BUSN20017 Effective Business Communications

Develop strategies to improve communication at all level.The manager has directed you to suggest strategies that has proven to work well in large multinational organisations. You are required to undertake the following:
• Prepare a written report
• Benchmark what other multinational organisations are doing to improve workplace communication. This could be done be reviewing literature of successful case studies available
• Identify the strategies the organisation could use to address each of the above five challenges

Globalization and internationalization enables the companies to move in the international countries overseas and conduct their businesses there. This requires the business to communicate properly in the international countries. These businesses need to communicate with the external as well as the internal environment of the company. Therefore, better communication is the key to success for the multinational companies as they have to conduct their business activities in different countries having different linguistic and cultural behaviour (Chesher & Kaura, 2012). This report majorly discusses about the challenges that the company faces due to communication barriers exist in the environment. This is the case of the company that operates in Australia, Vietnam, India, Oman and Nigeria. The company have to deal with such issues and it makes some of the strategies so that they can face the challenge and conduct the businesses effectively. This report also focuses on such strategies used by different companies in order to manage the communication.

Good practices:

Business communication can be defined as the communication between the business and the communication inside the business. it is very important for the companies especially the ones that works in different countries to have good communication skills so as to manage the communication and remove the communication barriers that has been faced by the companies these days (Stuhec, 2010). Communication strategy is the term that integrates communication with strategic point of view. It is required by the companies to think strategically about resolving the issues of communication at the workplace so that it can efficiently conduct their task in other countries with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds (Ulrich & Sarasin, 2012). There are various issues that have been faced by the companies in terms of communication. Some face the issues of cultural differences while other faces the issues of difference in thought process and beliefs.

However, there are companies who are doing great in their context of managing the effective communication among the employees across the borders. This is because of their strategic point of view regarding the aspect of communication (Bovee, 2010). Earlier, the organization does not give much attention to the concept of communication but with time, it has been realised by the companies that barriers in communication can be the major issues that affect the functioning and outcomes of the task performed. The major concern of communication is managing the cross cultural teams. As most of the companies believe in team work thus the companies have to make the teams with diverse workforce (Guffey & Loewy, 2010). These teams also need to interact and communicate internally to complete the project. Thus, communication barriers at every point may hamper the performance of the company as well as the individual employees.

Coca Cola is one of the companies that focus on this issue and implemented different strategies at different levels of the organization so that communication can be made effective. The company has the employee brand advocate program (Peltokorpi & Clausen, 2011). This program is called as Coca Cola Ambassador program that deals with educating the employees about how to communicate effectively with the external and internal stakeholders of the company about any of the issue that affect the business. Coca cola is firm that operates in many countries and thus have to deal with people of different countries whether it is employee of the branch or the customers at different countries (Guffey & Loewy, 2012).

Communicating with all the stakeholders is necessary for the company and this program trains the employees of the company to do the same. It is required by the companies to take feedback from the employees of the company regarding any of the issues of the organization. Thus the companies like Bayer Corporation have implemented some of the strategies to make the process effective. The company has engaged around 200 employees who work for taking feedback from the employees to make the communication better (Martin & Nakayama, 2013). This involves the practices of interaction between the employees. This also involves the view points of the employees for making their communication effective. There are many other examples of the companies that are making changes in the policies and function in order to make their communication effective.

GE is one of the companies which have made significant changes in its culture in past years (Harzing, Köster & Magner, 2011). As and when the company announced that their headquarters would be shifting to Boston, it has taken the initiative to redesign the culture and the structure of the company. It has implemented that strategy to improve its communication by integrating the internal communication with the external communication. GE has to communicate with its employees about any of the changes it made in its culture or structure.

The company suggests that it is not only the employees who need to know about the changes in the company but the other stakeholders like customers also need to know about the same. Organization has integrated both the communication and incorporated the system that delivers the information to the external stakeholders well (Michaelidou, Siamagka & Christodoulides, 2011). LinkedIn is used by the company as the portal to display all the information regarding the company. The people who access this platform can easily know about the firm by reading the posted information. It is also the place where the company can easily interact with the job seekers.

It is not necessary that the communication strategies need to be developed deliberately by the companies, it can develop instantly at the time when the requirement is felt. Formulating the communication strategy is not an easy task and thus it is required to link the strategy to the organizational goals. It has also been analysed that t is not possible that single strategy can work all the time. It is based on the type of the industry in which the company is operating and also the phase of the company (Moran, Abramson & Moran, 2014). If the organization has implemented the internet based system in the company then it is required to for the strategy that is speedy in nature. It is also related to the organizational gaols and the time of the project. If there is misalignment among the strategies and the gaols of the organization then it is not possible for the company to achieve its goals effectively as poor and mismatched communication hampers the same.

Unify is one of the company that has incorporated a project called Project Ansible. This project enables the company to make its communication better (Lewis, 2010). This platform allows the employees of the company to spend less time in orchestrating and more time in doing their work. It is not the application but it is the experience that supports the better information flow among the employees. It is the secure platform that allows the employees to communicate with each other with a smooth flow in an organized manner. Introduction of telecommuting in the company helps the company to make their communication strong. This helps in making easy communication between the virtual workplaces (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 2011).

Challenges faced by the company and the future strategies:

There are many challenges that have been faced by the company these days in terms of communication. Some of the challenges have been discussed below along with the strategies that needs to be used by the company to overcome the same.

Timely communication between the staff and the clients: it is the major issue that has been faced by the company (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). Communication can be effective only when the information is flowed at the correct time. If the communication or the information flow is slow them there is no sense sharing the information. It is very important for the company to transfer the information timely to all the employees as well as the clients. This issue can generally be faced by the companies that work overseas as time is the major issue for them. This is because the time zone of different countries differs from each other.

Strategy: the strategy that can be used by the company in order to remove the issue of timely communication with the clients is to develop the support team. It is the team that uses the internet technological medium to communicate and interact with the clients timely. The shifts need to be conducted according to the time zone of the different countries where the clients of the company exists (vom Brocke & Sinnl, 2011). This helps the company to have connection with the client every time that is for 24 hours. Every time a team should be there at the support system to entertain the clients every time. In order to establish the great communication between the employees, intranet is the facility that can help the employees to interact with each other on time. Intranet is the facility that connects the computer system of all the employees working at the workplace. Any information that is found to be important can be shared to the relevant employees as and when required.

Communication breakdown from top management to staff and vice versa: This is the issue that is related to the barriers of communication between the staff and its top management. Some of the companies face this issue as the top management cannot be directly deal with the staff as there is no portal for the staff to directly contact the staff. This needs to be removed so that the barriers can be removed.

Strategy: an open forum needs to be developed by the organization where the employees can share their views and opinions regarding the workplace environment and their project. This forum allows the top management to talk to the staff and thus make the bottom up as well as top down communication effective. It acts as the powerful gateway to develop the two way communication at the workplace. This also creates the sense of belongingness among the employees as they are being heard by their employer through this forum.

Feedback from the clients: it is required by the companies to take the feedback from the client. This is because it helps to build the image of the company in front of the clients and also allow the company to know about their weaknesses so that they can make the improvements in their processes according to the feedback of the clients (Deresky, 2017). It has been analysed that it is not that easy for the companies can make interaction with the clients. They need the medium that supports this communication every time.

Strategy: survey can be the major strategy that can be used by the company in order to take the feedback from the clients. Survey is just one technique that can be used. The survey forms should be uploaded to the online portal of the company’s website where the client can provide their feedback according to their experience with the company and with the experience of its products and services usage (Chhokar, Brodbeck & House, 2013). There are other strategies that can be used by the company such as client support, questionnaires, etc.

Issues of local language: every country has its own language. When any of the company initiates its business in the different country then it also has to employ the people from that local country. This let the company deal with such people with different languages as the parent country employees to team up with the local country employees to perform the tasks. This creates language issue for the company. The managers find it very difficult to among the teams with such diverse workers. This requires the company to make some of the communication strategies in order to make the communication effective.

Strategy: the strategy that can be used in order to overcome such issue is to train the expatriates or the employees of the parent country with the local language. This helps the managers to understand the language of other country nationals. As the company in this case operates in different countries such as India, Nigeria, Oman, Australia, Vietnam, every country has different local language and thus the company has to build that local touch in their company’s operations and communication mediums so that it can be made effective.

Cross cultural issues: when a multinational company recruit the employees, it prefers to bring diversity in the workforce so that multiple skills and knowledge can be gained from people with different cultural background having different skills as well. These cultural differences can also become the reason for ineffective communication (Lasserre, 2012). Culture forms the basis of the thinking process and beliefs of the person. If the thought process of the people working in the same team is different then it becomes difficult to reach to a similar conclusion and this acts as the communication barrier for the company and the team.

Strategy: the strategy that can be sued to resolve this issue is again training of the employees. There are many initiatives that need to take by the managers of the team in order to maintain the effective communication at the workplace. This can be done by conducting some of the informal meetings among the employees of different cultural background so that they can interact with each other and understand each other’s thought process and beliefs.

Limited literacy in digital communication and use of social media: as far as the company discussed in this case is concerned, the company operates its business in countries like India, Oman, Nigeria, Australia and Vietnam. Almost all the countries are very well versed with the technology (Reiche, Mendenhall & Stahl, 2016). India, Australia and Vietnam are the places that are social media tools as the medium of business communication to large extent. But, the places with limited use of technology have issues with communication as they cannot be able to interact with their parent firm so easily.

Strategy: In order to resolve this issue, it is required by the company to develop technological skills among the people and the employees at the destination where the employees are not familiar with such technological tools such as social media as the business communication method (Madera, Dawson & Neal, 2014). It is required to make it compulsion for the employees to create their social media accounts so that they can be contacted through them.

Conclusion

It has been concluded from the report that communication is one of the most important aspects of business especially for the company that works overseas. There are many communication barriers exist that hampers the performance of the firm. Better communication is the key to success for the multinational companies as they have to conduct their business activities in different countries having different linguistic and cultural behaviour. There are companies who are doing great in their context of managing the effective communication among the employees across the borders. This is because of their strategic pint of view regarding the aspect of communication. Some of the companies that have been discussed above are coca cola, GE, Unify etc. the issues that are faced by the company that needs to be resolved with the strategies suggested, thus it is required for the company to implement such strategy so that the above discussed issues of communication can be resolved and the company perform efficiently in other countries.

References:

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