BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

• Communication is vital in personal and social

life.
• For individual, communication is a social need
but is the lifeblood for an organization; no
organization can succeed or progress, without
effective communication.
• Communication is the mortar that holds an
organization together, whatever its business or
its size.
• We can build good relationship within or outside
the organization, build organizational image etc,
through effective communication.
• It has remain a big challenge for manager or
officials also.
• A study points out that many of us spend 70 to 80
percent of our waking hours in some form of
communication.
• Of that time, we spend about 9 percent writing,
16 percent reading, 30 percent speaking, and 45
percent listening.
• Studies also confirm that most of us are poor and
inefficient listeners.
• Research studies find that managers spend over
60 per cent of their time in meetings (Hargie et
al).
• In some cases they spend over 80 per cent of their
day involved in communication (Hales).
• It also differs from organization to organization
and culture to culture .
• Peter Collett in his study found that Czech
managers were most communicative (68 per cent
of their time). British managers were average at
62 per cent but French and Bulgarian managers
were much lower – 56 per cent and 52 per cent
respectively.
• Many research studies also suggest the importance of
communication for the well-being of organization.
• ‘Good management depends on effective
communication’ (Bovee and Thill,).
• ‘Research suggests that improved internal
communication brings large scale organizational
benefits’ (Tourish).
• These benefits can include significant financial
savings, both direct and indirect.
• For example, Scott et al. have shown that employees
who feel satisfied with the communication they
receive, are less likely to leave their organization.
Decreased staff turnover obviously reduces the
expenditure on recruitment and selection.
• Communication may create confusion :
• During the Second World War, an harsh discussion
broke out at a meeting of the combined chiefs of staff
of Britain and the United States.
• The argument was over a proposal by the British to
‘table a certain document’. It went on for some time
until one person pointed out that both sides wished to
discuss the document.
• The problem was the differing meaning of ‘table’.
The more common British meaning is to ‘put forward
for discussion’ while in the United States it means ‘to
postpone the discussion indefinitely’.
• Bad Communication can even bring the
organization to collapse.
• Two examples of ineffective and careless
communication
• Gerald Irving Ratner - a British businessman and
motivational speaker. He was formerly  chief
executive  of the major British jewellery company
Ratners Group which is now the  signet group .
• Although widely famous for "crap” (meaning
cheap),  the shops and their jewellery were
extremely popular with the public, until Ratner
made a speech addressing a conference of the
institute of Directors at the Royal Albert hall.
• He achieved notoriety after making a speech in which
he jokingly commented ( defamingly) two of the
company's products, which caused the company's
near collapse (the so-called "Ratner effect").
• In a business speech, Gerald Ratner described some
of his company’s cheaper jewellery products as ‘crap’
and suggested that others would not last as long as a
supermarket sandwich.
• He did not anticipate reports in the national press the
following day.
• Although the immediate effect on sales was actually
positive, but later people refuse to buy gifts from a
store which now had a reputation for ‘cheap rubbish’.
• Within months, sales had went down and the
company never recovered.
• The irony was that Ratner had used these types
of remarks before in speeches, and had been
quoted in the financial press.
• But this time the comments made the front
pages in the popular papers.
• As he later reflected, ‘Because of one ill
judged joke, 25,000 people lost their jobs’.
• “Wrong type of snow” this phrase originated in
an interview conducted on BBC Radio. British
rail's Director of Operations, was asked to
comment on the adverse effects of the unusually
heavy snow fall on railway services that winter.
He explained it the rare type of snow, which is
in the UK. The exchange prompted a headline in
the London  Evening Standard saying "British
Rail blames the wrong type of snow" which was
swiftly taken up by the media and other papers.
• The phrase is still used in UK as the classic
example of a lame excuse.
• These examples show the importance of
communication and its long-lasting impact.
They relate to external image and reputation.
Importance of effective communication in an

organization:
 Strong Relationships

Clear Expectations

Customer Ambassadors

Ideas and Innovation

Strong Teamwork

motivation. 

controlling process.

Effective communication
Easy Management of organization policies. 

Organizational growth and profit.

Promotes accountability and responsibility.

Helps in decision-making

Increases transparency in the organization.

Prevents time-wasting

Expands the market

Reduces fear of the unknown

1. Strong Relationships
• Effective communication builds strong
relationships.
• Relationship can be boosted if individual’s
needs of information is met.
• They may be internal publics like employees
or external publics.
2. Clear Expectations

Effective communications help to establish clear

expectations for employees and, for customers as
well.
• For employees, clear expectations will convey
how their performance will impact the company
and what they need to do to achieve positive
feedback.
• For customers, clear communication can help
manage their expectations about service issues.
3. Customer Ambassadors
• Customers once shared their satisfactions with a few
friends, but today we share with our audience of hundreds
and thousands. In fact,  Research tells us that the average
user has 338 Face book friends. Individual customers now
have audiences, just like television programs do.
companies are turning their customer s to promote their
products.
• What’s true of consumers is true of employees.
• The more employees know about the company, its culture,
its products and services, and its response to any negative
issues, the better job they can do of serving as
ambassadors to the community, their friends, relatives and
other business connections.
4. Ideas and Innovation

• Open channels of communication can lead to new

ideas and innovation in a number of areas.
• Employees that understand what's important to their
companies can focus on making improvements and
spotting opportunities for innovation that can help
further success.
• When employees know their ideas will be sought
after, that company leaders will have open minds and
be responsive to their feedback, they're more likely to
contribute their ideas. Customers also can be a source
of great ideas to help improve products and services.
5. Strong Teamwork

• Effective organizational communication will

lead to strong teamwork and the ability for
employees at all levels of the organization to
work together to achieve company goals.
6. Effective communication for motivation. 

• Communication in an organization makes it clear

what the employee is supposed to do and how to
do it. When everything is clear, the person is not
frustrated not knowing what to do and this
increases their desire to work more.
7. Effective communication for controlling
process.

• It helps controlling organizational member’s

behavior in various ways. There are various levels
of hierarchy and certain principles and guidelines
that employees must follow in an organization.
• They must comply with organizational
policies, perform their job role efficiently and
communicate any work problem and grievance
to their superiors. Thus, communication helps
in controlling function of management.
8. Easy Management of organization
policies. Communication make the management of
the organization easy as there are many ways of
communicating with the employees. It makes each
person in the organization know the organizational
policies. They then work with the acceptable
organization policies, hence achieving the right
results.
9. Organizational growth and profit. Since effective
communication increases performance of the
employee. This means that there will be
Organizational growth and profit.
10.Promotes accountability and
responsibility. Communication makes one accountable
for their actions in the organization and makes them
understand their responsibilities at work.
11. Helps in decision-making. Communication helps in
ensuring that the members of the organization are well-
informed. This impacts their decision-making capability,
making them to make decision that are the best for the
organization.
12. Increases transparency in the organization. When
there is regular communication in the organization, there
is transparency and this increases trust between the
employees and the employer hence improving
organization output.
13. Prevents time-wasting. Employees waste time not
knowing what to do. They work what the
organization wants from them.
14. Reduces fear of the unknown. Communication
reduces uncertainty in the organization making the
employees confident of what they are doing.
15. Expands the market. Through good
communication, more customers will know about
the organization’s services, hence making the market
for the services larger.
16.Enhanced Job Satisfaction
• Providing job satisfaction to its employees forms the
key element for a successful organization. Open
communication between the managers, subordinates and
other vendors creates a hazzle-free environment and
each of the employees feels considered upon. This helps
to build loyalty and trust with in that organization.
17. Increased Productivity
• Improper communication leads to lack of information
and wastage of useful resources, whereas better
communication leads to better understanding of the
matter, which in turn improves the productivity and the
turn around time.
18.Optimum Utilization of the Resources
• Miscommunication can result in delays in delivery
and reduced quality outputs. Clarity in
communication also helps the managers and the
employees to plan and schedule different resources so
as to ensure optimum utilization. This in turn
increases the productivity.
• Thus better communication goes hand in hand with
the success of an organization or any workplace,.
• What is communication:
• The term communication is derived from the latin word
“communis” which means to make common.
• Communication in a simple term is transfer of information
between people resulting in common understanding
between them.
• Newman and summer “communication is an exchange of
ideas, facts, opinions or emotions by two or more persons.
• Dale s Beach “communication is transfer of information
and understanding from person to person”.
• J W Newstrom and Keith Davis “communication is
transfer of information from one person to another person.
It is the way of reaching others by transmitting ideas,
facts, thoughts feelings and values”.
• Anderson defines communication is the process by
which we understand others and in turn we are
understood by them.
• Characteristics of communication:
• Two-way channel: In communication, two parties
are involved, namely, the sender or transmitter,
and the receiver of the message. An effective
communication demands two-way
communication. It should be horizontal, vertical-
downward and upward. Therefore, a manager
should thus not only to inform, instruct and order
but should also be prepared to listen, understand
and interprets.
2. Clarity of message: The facts, ideas, opinion
should be clear in the mind of communicator
before communicating. According to Koontz
and Donnell, “A communication possesses
clarity when it is expressed in a language and
transmitted in a way that can be comprehended
by the receiver.”
• Mutual trust: A communication system may
be considered excellent when mutual trust or
understanding exists between sender and the
receiver of the message. Existence of healthy
interpersonal relation between the seniors and
their subordinates is also an indicator of an
adequate system of communication in any
department or organization.
• Timely message: Considerable attention
should be given to the timeliness of
communication. Old information is worse than
none at all.
• Consistency of message: Consistency can be
achieved if the communicator keeps in his mind the
objective, policies and program of the enterprise. It
should not be conflicting with the previous
communications, otherwise, it would create confusion
and anarchy in the organization.
• Feedback: Feedback provides proper understanding
of the message to the receiver. It helps in making a
two-way communication process. The sender must try
to ascertain whether or not receiver properly
understood the message.
• Noise:
 Instructive Function

Integrative Function

Informing Function

Evaluation Function
PURPOSE
Directive Function

Influencing Function

Image projecting

Orientation Function
 Consideration

Concreteness Correctness

Seven Cs of
Communication
Clarity Courtesy

Completeness Conciseness
• SEVEN Cs OF COMMUNICATION
1. Clarity
A communication should be clear so the recipient can
understand what the sender wants to communicate.
1. Use simple word, easy to understand words:
Avoid them Use them
Compensate Pay
Facilitate Help
Utilise Use
2. Use Single words for long phrases:
Long Phrases Single Words
At all times Always
For the purpose of For
Previous to Before
On account of Because
3. Use verbs for nouns (its brings about simplicity
and clarity):
• Using Nouns Using Verbs
• (Difficult) (Simple)
• Come to a conclusion Conclude
• Make a decision Decide
• Submit a proposal Propose
• Take into consideration Consider
4. Avoid double entry
• Double entry Simple
• Actual fact Fact
• End result Result
• Period of one week One week
• Previous experience Experience
5. Avoid ambiguity: If your message can mean
more than on ambiguous. Faulty punctuation
causes the ambiguity.
• Go, slow work in progress
• Go slow,work in progress
6. Use short sentences: Use one sentence to express
only one idea. If a sentence runs beyond 30 words, it
is better to break it up into two sentences.

• Bad example:
• Dear Sudhir,
• I would like to talk to you about the new client’s
project which the engineering team had discussed
yesterday. I might need the help of John from your
team.
• Regards,
Vikram
• Dear Sudhr,
• As you may know we have signed up XYZ as our
new client. I had a meeting with the engineering
team yesterday and had discussed the campaign
requirements for this project. John Redden from
your team had done a pretty good job last time
doing the social media campaign for ABC and so I
would like him to work on the XYZ campaign too.
Would you be available sometime tomorrow to
discuss this further?
• Regards
Vikram
2. Completeness
• While answering a letter or in communication
with other, make it sure that you have
answered all the questions.
• Checking for the five w’s questions.
• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why
• Bad example:
• Hi all,
• Let us meet tomorrow to discuss the product
launch event. Please be there on time.
• Thanks
Chris
• Hello all,
• Let us meet tomorrow at 11am at Conference
room 3 to discuss the product launch event.
We will have to decide the keynote speakers
and complete the event invite draft tomorrow.
Please be there on time.
• Thanks
ABC
3. Conciseness
• Include only relevant facts
• Avoid repetition
• Organise your message well.
• e.g. In most cases it has been seen that the
date of the policy …
• Usually the policy date…
4. Consideration
• Adopt the you-attitude
I or We attitude: We are sure that our new discount policy will
be attractive to you.
You attitude: You will surely appreciate new discount policy.
•  I or We attitude: I am happy to hear that you have selected our
firms.
You attitude: Thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve
you.
• Avoid gender bias
• Avoid Use
• Chairman Chair person
• 5. Courtesy
• In business we must create friendliness with all those to whom
we communicate. Friendliness is inseparable from courtesy.
5. Courtesy
• Answer the mails promptly.
• Omit irritating expressions.
(You neglected, you irresponsible, you are unaware).
• Apologise sincerely for an omission
• thank enormously for a favour.
• In business we must create friendliness with all those to whom we
communicate. Friendliness is inseparable from courtesy.
• Example
(a) Jane: "You can never do things right. Try working on this
project. If you are lucky you may not have to redo it."
(b) Jane: "This is an interesting project. Do you think you would be
able to do it? I know last time something went wrong with the
project, but everyone makes mistakes. Suppose we sat down
and discussed it threadbare I'm sure you would be able to do
wonders".
6 Correctness
At the core of correctness is
• Grammar
• Spelling
• Punctuation
• It is also applicable in business communication.
• Give correct facts.
• Send your message at the correct time.
• Send your message in the correct style.
• Spelling, grammar should be correct.
• Dear David,
• Further to our conservation today, I am attaching the plan for the
first stage of the project. Hope the one weak deadline is okay with
you and your team.
• Regards
Sally
7. Concreteness
• Always use specific fact and figures.
• Message should be definite
• Avoid exaggeration.
"There has been a tremendous escalation in
the sales figure“.
"There has been an escalation in the sales
figures by almost 50% as compared to last
year”.