Business Communication: How to be Effective

Business communication is the exchange of messages and information between people within or outside a company. Effective business communication is important as it ensures the message is understood by the receiver.

Business communication are of two types: Internal Communication and External Communication.

• Internal communication is communication among employees.
• External communication involves communication with the external world.

Effective communication follows the 7 Cs of communications:

• Clear: The message must be clear.
• Concise: The message must be concise and presents your points directly.
• Concrete: Provide facts, figures, evidence.
• Correct: Ensure there are no mistakes.
• Coherent: Maintain a logical flow.
• Considerate: Keep the audience’s perspective while writing.
• Complete: Provide all important information; leave no room for ambiguity.

Assignment questions on Business Communication

Prepare a Memo

Prepare a Memo Summarizing Safety Guidelines.

• Prepare a memo to Golopolus, summarising the new safety guidelines that affect the Rockingham product line and recommending implementation.
• Mind your own business. Golopolus hasn’t said anything about the new guidelines, and you don’t want to overstep your authority. You’ve been unemployed and need this job.
• Send copies of the reports anonymously to the operations manager, who is Golopolus’s boss.

Tom Harrington loved his job as an assistant quality control officer for Rockingham Toys. After six months of unemployment, he was anxious to make a good impression on his boss, Frank Golopolus.

One of his responsibilities was ensuring that new product lines met industry safety guidelines. Rockingham had made several manufacturing changes over the past year. Golopolus and the rest of the quality control team had been working 60-hour weeks to troubleshoot the new production process.

Notice, Agenda, Minutes of Meeting

Question: Read the Bags About Town meeting details. Prepare a timeline of tasks and resources to complete to prepare for the meeting. Include activities for checking accuracy of documents. Prepare a notice of meeting based on the information provided. Prepare a meeting agenda based on the information provided. To plan for the meeting you need to identify the people you need to contact in order to get a copy of each document and the date by which you will need each document.

Notice of Board Meeting

Subject: Notice of Board Meeting

Dear [Contact Name],

Notice is hereby given that the monthly meeting of the Senior Management team will be held on 14th August from 9am to 1pm at Boardroom, Bags About Town head office (Level 14, 194 Collins Street, Sydney) to consider the business as mentioned in the agenda (attached separately).

This is a formal meeting and will be chaired by the CEO.

Attendees: CEO, General Manager, IT Director, Finance Director, HR Manager, Marketing Manager, Buying Director, Warehouse Manager, Regional Operations Manager.

From,

Administration Assistant
Bags About Town

Meeting Agenda

Date 14 August, Time 9am to 1pm
Location: Boardroom, Bags About Town head office, Level 14, 194 Collins Street, Sydney.

• CEO update (15 minutes).

• 10 minute activity reports from the General Manager (Sonia Hurst), Finance Director (Brett Simons), Marketing Manager (Seth Gorman), Buying Director (Vincent Khoo), Warehouse Manager (Chris de Kunder) and Regional Operations Manager (Jeremy Singh).

• 10 minute morning tea break at about 10.30.

• Appropriate time between items for questions, discussion and decision-making.

• CEO concluding remarks.

• This month’s meeting will also include:

  30 minute presentation from the IT Director (Jamie Priddle) on progress of the sales terminal upgrade project.
  40 minute question and answer discussion on Workforce Agreements lead by the HR Manager (Maria Angelus).
  10 minute presentation by the Design Team, reporting on international fashion trends (5 members of the Design Team will attend for this portion of the meeting only).

PS: Documentation requirements for the meeting: Monthly budget report, Correspondence list, Design Team summary report.

Minutes

Monthly Senior Management (Directors) Meeting – Minutes

Meeting Date: 14 August

Members in Attendance: General Manager (Sonia Hurst), Finance Director (Brett Simons), Marketing Manager (Seth Gorman), Buying Director (Vincent Khoo), Warehouse Manager (Chris de Kunder) and Regional Operations Manager (Jeremy Singh).

Members not in Attendance: None

General Overview

• Provide appropriate information regarding discussions
• Decisions taken and agreed actions

More Questions

Q. While Bill Gates mentioned ‘Content is king’ in 1996 in one of his essays, the new age presenters believe and have realized that while content is the king audience is the kingdom and hence the content king would need to behave as per the need of the kingdom. Any business communication course will include an important section covering Audience analysis topics. Considering this thought, please share some actions that would lead to analyzing the audience for business presentations.

Q. Shubha is a manager in a large retail super store chain. She is heading the administration department and is responsible for a large cluster of geography which covers 6 stores of the organization. Writing and analyzing reports is a big chunk of her work, she is also involved in writing and analyzing proposals as a part of her job. In light of this case, please compare the elements of Body and Close for a proposal and report clearly.