Business Communication and Academic Writing Assessment 4

This assignment presents a comprehensive business communication assessment centered around a Commonwealth Bank event. The student's work includes a formal email inviting staff, a letter to a special guest, and a progress report detailing the event's preparations. The assessment also f...Read More

ASSESSMENT 4 0
Business communication and academic writing
MAY 30, 2018
Student’s name- ___________

ASSESSMENT 4 1
An email to staff inviting them to the event
From: Communications Manager
To: All the employees
Date: December 1st, 2018.
Sub: Join us as we celebrate another successful financial year at Commonwealth Bank.
Dear employee,
We take the pleasure to inform you that at Commonwealth Bank, we had an extremely satisfying
financial year and this is a result of collective efforts and dedication of all the employees across the
various branches. As a token of gratitude you are requested to mark your presence at the prestigious
“Annual Commonwealth Bank Appreciation Event” in the presence of guests of honour Ms Madison
De Rozario and Ms Meg Lanning, Mayor of the city Ms Clover Moore and Deputy Mayor Ms Jess
Miller.
Day and Date: Saturday, December 15th, 2018.
Venue: Westin Hotel, Martin Place, Sydney.
Event Schedule: 6 pm: Welcoming the special guests.
6.30 pm: Award function and cultural programme.
8 pm: Dinner begins and would be served till 11 pm.
Dress code: Formals.
We hope you would join us at this yearly event and relish it as much as we do.
Kindly mark the date and acknowledge the receipt of this email.
With best regards,
On behalf of Commonwealth Bank
Elysa David Johnson
(Communications Manager)

ASSESSMENT 4 2
Letter to an external special guest inviting them to the
event
COMMONWEALTH BANK Phone(s): [phone]/ 33
Commonwealth Bank of Australia Email: commonwealthbankaus.com.au
ABN: 48 123 123 124
CORPORATE OFFICE
GPO BOX 2719
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
From: Communications Manager
(On behalf of Commonwealth Bank)
Date: November 24th, 2018
Subject: Invitation Letter for “Annual Commonwealth Bank Appreciation Event”
Dear Ms Lanning,
Hope to find you in good health. We are absolutely delighted to inform you that financial year 2017-
18, has been a milestone year for Commonwealth Bank. The bank was awarded the certificate of
recognition for Corporate Social Responsibility as one of the Top 10 Companies in Australia and to
mark the same, the staff, CEO and CFO would like to cordially invite you as a guest of honour
alongside athlete Ms Madison De Rozario, Mayor of the city- Ms Clover Moore and Deputy Mayor-
Ms Jess Miller at the yearend event cum dinner.
You are an epitome of discipline and success and therefore, your gracious presence and thought
provoking words will be a sheer motivational experience for our staff and clients. The event details
are as follows-
Day and Date: Saturday, December 15th, 2018.
Venue: Westin Hotel, Martin Place, Sydney.
Time: 6 pm.
Event Schedule: Award function and cultural programme followed by dinner.

ASSESSMENT 4 3
Madam, we’ll be highly honoured if you could take out some precious time from your busy schedule
and attend the event. We request you to stay back for all the programmes and make it an
unforgettable experience for our organisation. Awaiting your positive response in this regard.
With warm regards,
On behalf of Commonwealth Bank,
Elysa David Johnson
(Communications Manager)

ASSESSMENT 4 4
Progress report on the “Preparations of the Annual
Commonwealth Bank Appreciation Event”
A. Background: The Commonwealth bank was awarded the certificate of recognition for
Corporate Social Responsibility as one of the Top 10 Companies in Australia for the financial
year 2017-18. In order to acknowledge the underlying efforts and dedication of employees
and the trust placed by the clients, an award function is organised followed by a cultural
programme and dinner.
B. Activity plan:
 The theme of the celebration is “Together we stand strong”.
 In order to coordinate the event activities, 3 committees have been formed. Award
function committee, Cultural programme committee and the Dinner committee.
 To track the financial aspects of the event a support committee namely- Event
financial advisory board has also been formed. The 3 other committees are reporting
the expenditure incurred to the said committee on daily basis.
 Following the theme, an advertisement was published in the newspaper- The
Australian, inviting bids for the management of the whole event.
 A number of bids were received for the same, out of which bid offered by Verve
Events International was found to be most viable and accordingly contract was
awarded. The event management company is working under the guidance of the
respective committees.
 Hotel Westin at Martin Place Sydney has been chosen as the venue.
 Longrain caterers have been appointed to manage the three course dinner.
 Cultural programme committee is working on lines of the decided theme with
Sydney Dance Company.
C. Communication:
 As per the discussions had, Ms Madison De Rozario, Ms Meg Lanning, Mayor of the
city Ms Clover Moore and Deputy Mayor Ms Jess Miller have been invited as guests
of honour via letters dated November 24th, 2018.
 Invitations to employees have been sent via mails dated December 1st.
 List of clients to be invited is being prepared as per the instructions and invitations
will be sent positively by December 5th.

ASSESSMENT 4 5
 Discussions with media partners are underway for the global media coverage of the
event.
D. Conclusion:
The event preparation timeline is in line with the schedule and the budget envisaged. The
preparations would be completed mostly by December 10th, 2018 i.e. 5 days before the
scheduled event. Accordingly ample time would still be left to carry out any improvements or
modifications thereon.

ASSESSMENT 4 6
Report structure for the final report
INTRODUCTION
Topic of the report: Report on the Annual Commonwealth Bank Appreciation Event.
Intended Audience: CEO, CFO and chairman of the Commonwealth Bank.
Background: The Annual Commonwealth Bank Appreciation Event was organised on Saturday,
December 15th, 2018 at the Westin Hotel at Martin Place, Sydney, to mark a successful financial year
and at the same time to extend the gratitude towards employees and clients.
Purpose of the report: The report has been prepared in order to provide the senior management of
the company with a valuable insight about the organisation of the event.
BODY
Event timeline:
 The guests of honour Ms Madison De Rozario and Ms Meg Lanning, Mayor of the city Ms
Clover Moore and Deputy Mayor Ms Jess Miller were welcomed at 6 pm, followed by their
motivational words.
 The awards were handed over to the employees and clients in the categories namely, top
Performer of the year, exceptional achievement, top sales team, for completing 25 years of
service, excellence in leadership and star customer of the year.
 The award function was followed by a cultural dance programme.
 The event ended with a three course dinner.
CONCLUSION
The event took place as per the plan and was a grand success with presence of all the guest of
honours. It would remain etched in the memories for a long time.

ASSESSMENT 4 7
Reflection on academic progress
Communication is a process by which messages are received and sent, through spoken words or
written words. Communication can also take place nonverbally i.e. through gestures, different facial
expressions and voice modulation and quality (Newman, 2015). Business communication skills are an
important part of any organisation. These are essential in leadership, management and creating an
effective work atmosphere within the organisation (Adair, 2011).
In assessment 2, I had learned about significance of effective and persuasive speaking skills. I learnt
about the application of various rhetoric proofs such as ethos, logos and pathos to modern business
communications. While the ethos deals primarily with the author’s or the speaker’s reputation and
his or her knowledge about the subject being spoken of, pathos deals with stimulation of the
imagination of the audiences so as to align it with that of the speaker or the writer, and logos is
concerned with the logic and effectiveness of the content. In order to carry on the business
communications efficiently, an author or speaker should be appealing to ethos, logos and pathos.
Though initially I was disappointed by my overall grade marks of assessment 2, i.e. 13 out of 20, as I
was expecting them to be slightly higher, but then I had promised to myself to do better in the next
assessment.
In the assessment 4 of the unit, I have tried to perform my best, not only in terms of writing but also
in refining the content to make it as straight forward and clear, as possible. It took me three to four
revisions for each of the exercise so as to convey the information properly in the assigned word
count for each of the write up. Initially as I tried to stick with the word count, I lost my patience at
times but then this is what communication and writing is all about, to be as innovative as possible in
the limited framework. Eventually I found the exercises interesting as it required a lot of creativity
and imagination, because the situation given was totally hypothetical. On technical note, I learned
about the importance of managerial communications in the working of an organisation and also
about the various forms of it namely business letters, email to the staff and report writing, which I
was not aware of earlier. As I tried to align the lessons learned in the assessment 2, I understood
that different kind of audiences and purposes demand different style of writing in business
communication. I got to learnt that manager being at mid seniority level at an organization and
therefore when appealing to ethos and communicating in his professional capacity to seniors,
juniors and subordinates, he must be very careful of choice of words and tone, as his words would
affect the readers significantly. Also while making an appeal to pathos, he must provide
comprehensive information so as to make the readers aware of every aspect of the purpose of

ASSESSMENT 4 8
communication. The effectiveness of the communication can be traced to the response of the
employees or seniors, as stated in the logos. Through assessment 4 of the said unit I also realised the
importance of perfect and sequential organisation of the text while writing the letters, emails and
reports, so as to convey the complete and logical set of information to the readers. The exercise
given highlighted the responsibility of a communications manager, as to completely providing the
details of an event to be organised to the employees’ vis-à-vis background, date, time, venue, dress
code etc. The internal communication has to be a little less formal and simple and these are two way
communications. For instance, while writing the email to the employees, acknowledgement of the
same can be asked. The feedback of the employees is always requested so as to know whether the
information is understood and received in the same way, the sender had intended it to be received
(Quirke, 2012). The external communications tends to be formal, structured and clear. The tone
must be very polite and the content should be to the point. As per the feedback given by the
lecturer, I understood the importance of the table of contents and providing the information in
points instead of the paragraphs. Report writing is a complex form of writing and requires clear
identification of the purpose of the report and presentation skills (Guffey and Loewy, 2012). While
preparing the report structure in the Part A of the assessment, I tried to incorporate the compilation
technique of wide range of information in a sequential and orderly manner. For instance in the
exercise of report writing to the CEO, the information is assembled in points, which makes it clear
and crisp. To the point and well summarised information is visually appealing and convenient to
read.
From now onwards, while writing any letters or communications, firstly I’ll develop the
understanding of the purpose, audience and nature of information a reader would sort for, and then
write the same. I’ll practice reading and writing letters to various kind of audience to understand the
difference between tone and language to be used. Also depending on the nature of communication,
I’ll keep the content as to simple and easy, to complex and descriptive. I’ll go through the various
kinds of formal and informal reports, and this will provide me with an insight of how to assimilate
large piece of information in logical and sequential manner, which makes it easy to read and
understand. The assimilation technique will help me in preparations of notes for other subjects too.
The lessons of academic writing will not only help me in my academics but also in my career.
Someday I aspire to become a communications manager of a reputed entity in reality and to write
such letters and reports as part of my work.

ASSESSMENT 4 9
References
Adair, J. (2011) Effective Communication (Revised Edition): The Most Important Management Skill of
all. Oxford: Pan Books. pp. 7.
Newman, A. (2015) Business Communication: In Person, In Print, Online. 10th ed. Cengage learning.
pp. 4.
Quirke, B. (2012) Making the Connections: Using Internal Communication to Turn Strategy into
action. 2nd ed. England: Gower Publishing Ltd. pp. 775
Guffey, M. E., and Loewy, D. (2012) Essentials of Business Communication. 9th ed. South Western
Cengage Learning.