Foundations of Business Communications

This document provides an overview of the foundations of business communications, including key factors, SWOT analysis, competitive analysis, and key issues faced by management and operational teams. It discusses the importance of business analysis in achieving growth and profitability, and highlights the case of Pearson, a British publishing company. The document also includes a discussion on self-development and the use of Gibbs reflective model.

Foundations of
business
communications

Table of Contents
PART 1............................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Overview of company.................................................................................................................1
Key business factors....................................................................................................................2
SWOT analysis............................................................................................................................3
Competitive analysis...................................................................................................................3
Identification of key issues faced by management team and operational team..........................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
References:.......................................................................................................................................6
PART 2............................................................................................................................................9
Introduction......................................................................................................................................9
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................9
Gibbs reflective model................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References:.....................................................................................................................................12

PART 1
INTRODUCTION
Business analysis is the identification of those forces and factors which influence a
business. It is the determining internal and external factors which impact negatively or positively
upon operational activities of an business. Business analysis is an important activity to achieve
growth and helps to analyse level of competition present in market for a particular
organisation(Húdik and et. al., 2019). Business analysis is done to change or modify strategies
which further help in increasing overall productivity and profitability of an company. Pearson is
an British Publishing company which publish books and research papers at international level.
Samuel Pearson is the founder of this company who founded it in the year 1844. It is
headquartered in London, UK. The following report covers overview of company, analysis of
key businesses, suppliers, challenges faced and etc., SWOT analysis, competitive analysis and
identification of key issues faced by management team and operational team.
MAIN BODY
Overview of company
Samuel Pearson who is the founder of Pearson company founded this company in 1844.
It is a British multinational publishing and education company which is headquartered in
London, United Kingdom. Initially the company was founded as construction business but it
changes to books and research paper publisher company. From 1844 to 1920, the company is
engaged in construction activities. Their main projects were Blackwall Tunnel under river
Thames, Admiralty Harbour at Dover, East River Railway Tunnel, Halifax Dry Dock in Canada
and many more. They also build the largest Cordite factory in UK during World War 1st. They
shut down their construction business in 1920. In 1921 they started dealing in publishing
business by publishing local daily and weekly newspapers in UK. They publish many books like
“Financial times”, “The economist” and many more. In the year 1990, they started dealing in TV
production and broadcasting assets. In 2002, it started publishing series books and novels.
Recently Pearson operates in more than 70 countries at international level 30,000 employees.
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Key business factors
Customers- Their main customers are those who is books and novel lovers(Kwon and
Cho, 2020). Their customers are having reading habits. Pearson can only gain more customers or
attain customer loyalty when they publish new series of books on timely basis which must cover
the interest area of different aged people. Children are also their customers. Their customers have
a positive mind set that Pearson publish true and accurate information in their newspapers.
Hence, this trust help them to gain advantage of having more number of customers than other
companies.
Suppliers- Their suppliers are content collector and their distributors like Amazon,
Flipkart, General stores, Snapdeal and etc. Content collector help them to gather useful and true
information for newspaper printing whereas their another content creators are those who has a
good idea of writing a book which are called authors. Authors write fictitious or real life
experience based books and Pearson acts as a platform for them to publish their books.
Competitors- Pearson's top competitors are McGraw-Hill and Cambridge University
Press. McGraw-Hill are operating in 28 countries with 5000 employees and they serve their
services to over 135 countries in more than 60 languages. The presence of their books and
articles in many languages help them to give tough competition to Pearson. On the other hand
Cambridge is another publishing company which operates in more than 40 countries and have
authors from over 100 countries. They are known for their brand name. Hence, they can give
tough competition to Pearson in context of their name.
Performance- Pearson is a high performed company by increasing their percentage of
profit earning ratio every year but due to Covid 19 pandemic their profit percentage decline by
17%. Whereas 5% online learning sales grew. Virtual schools help them to grow by 61%. virtual
learning increases their customers from 66,000 to 5,80,000.
Strength and weakness- The main strength of Pearson is that it is world's number one
publishing company. Their books were written by best authors around the world. Pearson has to
face some weaknesses too and they are they highly focused on English Language books and
ignores other languages. Majority of sales took place in North America.
Challenges faced- Pearson is facing a main issue of financial leverage because their
profits fell down and their debts rose up.
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SWOT analysis
Strengths-
 Pearson is considered as number 1
publishing company in world. Their collaboration with Penguin
Publications help them to become more
famous in fiction and non-fiction
books.
Weakness-
 Pearson publish educational
publications more than commercial
publications.
 Their most of the publications are in
English language and they ignores to
publish their main series books in
another language (Bubanja, 2019).
Opportunities-
 Expansion in Asian countries like
China and India where education sector
is developing is an good opportunity
for Pearson. Providing their series and publications
in other languages then English help
them to grow.
Threats-
 Their top competitors distracts their
customers attention toward Pearson by
providing books in cheaper prices.
 Declining in number of customers due
to Covid 19 pandemic occurrence is a
biggest threat for them which impacts
upon reducing their profits.
Competitive analysis
Porter 5 forces model is applied to determine competitive analysis of a company.
Threat of new entry- It defines the impact of new entered companies upon existing
company in market. New entered companies are not able to impact negative upon Pearson
because Pearson is an well established company with operating in more than 70 countries. New
companies in publishing field can not invest that much to spread in many countries at their initial
stage of business.
Bargaining power of suppliers- This factor includes number and behaviour of suppliers
toward a company(Onyshchenko, Maslii and Ivaniuk, 2020). In context of Pearson, their
suppliers can switch to another company if they see a better scope than Pearson is providing. The
content collector and authors are their suppliers. To gain suppliers loyalty they must provide
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them good opportunities for worldwide growth and they also cover other languages in their
publication.
Bargaining power of buyers- This factor cover total number of customers and their
loyalty. For Pearson, their customers are attracted because they have a good brand image in
customers mind. To attain customer loyalty and save them to switching their customers to
another publications they must reduce the cost of their books and journals.
Threat of substitutes- Substitute goods are those goods which is having similar features
of one's product. Pearson have biggest threat from this factor because their competitors serve
same series of books in cheaper prices which further results in declining of total number of
customers. It is suggested to overcome this threat by focusing more on services and keeping their
prices low.
Competitors Rivalry- It include total number of competitors and their powerful strategies
to compete in market(Khan, 2019). In context of Pearson, they have tough competitors like
Cambridge university press which is having tough strategies and a strong brand image. To
overcome this threat Pearson must publish commercial books and real story like biography of
famous people.
Identification of key issues faced by management team and operational team
Pearson company are facing many key issues and this issues are sub divided in departments.
Some issues are facing by management team and some issues are facing by their operational
team. Some of the points of their problems are explained below-
Issues of Pearson in management team-
 They are facing financial problem because of Covid 19 Pandemic. Their readers are
unable to go to their stores and buy their books which further decline their profit and
increase their debts. Management team is facing issues by providing the solution that
how they can generate more revenue to reduce their debts. They are operating in more than 70 countries. It is tough to manage and provide
manpower resource to every country. Managers are facing problem that how they analyse
their other offices located in another countries.
Issues of Pearson in operating team-
 The biggest issue of operating team is that they have to analyse market and customer
needs to know which books and journals will be more popular in which area (Shukla and
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Pattnaik, 2019). Hence, to identify the demand and needs of customers and then to
identify author and their books which will fulfil their needs is the biggest issues of
operational department.
 Working in different countries and publishing in different languages is also an issue for
Pearson. In case there is any issue like misprint in books which is published in another
language then their employees is not able to identify easily and hence it create a threat of
declining in their brand image.
CONCLUSION
From the above information it is clear that customers, suppliers, competitors,
performance and many more are the factors which must be analyse to know their attitude which
impact upon business. SWOT analysis help the business to know that in which field or
department they are lacking behind and in which department they are performing well. It also
help to identify opportunities and threats of company. In simple words SWOT is internal as well
as external environment analysis tool. Porter 5 forces is used to determine how much
competition is presented in market. There are different types of issues which is faced by
management team and different issues for operational team.
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References:
Books and Journals
Húdik, M. and et. al., 2019. Use of the Internet of Things in the Business Environment to Smart
Business. LOGI–Scientific Journal on Transport and Logistics. 10(2). pp.42-50.
Kwon, K. and Cho, D., 2020. Developing trainers for a changing business environment: The role
of informal learning in career development. Journal of Career Development. 47(3).
pp.310-327.
Bubanja, I.B., 2019. Quality of business environment: Basis for development of Serbian soft
power. Tehnika. 74(5). pp.733-740.
Onyshchenko, S., Maslii, O. and Ivaniuk, B., 2020. The impact of the external environment on
the economic security of Ukrainian business. ЕКОНОМІКА І РЕГІОН Науковий
вісник. (1 (76)). pp.22-29.
Khan, S., 2019. Cloud computing: issues and risks of embracing the cloud in a business
environment. International Journal of Education and Management Engineering. 9(4).
p.44.
Shukla, M.K. and Pattnaik, P.N., 2019. Managing customer relations in a modern business
environment: towards an ecosystem-based sustainable CRM model. Journal of
Relationship Marketing. 18(1). pp.17-33.
Struwig, F.W., Nuwagaba, G. and Krüger, J., 2019. The influence of the business environment
on the growth of informal businesses in Uganda. The Southern African Journal of
Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management. 11(1). pp.1-10.
Sedej, T., 2019. The role of video marketing in the modern business environment: a view of top
management of SMEs. Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship
Development. 12(1). pp.37-48.
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PART 2
Introduction
Self development is the process by which an individual develop their skills and ability to
achieve a particular goal (Sharp, 2020). It is done to achieve organisational goal or to achieve
personal goal. Self development helps to satisfying an individual and it further help them to
increase overall confident and motivation level to perform an task or to show their developed
skills to others. It also consist of overcoming or leaving bad habits. Bad habits results in reducing
reputation of a person in their society. Therefore, it is compulsory to create an good image in
societies point of view by leaving bad habits and this can be done only by self development. Its
the best way of creating positivity in surrounding. There are 5 areas where a person is required
self development and these areas are Mentality, Social status, spiritual behaviour, emotional
attitude and physical conditions (Noels, Lascano and Saumure, 2019).
Main Body
Gibbs reflective model
Gibbs reflection model help people to identify their experience during an specific
situation within an organisation or outside the organisation (in personal life). This model grab the
attention of individuals to know what all effects and impacts has been created by their activities.
This model is also helpful in knowing that is there another way to handle the same situation or
not. This model has six stages. Gibbs model of my own experience and activities to identify
various factors related to same actions are explained below-
Description- This stage include the description of particular situation occur. I am
working within an company at assistant manager position. My main responsibility is to handle
floor staff and act as a link between manager and employees which means to pass information
from manager to employees and from employees to manager. One day my manager told me to
convey the message to staff that they all have to attend a general meeting in which they will
discuss about problems faced by employees in organisation because few days back employees
are complaining me about their issues and I gave an idea to manager to conduct a meeting and
listen to employees problem and give a proper and permanent solution. I convey message but did
not convey the time and place of meeting. I just convey the meeting topic and date of meeting. I
mention it in my records. Due to this very few employees reach on time for meeting because
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their main issue is they don't know the exact time. When manager get to know this situation he
blame me personally and told my mistake in his cabin.
Feelings- This stage of Gibbs model include that how a individual feel for the
situation(Adeani and et. al, 2020). My above mentioned situation let me feel that I m unable to
convey proper message to my staff members and due to this many employees missed that
meeting and I feel very sad after accepting my mistake. My manager and staff members are
unhappy with me and I feel that they all are creating a bad image of mine in their minds that I am
irresponsible and I have done all this due to jealousy factor that no one will develop them rather
than me.
Evaluation- It include the judgement of situation. Some points in the experience is good
and some are bad. Good thing is that I mentioned my work in excel to keep a self record and
while recording I mentioned all details including time. Second good thing is that my manager did
not insult me in front of whole staff which was presented there at that time. On the other hand
bad thing about the situation is that due to my mistake some employees missed the session and
they are missed the opportunity to express themselves. Due to this situation, it might be possible
that in future manager will not trust me.
Analysis- It cover the learning outcomes from the situation (Markkanen and et. al., 2020).
According to my situation I analyse that I am lacking behind in communication skill because I
did not convey full message to my staff members and I m also lacking behind in numeracy skill
which means using recorded data in activity because when I entered data in excel, I did not
revise it and tries to cross check the information that all information is conveyed properly or not.
During the situation I get to know my strong skills and they are ICT which means using
Microsoft office programs. As the above situation mentioned that I have recorded all information
in Excel after manager convey me the message. I m strong at working with team that's I have
selected for manager assistant position. I am also good at problem solving skills because when
employees complain me about their issues and challenges for performing their daily task then I
suggest to manager to conduct a meeting for eliminating problems of our staff members. The
analysis of situation help me to know about my strengths and weakness so that I will work on my
weaknesses and make sure that in future I will not repeat the mistake again.
Conclusion- This is the stage where an individual look back and considered what all he
learned and what all he could do to make it better(Li and et. al., 2020). According to my situation
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I learned that a little mistake results to create huge circumstances within an organisation. I have
also learned that if someone assign you or choose you for particular responsibility, then its upon
us to give our best to perform that task with full concentration. Double checking the task or
activity is a good habit. So, from the next time if I receive the same situation I will make sure
that I double check my responsibility and make sure that whatever I recorded in Excel I must
convey the same message to staff members. I need to develop my communication skills to get
more trust of others and to get promotion within an organisation.
Action plan- It include all those plans which is taken to improve our skills for same
situation or different which will occur in future(Ardian, Hariyati and Afifah, 2019). For my
situation I make sure that I check message several times before conveying it that whatever I m
conveying is appropriate or not. I will do one more thing that after conveying a message I will
ask several employees that what else they require more on the mentioned message. To develop
the required skill I must perform more task and ask my manager to help me in knowing the fields
in which I m lacking behind. I will ask my manager to prepare my performance report and let me
explain it with solution that how could I improve myself.
Conclusion
Self development is the process where an individual improve their skills to grow for
professional or non-professional life. Self development helps an individual to identify which skill
help them to grow in their personal life and which skills are pushing them downwards to achieve
their goals. It help in eliminating bad habits of an person from their life. This model has 6 stage.
Gibbs model is that model which help in identifying how an individual experience get affected in
different situations. This model helps to identify how an individual react in situation, what all are
the feeling felt by that individual and other people who is presented in that situation, what all
good and bad things happen and how to overcome bad habits and what all are the plans which is
made for future situations. This model helps in self developing a person by analysing what all
skill is require for them to develop in their life.
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References:
Books and Journals
Adeani, I.S. and et. al, 2020. Using GIBBS reflective cycle in making reflections of literary
analysis. Indonesian EFL Journal (IEFLJ). 6(2). pp.139-148.
Ardian, P., Hariyati, R.T.S. and Afifah, E., 2019. Correlation between implementation case
reflection discussion based on the Graham Gibbs Cycle and nurses’ critical thinking
skills. Enfermeria clinica. 29. pp.588-593.
Li, Y. and et. al., 2020. Nurses’ Psychological Feelings About the Application of Gibbs
Reflective Cycle of Adverse Events. American Journal of Nursing. 9(2). pp.74-78.
Markkanen, P. and et. al., 2020. A reflective cycle: Understanding challenging situations in a
school setting. Educational Research. 62(1). pp.46-62.
Noels, K.A., Lascano, D.I.V. and Saumure, K., 2019. The development of self-determination
across the language course. Studies in Second Language Acquisition. 41(4). pp.821-851.
Sharp, C., 2020. Adolescent personality pathology and the alternative model for personality
disorders: Self development as nexus. Psychopathology. 53(3). pp.192-198.
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