Business Communication: Types, Sources, and Purposes

This report provides an overview of different types of business information, their sources, and purposes. It covers verbal, written, and on-screen methods of communication. The report also discusses the legal and ethical issues related to the use of business information.

BUSINESS
COMMUNICATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASKS ............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Different types of business information, their sources and purposes....................................1
P2 Present complex internal business information using three different methods.....................2
P3 Produce corporate communications.......................................................................................3
P4 Evaluate the external corporate communications of an existing product or service..............4
P5 Explain the legal and ethical issues in relation to the use of business information...............4
P6 Explain the operational issues in relation to the use of business information.......................5
P7 Outline electronic and non-electronic methods for communicating business information,
using examples for different types of audience...........................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Communication is the exchange of ideas, opinions and information through written or
spoken words, symbols or actions. Communication is a dialogue, not a monologue. In fact,
communication is more concerned with a dual listening process (Cardon and Marshall, 2015).
For communication to be effective, the message must mean the same thing to both the sender and
the receiver. The sharing of information between people within an enterprise that is performed
for the commercial benefit of the organization. In addition, business communication can also
refer to how a company shares information to promote its product or services to potential
consumers. The present report is based on the business communication of Cadbury plc. In this
project, different types of business information, their sources and purposes are explained.
TASKS
P1 Different types of business information, their sources and purposes
This report will contain different types of information used in The Cadbury, it will consist of
verbal, on-screen, multimedia, web-based and written information, I will also describe where this
information came from as well as their purpose. I will also analyse these pieces of information
and examine each part in detail (Bargiela-Chiappini, Nickerson and Planken, 2013).
 Verbal : It can be argued to be the best way to communicate because it makes sure that
everyone has a full understanding of the information because questions can be asked and
the information can be discussed (Laster and Russ, 2010). The problems with verbal
communication is that it is time-consuming and in certain situations may be difficult to
tell the masses. Cadbury uses verbal information to communicate, when they are coming
up with new advertisements for the business. Cadbury would need to have meetings with
people that are writing the advert and may use focus groups to determine what customers
want from the bank.
 Written: 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
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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.
However there are some disadvantages to written communication, which can mean there
can sometimes be a delay and it can take a while to get to the recipient. It is important everyone
in the business can develop effective written communication skills. Written communication is
most commonly used in a formal way, for example dealing with customer complaints or serious
issues they may be having, apart from complaints written communication may also be used as a
way of advertising through newsletters etc. There are various types of written communication
such as letters, emails, text messages and even monthly newsletters. Emails or letters could be
used when asking coke for annual and financial reports which can then be sent to the public, as
they are cadbury plc should provide their stakeholders with all the information they may need
and is possible to acquire (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 2011). The written
communication advertising is effected by the target audience just like most of the advertising, the
newsletters would be amended in order to appeal to the customers but at the same time advertise
their products which need to be sold. A business may also occasionally send text messages to
customers that chose to be involved in such a service allowing them to be informed of the latest
news and promotions available. Besides emails the second most popular and professional way of
written communication is through business letters. Business letters should be written
professionally and to the point, they are most commonly used when dealing with complaints and
staff recruitment.
 On-screen : 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. For example if Cadbury needed to train someone in a
specific area. They may use a power point, as this is an effective and quick way of
training them. On screen communication can also have disadvantages a lot of things on
screen or over the internet is false
P2 Present complex internal business information using three different methods
Three different methods the Oyster Card is marketed:
• Web-Based
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• Written
• Multimedia
Web based marketing :
The Cadbury plc marketed on their website provides an easy to use interface. As you can See on
the website, Cadbury plc is accessed via a quick link which takes the user to the Cadbury plc
section of the website with minimal hassle (Schultz, Utz and Göritz, 2011). Once clicked the
user is redirected to the oyster information web page where the user is Bombarded with
information about the oyster card scheme. The majority of the public access information about
the online. This is because the Cadbury plc Website has the most information to and out about
the oyster card and shows that the public is very technologically. Modern which can bring new
innovative methods of online communication.
Written :
• Another form of marketing is through email. Cadbury plc currently sends a variety of targeted
messages to registered Oyster Card holders and other Cadbury plc customers who have supplied
their email addresses. The messages are information focused and the sending of these messages
is controlled to ensure relevance and avoid over-mailing (Grunig, 2013.). According to a recent
report the written email strategy is working well for customers:
The majority are positive about receiving email(s) from Cadbury plc:
• Nine out of ten open(ed) them
• Only 7% considered the emails irrelevant
• Only 4% said they deleted the emails as soon as they were received
• Only 2% consider that they receive too many emails from Cadbury plc
The content of the emails is highly rated:
• At least four fifths of those recalling the combined emails agreed that they were well designed,
easy to understand, use the right tone, timely, relevant, sufficiently informative and helpful.
• Four fifths of those recalling the stand alone emails agreed they were easy to understand.
P3 Produce corporate communications
Corporate communication is a management function or department, like marketing,
finance, or operations, dedicated to the dissemination of information to key constituencies, the
execution of corporate strategy and the development of messages for a variety of purposes for
inside and outside the organisation.
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In today’s global corporation, this function serves as the conscience of the corporation
and is responsible for the organisation’s reputation. Previously called “public relations” or
“public affairs,” corporate communication has taken on new importance in the 21st century as a
result of corporate scandals or crises at companies.
The department usually oversees communication strategy, media relations, crisis
communications, internal communications, reputation management, corporate responsibility,
investor relations, government affairs and sometimes marketing communication.
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.
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 (Kankaanranta and Lu2013).
P5 Explain the legal and ethical issues in relation to the use of business information.
Legal issues are described below:
 Data Protection Act 1998- this act ensures information held about people is used
correctly. There are 8 different criteria that a business must follow. It is a law that has
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been created to make sure that personal details i.e. the wages they earn are handled
properly and safely. The person who’s information that have been handled, have the right
to know what information of theirs has been held. For example accountants within a bank
must not share details about their customer’s to others within or outside of their
organisation. The person who is handling personal information must register with the
DPA and obey the eight principles.
 Freedom of Information Act 2000- this gives individuals the right to request
information about them that is held by a public authority- e.g. You have the right to see
your medical records (Cardon and Marshall, 2015). It allows organisation access to
official information. They have the right to ask for information from any public authority
such as NHS, schools, colleges, the local government etc. the public authority then must
provide them with the information within a number of days.
 Computer Misuse Act 1990: It is an act that is designed to frame rules and control over
computer crime and internet fraud. Using others ID and passwords to access ones
computer is against the computer misuse act 1990, unauthorised access to commit a
serious crime and unauthorised modification of a computer content are also against the
misuse act, as the person who’s account has been misuse, they are not aware of this. For
example using others log in to access their account and installing virus to the computer,
will destroy their files on the computer.
Ethical issues are listed below:
 Email- Harassing emails are usually banned, including spamming or sending large
quantity of emails are banned from an organisation, however limited use of email for
private purpose are sometimes allowed. A code of practice is common in businesses- this
gives employees guidelines about appropriate use of email (Bargiela-Chiappini,
Nickerson and Planken, 2013).
 Internet-Website that are inappropriate such as gambling website are usually banned
within an organisation. They are banned either by the code of practice or by a filtering
software. For example organisations such as schools and colleges will have a software
filter to ban their students in going on untrusted website this is to limit the viruses
accessing the computer systems. There are limited internet uses for personal purpose.
Organisations that provide their own web server have often strict rules to what can be
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posted on the server. similar to email- employees are guided as to what they can and
cannot do when using the internet.
 Whistle Blowing- this is when an employee raises concerns about business practice.
Protect their users who grab their management’s attention to other users misusing their
system. The IT administrators that run the servers will be the first to detect misuse on
their system.
P6 Explain the operational issues in relation to the use of business information
Operational issues are following:
 Security of Information : Users of the computer system will depend on their ICT
department to keep its information secure. This is safe from unauthorised and unexpected
access. The management of the organisation is responsible to pick who can look at and
update information. For example the management of a school will only allow the
technicians to update the systems
 Backups : It will benefit the users in case of physical or software problems. The backups
can include a full system or particular information back up. For example if the hard drive
fails on a computer system the users will not have lost all of their documents as they can
restore the back up to the system and gain all of the documents back. The IT department
should perform recover and restore frequently. This is so when installing new software or
upgrading software, during it other programs or files are not damaged if so they could
perform a restore of the system.
 Health and Safety : There are rules within an organisation that apply to the position of
screens and monitors this is to reduce eye strain or damage to the eyes. Chairs, table,
keyboard and mice should also be positioned right. For example in an office users on the
computer should have lumber support, to prevent lower back problems.
P7 Outline electronic and non-electronic methods for communicating business information,
using examples for different types of audience.
Form of
communication
Electronic/ non-
electronic
Description Audience and
Example
Letter Non-electronic Letters are written
communication
The audience for
letters within business
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representing a speech.
Teller contains a
characters symbols of
an alphabet.
would be employees
and customers. An e.g.
of a letter to
employees would be
information regarding
new deals and
promotions involving
the business.
Memo Non-electronic This is a written
message used in
business and
diplomacy, it is used
to communicate
between different
departments within
same organisation.
Memorandums would
usually be used
between managers,
employees and other
departments within
business in order to
communicate.
Examples would be
managers giving
employees and sales
assistant new tasks to
do or new target.
Fax Electronic It is exact copy of
document that is made
by electronic scanning
and transmitted as a
data telephonic
translation.
Fax's audience would
be mangers of
different Tesco stores.
They would be used to
transfer a hard copy of
data to one store to
another containing
information on may
finance or sales. The
main audience would
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be high up managers
being in charge of
stores or big
departments.
The rapid and widespread diffusion of electronic information and communication media
has presented significant challenges for archives and records management in UN organizations.
Traditional practices devised primarily to handle paper‐based record material are not readily
extended to these new media. The Advisory Committee for the Coordination of Information
Systems (ACCIS) identified the need for UN organizations to develop policies and procedures
directly applicable to record material in electronic form.
 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). Text messaging in
particular has strong appeal, as anyone with a cell phone has texting capability.
 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. Recruiters and
salespeople often seek key contacts through social media sites.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report it has been concluded that communication is very important
in business or organisations in order to convey various information regarding works. The
different methods via which information are transferred are described here. Additionally, the
legal and ethical issues in relation to the use of business information are also described here.
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REFERENCES
Books & journal
Bargiela-Chiappini, F., Nickerson, C. and Planken, B., 2013. What is business discourse?. In
Business Discourse (pp. 3-44). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Cardon, P. W. and Marshall, B., 2015. The hype and reality of social media use for work
collaboration and team communication. International Journal of Business
Communication.52(3). pp.273-293.
Erickson, S. L., Weber, M. and Segovia, J., 2011. Using communication theory to analyze
corporate reporting strategies. The Journal of Business Communication (1973). 48(2).
pp.207-223.
Fatima Oliveira, M. D., 2013. Multicultural environments and their challenges to crisis
communication. The Journal of Business Communication (1973). 50(3). pp.253-277.
Grunig, J.E. ed., 2013. Excellence in public relations and communication management.
Routledge.
Kaul, A., 2014. Effective business communication. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..
Schultz, F., Utz, S. and Göritz, A., 2011. Is the medium the message? Perceptions of and
reactions to crisis communication via twitter, blogs and traditional media. Public
relations review. 37(1). pp.20-27.
Trompenaars, F. and Hampden-Turner, C., 2011. Riding the waves of culture: Understanding
diversity in global business. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Online
Business Communication and its Types. 2017. [Online]. Available through :
<http://www.notesdesk.com/notes/business-communications/business-communication-and-its-
types/>. Accessed on 18th August 2017.
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