with above stakeholders: (LO 2.2).....................................................................8
Pricing strategy for the supermarket: (LO 2.3 and 2.4)......................................................................8
1. Cost plus pricing:....................................................................................................................8
2. Skimming or creaming:..........................................................................................................9
3. Limit pricing:..........................................................................................................................9
Existing process of communication (LO 3.1, LO 3.2)..........................................................................9
Implement improvement of communication process (LO 3.3)........................................................10
Plan to improve own communication skill: (LO 3.4)........................................................................11
Improvement to an exacting approaches to collection, formatting storage and dissemination of
information and knowledge (LO4.1 and LO 4.2)..............................................................................12
Collecting data:............................................................................................................................12
Formatting information:..............................................................................................................13
Keeping information safe:...........................................................................................................13
Dissemination:.............................................................................................................................13
Improve access to system of information and knowledge: (LO 4.3)................................................13
Conclusion:..........................................................................................................................................14
References:..........................................................................................................................................14

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Part 1
Introduction: Nowadays retail industries’ competition has become an
important part in the economy. An existing retail industry has threat of other
competitors as well as they have threat of new competitors’ entrances. On the
other hand to establish a new retail business in a particular area is also very
difficult. In case of avoiding the risk to establish a new retail business it is very
important to do some research in some areas of the business so that the new
business can avoid the risk of investment. By doing research, a new retail
business can avoid their upcoming threats as well as they rapidly can move to
the field to compete with the existing competitors. A retail business’s
competitors are not only the similar types of retailer but much other kind of
retailers as well. So it is very important to do some research before starting a
new retail business.

Information that will help to take decision: (LO 1.1 and 1.2)

Before taking a final decision to establish a new business it is very important to

collect some data and analyse that so that they management can get some
idea about the business in a particular area.

1. Saving capital: Most of the time a new retail business does not go
directly to the profit. In that case it is very important to keep some
capital aside to run a business in breakeven or loss.

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 2. Type of business: Before setting up a retail business it is very important
to decide the type of the business. It is also important to check that the
type of business is suitable for that particular area or not (small business
2014).
3. Risk: Risk is always the part of the business and decision makers will
keep an eye to the risk so that they can avoid those risks easily. Risk of
the retail business includes Customers satisfaction risk, competitors risk,
suppliers’ availability risk, political risk etc. Basically risk of the business
is depends on the type of the business (ey, 2013).
4. Other factors: There are some other factors which also need to consider
at the time of taking a decision. Those could be, weather, Suppliers
availability, labour cast, raw materials availability, political support etc
(ey, 2013).

Internal and external sources of information and understanding (LO 1.3)

At the time of decision making to set up a new retail business, management

use lots of primary and secondary data. Management collects those data from
different internal and external sources.

1. Internal sources information: Internal sources information can be found

from inside of a company. This is also called primary data.

1.1 Financial information: Financial information of a similar company is very
important to take decision. Pubic limited company’s financial
information is very easy to found. However, private limited company’s
financial information is rare to found except if that company will willing
to provide that (contentedwriter, 2013).

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 1.2 Personal information: Personal information includes relationship with the
suppliers, labour information, employee formats, company’s policy etc.
These are also called internal sources of information (contentedwriter,
2013)
1.3 Other internal information: Marketing information, sales information,
purchase information, manufacturing information is also included in
internal information. These information are very helpful to evaluate a
new project (contentedwriter, 2013).

External sources of information:

External sources of information can be found from outside of a company. This

is also called secondary data.

1.4 Government: Government rules on the business, tax rules, import and
export facilities etc are very important to establish a new retail
business. Management could collect this information from external
sources (contentedwriter, 2013).
1.5 Trade grouping: Trade grouping is the group of same types of retailers
group. In most of the economic parts of the world, there is a group of
similar retailers. Those groups follow some rules which made by them
and that rules exists among them. To establish a new retail business in a
particular area, it is very important to know about those rules
(contentedwriter, 2013).
1.6 Other external sources of information: Database of research, commercially
provided information is also useful to make decision at the time of
setting up a new business (contentedwriter, 2013).

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Recommended method: (LO 1.4)

There are lots of methods to process a decision. However to start a new retail
business it is important to choose a particular method in case of making a
decision.

Management can take some steps to determine their decision.

Recommended Method of decision making process

Determine about the tar target

Data collection

Data Analysis

Recommendation

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Step 1: Determine about the target: First of all it is very important for the
management to determine about the target by analysing the capital, market
analysing etc.

Step 2: Data collection: Data collection is also an important part of data collection
process. Primary data and secondary data could be collected in this step.

Step 3: Data analysis: Data analysis step can be made after data collection
because in this step management will analyse the data.

Step 4: Recommendation: Recommendation part would be taken place after

analysing the data. Moreover this recommendation would be make on the
base of data analysing report (contentedwriter, 2013).

Part 2

Nowadays supermarket business is running very good and they are improving
as well at this present situation. In this case, there would be lots of
competitors in super market business however there are lots of opportunities
to make profit from that business as well.

Stakeholders (LO 2.1)

There are lots of stakeholders in a supermarket. Main stake holders of a

supermarket would be customers, employees, suppliers, investors, non-
governmental organisations etc. These stakeholders could be considered in
case of decision making process (tesco, 2013).

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Method to contract with above stakeholders: (LO 2.2)

There are some methods to contract with the stakeholders in case of decision
making to set up a supermarket. Most effective method to take their opinion is
by taking a survey. Different people have different opinion. In that case a
survey could take place to take some of the audiences’ opinion and take
decision on the base of that.

Survey is the study of spending characteristics and purchasing power of the

customer who are within the businesses geographic area of operation; a
research method of defining the market parameters of a business
(entrepreneur, 2012)

Pricing strategy for the supermarket: (LO 2.3 and 2.4)

Every organisation needs to set up a strategy in case of achieving to their goal.

Nowadays all the supermarkets are in the completion and most of them are
choosing pricing strategy to attract to their customers. For product and
services, pricing strategy encompasses three different ways to improve profit.
(citeseerx, 2013).

1. Cost plus pricing: Cost plus pricing is very simple method to calculate the
price. Management just calculate the cost of a product and add a
percentage in case of find out its selling price.
2. Skimming or creaming: By this way the company will divide the products
on the base of the quality. So simply the organisation will decide the
price on the base of the products’ quality like good quality products
would in high price and bad quality products would be in low price.

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 3. Limit pricing: Limit pricing is the method of set up price in lower of

average cost to attract the customer. This method uses to attract the
customers only (citeseerx, 2013).

Existing process of communication (LO 3.1, LO 3.2)

Process of communication in an organisation means the exchange of

information between two or more people in an organisation. It could be
between same level employees or between high to lower level employees or
between lower to higher employees. Process of communication is divided in
two types.

1. Vertical communication
2. Horizontal communication.

In the case study, the organisation used Horizontal communication process.

According to Rickey W. Griffin, “Horizontal communication involves colleagues

and peers at the same level of the organisation” (CMST, 2009).

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 Horizontal communication process diagram

Horizontal communication process is effective for some of the organisation.

Basically it depends on the types of the organisation. Mainly large
organisations use horizontal communication process. On the other hand,
vertical communication process is effective for small organisation where
directors can communicate with all levels employees.

According to the case study, the organisation could follow vertical

communication process. By that way management could take the volunteers’
opinion and they could take steps on the base of that. It is also important
because of the supervisor. Supervisor is busy so there should be someone to
take care. Moreover volunteers’ strategy and supervisor’s strategy is different.
In this situation it is very important to change the communication process
(CMST, 2009).

Implement improvement of communication process (LO 3.3)

According to the case study, the communication in that organisation has

chosen their volunteer only by taken an interview. However by that way the
organisation can judge the volunteers’ verbal skill but not writing skill. On the
other hand, if the communication process changes then the outcome would
be. For example, if the organisation starts following vertical communication
process then the directors or other managers can find the problems rapidly
and could instruct the supervisor to solve that (CMST, 2009).

On the other hand, supervisor might be skilled but she has a lot of different
work pressure. In that case, organisation could recruit more volunteers to help
her.

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However nowadays technology has improved. So in that case, the
communication process can use technology to make the work done quickly.
The organisation could use email, website, spread sheet etc to make the
communication process much quicker. In case of internal communication, the
organisation can use intercom to communicate inside of the organisation as
well as they can use LAN operating system to communicate internally through
the computers (CMST, 2009).

Plan to improve own communication skill: (LO 3.4)

The case study has shown Carter McNamara’s basic in internal communication
in order to improve the skill. Basically Carter McNamara has shown a very good
idea. The author suggested to not to follow the traditional management
system to non-traditional volunteers. In order to improve personal
communication skills, first of all volunteers could improve their verbal
communication skills and after that they also can improve their non-verbal
communication skills. On the other hand nowadays it is also very important for
the volunteers to have technological training so that they can communicate by
using modern technology. By this way their communication skill would be
improve.

On the other hand, the organisation can held a training session for the
volunteers to train them properly for internal communication system. By that
way all the volunteers will improve their work and the organisation will get
better output (CMST, 2009).

Improvement to an exacting approaches to collection, formatting storage

and dissemination of information and knowledge (LO4.1 and LO 4.2)

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The organisation does not use any formalised machine for collection,
formatting storage and dissemination of information and knowledge. The
organisation is highly depends on volunteers. Therefore the labour turnover of
that organisation is very highly whereas the volunteers works for limited time
periods. As a result when they leave then there can be major problems in
terms of knowledge and information. Therefore organisational knowledge
could be formed. In terms of process, the organisation could adapt some
processes (Techrepublic, 2012).

Collecting data:
According to the case study, data collection of that organisation is fully
depended on the volunteers who are full motivated for personal value.
However, generally volunteers uses their own method to collecting data and in
most cases they only collect general data. Whereas, the organisation required
some unbiased and highly valued data. In that case the organisation could give
training to the volunteers for data collecting methods so that all the volunteers
can collect data by systematic ways (Techrepublic, 2012).

Formatting information:
Exclude the data whose are less important or non valued data so that the
organisation can keep only valued data. However in some cases it is important
to check some valued data as well. In that case the organisation can make a
standard format so that all the volunteers can follow the same format and
keep data by that format so that whenever the organisation want, they can
easily use that data. By this way the organisation can save their time
(Techrepublic, 2012).

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Keeping information safe:
Nowadays there are lots of facilities to keep the data safe. The organisation
could use internet facilities so that if their computer shows some problem then
they can you other computer to excess in those data. By this way the
information becomes safe and it is very easy to excess as well. Google
documents, icloud are the example of internet data saving webs whose gives
facility to keep data safe and that is free of charge (Techrepublic, 2012).

Dissemination:
As this report has already been shown that, by keeping data in internet web is
safe as well as it has some other facilities. If the organisation volunteers
change their position or quit the job then other new volunteers can take over
that place easily and they can access in those information easily (Techrepublic,
2012).

Improve access to system of information and knowledge: (LO 4.3)

This report has mentioned before that, it is easy to save data in internet and
from anywhere of the world the data can be used. However, it becomes safety
issue as well for highly confidential information. In that case, the organisation
can set a very strong password. However volunteers changes their jobs very
frequently and in that case there would be threat of licking the password. In
that case the organisation can change the password each and every time of
changing the volunteers and they should be careful about to choose the
volunteers. So that they can be make sure that they have give the password to
person (CSS, 2014)

Conclusion:
In conclusion it could be said that, none of the organisation can build and
reach to their goal without setting up a strategy. Every decision is very
important for an organisation’s success. Therefore a retail company needs to

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take decision after doing deep research to make sure that decision is perfect
for that project.

References:

1. LO 1.1and LO 1.2.Information obtained from

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/decisions-made-starting-new-business-
4203.html Last access 18/10/2013
2. LO 1.1and LO 1.2.Information obtained from
http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Industries/Consumer-Products/Turn-risk-
and-opportunities-into-results--Retail-sector---The-top-10-risks Last
accessed 18/10/2013
3. LO 1.3. Information obtained from
http://www.contentedwriter.com/internal-sources-of-information/ Last
accessed 19/10/2013
4. LO 2.1.Information obtained from http://www.tesco-
careers.com/home/community/local-support/ Last accessed 19/10/2013
5. LO 2.2Information obtained from
http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/market-surveys Last
accessed 18/10/2013
6. LO 2.3 and LO 2.4 Information obtained from
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?
doi=10.1.1.168.2501&rep=rep1&type=pdf Last accessed 19/10/2013

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 7. LO 3.1 and LO 3.2. Information obtained from
https://cmst.curtin.edu.au/local/docs/pubs/pusey_duncan_2009_an_inv
estigation_of_oceanographic_parameters.pdf Last accessed 18/10/2013
8. LO 4.1 and LO4.2 .Information obtained from
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/google-in-the-enterprise/quick-tip-work-with-your-
google-calendar-in-outlook/2404 . Last accessed 20/10/2013
9. LO4.1 and LO 4.2. Information obtained
fromhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/0/22562918. Last accessed 20/10/2013
10. LO 4.3. Information obtained from
http://www.ccs.uottawa.ca/accounts/password-tips.html Last accessed 20/10/2013

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