Different Types of Business Information and Communication Methods

This research project discusses different types of business information, their sources and purposes. It also explores effective corporate communications, legal and ethical issues related to business information, operational issues in its use, and electronic and non-electronic methods for communicating business information. The case study focuses on Cadbury, the second largest confectionery brand.

Business Communication

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1Explain different types of business information, their sources and purposes.........................1
P2 Present complex internal business information using three different methods appropriate . 2
Covered in PPT...........................................................................................................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................2
P3 Produce corporate communications. .....................................................................................2
P4 Evaluate the external corporate communications of an existing product or service..............3
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................3
P5 Explain the legal and ethical issues in relation to the use of business information...............3
P6 Explain the operational issues in relation to the use of business information.......................4
P7 Outline electronic and non-electronic methods for communicating business information, . 5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
.........................................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
In this modern era, every business firms are focusing on to develop healthy environment
as well as to build employment relationship. Due to, all employees of the organisation can easily
interact with each others also they can easy to share any kind of information. Healthy and
friendly relationship of employees plays important role, with the help of this all workers can
complete their decided task in unity then achieve their long and short term goals as well
(Bovee ,2010). This research project will be discussing about different type of information and
their major purpose. In the addition of this, effective corporate communications will be
produced and defining legal and ethical issues, which directly impacting upon business firm.
Moreover, outline electronic and non electronic information techniques will be defining in
appropriate manner. In this research project Cadbury company has been chosen, it is the second
largest confectionery brand.
TASK 1
P1Explain different types of business information, their sources and purposes.
Illustration 1: Business information, 2017
(Source- Business information, 2017)
Verbal Information: Verbal communication can either be done face to face or over the
phone. The most effective way to communicate would be face to face, as there is less chance of
misunderstanding and it allows for verbal and non-verbal messages. The advantage of using
verbal information would be because it is much easier to communicate verbally that any other
way. This is because you can understand the body language used and the tone, whereas in written
information sometimes the tone can be misunderstood (Guffey and Loewy, 2010).
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Written Information: Written communication allows businesses to communicate
developments, expectations and legalities to employees and contracts in the outside world. It is
the symbols of verbal communication. Written communication involves any type of message that
makes use of the written word. It is the most important and the most effective of business
communication. An advantage of written communication is there is no need for personal contact,
you can tell an employee he or she has to work overtime through an email rather than wasting
time and doing it face to face.
On screen information: This is where information may be produced on screen. For
example, this could include a multimedia clip, a power point, a video, or an email. All of this is
available on screen, and can be made easy to read and clear. This is a fast and effective way of
collecting information (Crews and Stitt-Gohdes, 2012).
P2 Present complex internal business information using three different methods appropriate
Covered in PPT
TASK 2
P3 Produce corporate communications.
Corporate Communication is a set of activities involved in managing and orchestrating all
internal and external communications aimed at creating favourable point of view among
stakeholders on which the company depends. It is the messages issued by a corporate
organization, body, or institute to its audiences, such as employees, media, channel partners and
the general public (Meredith, 2012). Organizations aim to communicate the same message to all
its stakeholders, to transmit coherence, credibility and ethic. Corporate Communications help
organizations explain their mission, combine its many visions and values into a cohesive
message to stakeholders. The concept of corporate communication could be seen as an
integrative communication structure linking stakeholders to the organisation.
The piece of corporate communication that has produced is a poster advertising
Cadbury’s everyday value range of goods and services. The marketing department produced a
universal design code that Cadbury uses. It could be in the form of web based advertisement or
could be non-web based and put on billboards. As it is a poster it needs to be simple and eye-
catching so it used a big image. To make the poster attractive, it is necessary to take some things
in mind which are given below as above:
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(1) in the centre to catch people’s eyes and show they what the product range looks
like, this is also the reason firm used the pattern
(2) Product's name and business is at the top in big so people know where they can
get the product from and what the product is called
Cadbury’s mission statement is “we make what matters better, together” and the advert
highlights is trying to encourage and show people what Cadbury can offer to them.
P4 Evaluate the external corporate communications of an existing product or service.
External business communication is the exchange of information and messages between
an organization and its external customers outside its formal structure. One way Cadbury
communicates to its external customers is their website (Decarie, 2010).
There are many different methods used by the company’s website and these are: the use
of images, the use of fonts, Packaging and the page layout. The use of images can enhance a
communication to an audience, as we tend to remember more of what we see than what we hear,
therefore showing images is a better way of communicated the message to the public, and also
helps the audience remember the message. The best ways to communicate through images are to:
Ensure the images are relevant to what is being sold or presented, make sure the colours are Co-
ordinated, prevent them from being too distracting. These ways will make sure your images gain
impact, which will make sure most of your audience will give attention, illustrate the point being
made loud and clear, explain something more clearly and make a point very strongly. Fonts are a
design for a set of characters.
TASK 3
P5 Explain the legal and ethical issues in relation to the use of business information.
Legal issues refer to different legislation to protect the business information from
different source of hackers. The types of legal law that exists are data Protection Act 1998,
freedom of information act 2000, Computer Misuse act 1990, Human Right Act 1998 and
Privacy Act 1974. The main three legal issues that will be discussing in detail will be Data
Protection Act, Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Data Protection Act 1998: It is the data Protection Act controls how your personal
information is used by organizations, businesses or the government. Everyone responsible for
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using data has to follow strict rules called ‘data protection principles '(Ru-Chu, 2013). They must
make sure the information is:
 used fairly and lawfully
 used for limited, specifically stated purposes
 used in a way that is adequate, relevant and not excessive
 accurate
 kept for no longer than is absolutely necessary
 handled according to people’s data protection rights
 kept safe and secure
 not transferred outside the UK without adequate protection.
In this case Cadbury follows all of these data protection principles to keep every bit of
information safe and guided so nothing goes wrong within the business or outside of the
business. Cadbury's collect personal information such as names, email address, billing address,
delivery address, telephone number, credit card details and this is all kept for the customer
database.
Freedom of Information Act 2000: The Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides
public access to information held by public authorities. It does this in two ways: public
authorities are obliged to publish certain information about their activities; and members of the
public are entitled to request information from public authorities. This act would also affect
Cadbury's because the staff would not want all their personal information to spread outside of the
business. There are many examples of this such as one of the staff members may have some sort
of disability (Sigmar, Hynes and Hill, 2012).
P6 Explain the operational issues in relation to the use of business information.
Operational issues in relation to the use of business information, including security of
information, backups, health and safety, business continuance plans and costs In every
organisation they need to store a lot of information which some can be more important that
others, this is means important information needs to taken very seriously with security of
information to be put into place using passwords and security questions. this task is down to the
management deals with maintaining the integrity and availability of organisational information
and knowledge. One of Cadbury rules is that account holder has to be the person who makes it,
therefore can't be a fake account being made this will lead to false information, which is illegal to
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do so. Once someone has made a false account they are then able to message random people and
add people as friends. This can be dangerous because they can get access to people through
private messaging (Okoro, Washington and Cardon, 2011).
Health and safety Is also one of operational system and so are business continuance plans
and costs. Business continuance plans are the steps that a company puts into place to make sure it
is capable of surviving a worst-case scenario. Cadbury being completely free means it has any
business continuance plans and costs.
P7 Outline electronic and non-electronic methods for communicating business information,
As technology progresses, new communications are born and old ones--many of which
seemed new not so long ago-fade away. When organisation trying to connect with employees,
colleagues, bosses, clients, customers, suppliers or any other business contact, you may have
more choices than you realize.
Mobile Devices
Although communication with mobile devices may be less formal than other forms of
communication, people are increasingly turning to text messages and short emails using cell
phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Social Networking Media
The capability and uses of social networking media continue to evolve. Some maintain
social networking represents a new frontier in marketing and business networking. Companies
promote events, communicate with customers, offer discounts and draw attention to sales using
social networking media (Cardon, 2010).
Email
One of the older forms of electronic communication remains a staple of modern business.
Because of its versatility, email can be used for asking questions and getting answers, holding
mini-group conferences, making people aware of issues, passing along documents, sharing
information and much more.
A letter is a formal piece of documentation which can be used when Cadbury is
informing or responding to someone outside the organisation. The letter has to be clear and
concise because people outside the organisation are reading it and will judge the organisation
depending on how well the letter presents itself.
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Memorandum is more informal than a letter is, they are often referred to as memos. They
can be used by Cadbury to write down information within departments if the person it is being
written to will not be seen face-to-face or sent to different departments which is easier than going
over to the different departments and finding the right person to tell the information.
CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned this research project it has been concluded that,
communication is an effective process in every organisation. With the help of this, employees
and employers could easy to share any kind in business firm. It helped to enhance understanding
level and build employment relationship. It has been defined different type of information
methods, which used by Cadbury company in their working system.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bovee, C. L., 2010. Business Communication Today, 10/e. Pearson Education India.
Cardon, P. W., 2010. Using films to learn about the nature of cross-cultural stereotypes in
intercultural business communication courses. Business Communication Quarterly.
73(2). pp.150-165.
Crews, T. B. and Stitt-Gohdes, W. L., 2012. Incorporating Facebook and Twitter in a service-
learning project in a business communication course. Business Communication
Quarterly. 75(1). pp.76-79.
Decarie, C., 2010. Facebook: Challenges and opportunities for business communication
students. Business Communication Quarterly. 73(4). pp.449-452.
Guffey, M. E. and Loewy, D., 2010. Business communication: Process and product. Cengage
Learning.
Meredith, M. J., 2012. Strategic communication and social media: An MBA course from a
business communication perspective. Business Communication Quarterly. 75(1). pp.89-
95.
Okoro, E. A., Washington, M. C. and Cardon, P. W., 2011. Eportfolios in business
communication courses as tools for employment. Business Communication Quarterly.
74(3). pp.347-351.
Ru-Chu, S. H. I. H., 2013. Effect of using Facebook to assist English for business
communication course instruction. TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational
Technology. 12(1). pp. 50-58
Sigmar, L. S., Hynes, G. E. and Hill, K. L., 2012. Strategies for teaching social and emotional
intelligence in business communication. Business Communication Quarterly. 75(3).
pp.301-317.
Online
Business Communication & Information Systems, 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/business-subjects/as-and-a-level/applied-business-
8610/subject-content/unit-5>. [Accessed on 18th August 2017]
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