BUSN609: Business Communication Portfolio Report and Reflection

This report, created for the BUSN609 Business Communication course, presents a comprehensive analysis of a student's portfolio, focusing on various aspects of effective communication. The report begins with an introduction to ethical communication, emphasizing its importance in building respect and fostering diversity. The main body of the report delves into specific tasks completed throughout the semester, including initial thoughts on ethical communication, academic and business contexts, a press release responding to a negative incident, an analysis of a CSR report from Woolworths Group, evaluation of Woolworths' social media communication, and an email evaluating a company website. Each task is presented with feedback from peers and revisions made based on that feedback. The report highlights the importance of persuasion in communication, visual representation, and the use of social media for brand promotion and customer engagement. The reflection section discusses the value of peer feedback in improving communication skills and the significance of both verbal and written communication in professional settings. The report concludes by reiterating the importance of communication in various aspects of life, emphasizing that communication extends beyond verbal exchanges to include non-verbal elements. References to relevant books and journals are included to support the analysis and findings.

BUSN609 Business
Communication

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................3
Portfolio......................................................................................................................................3
Week 2...................................................................................................................................3
Week 4...................................................................................................................................4
Week 6...................................................................................................................................5
Week 8...................................................................................................................................6
Week 10.................................................................................................................................7
Week 11.................................................................................................................................8
Reflection...................................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................10
Books and Journals:.............................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
This report aims to discuss the assessment which increases the practices of students
and also able to refine the communication skills of an individual (Kalogiannidis, 2020). It
will include some important tasks performed on the basis of feedback received from peers.
This report will include a discussion on ethical communication which is found to be
important for today's business environment and will also include many other important tasks.
MAIN BODY
Portfolio
Week 2
Task name: Initial thoughts on ethical communication
Original Task Loaded to Discussion Forum: What is ethical communication and how is it
essential to building respect for human dignity and diversity in your current/future
profession?
Feedback from Peers: Not clarity in the writing and concept.
Revised Task: Ethical communication refers to the way of communication which include
clarity, responsibility, truthful, and concise communication (Ali and et.al., 2021). It is
necessary to perform ethical communication as it is fundamental for responsible thinking and
thoughtful decision making. It is actually about the development and nursing of relationships.
Ethical communication is based on the four important principles which include truthfulness,
reason, honesty and accuracy as these are very essential for the integrity of communication.
It is important to understand that ethical communication is necessary for building
respect for diversity and human dignity in the current as well as future professions.
Everybody knows that diversity is found in each and every profession whether it is current or
future. This is necessary for each individual to communicate with people with the
consideration of respect for human dignity and diversity (Bannier, Pauls and Walter, 2019).
For the purpose of maintaining the human dignity of individuals, it is very important for each
person to include ethical communication in their daily practices because then only they will
be able to keep respect for human dignity.

Week 4
Task name: Academic contexts
Original Task Loaded to Discussion Forum: create a draft introduction for your first
assessment, the conference paper.
Feedback from Peers: the introduction is not properly drafted and it was not presented in
well-structured manner.
Revised Task: Every day the business environment is becoming very complex in nature and
it becomes competitive as well. In order to deal with the complexity and competitiveness, it
becomes necessary for organisations to use ethical communication in their daily practices.
Ethical communication is found to be an important way of communication which always
focuses on clarity, conciseness, responsibility and truthfulness (Bolten, 2020). That means
every individual in the workplace should always do communication with the consideration of
these 4 principles. In professional life, communication is found to be an important way of
transferring information and message to other individuals. But because of ineffective
communication, it is identified that people are not taking any interest in the organisation.
Ethical communication is considered honest communication which not only builds trust but
also helps individuals to identify any features which may arise at the intersection between
teamwork, authority and power. It is necessary for every individual to make sure that they
need to apply ethical communication in their current as well as a future profession.

Week 6
Task name: Business contexts
Original Task Loaded to Discussion Forum: Write a short press release that responds to a
negative incident
Feedback from Peers: the structure of press release is not good and it also not provide a
clear information about the incident.
Revised Task: After the pandemic, the National Bank of Australia noticed that there is a
heavy decline of the public in physical branches of banks and also found that staff are still
working more and more online. Due to this, they decided to close 50% of the branch
locations of National Bank in capital cities in Australia. This is tap is found to be not a good
signal for the public as well as for the staff. The reason behind this is declining in the number
of people in the bank's physical branches should not be a reason for closing the branches
because we never know what will happen in the future (Heo and Lee, 2018). Everybody
knows that the work of the National Bank is continuously increasing and closing the branches
of banks is not a solution. From the viewpoint of the public, they will also not agree with this
decision because if a National Bank is doing this then given face many problems as they are
not able to get a system from the physical branches. Yes, most of the public are seeking more
online banking support but still, online banking support is not able to solve each and every
type of problem. Due to this, it may create a negative impact on society. It also decreases the
jobs as they do not require any Watchmen and other staff for the cleaning and basic
necessities. This action will provide a direct or indirect impact on the economy as well.

Week 8
Task name: Persuasion
Original Task Loaded to Discussion Forum: Identify a CSR (Corporate Social
Responsibility) report from a company of your choice
Feedback from Peers: not effective communication as it lacks a persuasion
Revised Task: From the analysis of this CSR report of Woolworth group, it is identified that
their visual communication and persuasion are very good as it is able to convince the people
about their sustainability practices (Pikhart, 2018). Their CSR report is very enhancing and
able to convince the people with the inclusion of colours used in the reports. The visual
representation is also very effective as it communicates the sustainability which they used.
For example, the first page of the sustainability report includes the colour green which
represents the basic motive of that report. It is also found that they are using italics in order to
intend key elements of the report and also include the pictures for showing the importance of
people, the planet and prosperity for them. It is very important to understand that persuasion
is necessary for communication whether it is verbal or nonverbal because then only people
are able to convince with your opinion and thoughts.

Week 10
Task name: Social media
Original Task Loaded to Discussion Forum: evaluate their social media communication as
if you were on this company’s marketing team
Feedback from Peers: not used the clear discussion about the social media communication.
Revised Task: Woolworth understands the importance of social media and that's why there
also use social media communication methods which helps them to build effective
communication. It is important to understand their social media communication strategy
because they use social media, especially for their campaigns so that they can perpetuate their
brand and also able to get the information about the satisfaction of the customers. They are
using social media for the purpose of direct communication with the customers which helps
them to identify and analyse their tastes and preferences (Schartel Dunn and Lane, 2019).
They are using Facebook and Twitter which is found appropriate for the organisation because
these two social media platforms are found to be very popular in the market. They are
targeted to each and every age of individuals and also include the people who want to satisfy
their basic necessities. The company use formal communication tool with the customers and
other people. They often use social media which is effective because every day social media
communication is increasing so it is not bad. In addition to this, they are always looking for
posting the campaigns which help them to promote their goods and services in the market.

Week 11
Task name: Digital communication
Original Task Loaded to Discussion Forum: choose a website for a company that matches
your future profession and evaluate the company's website, considering the design principles
Feedback from Peers: generate a right email that have a clear objective
Revised Task: E-mail
E-mail
To,
The Branch Manager of Woolworths Group,
Subject: Key notes and recommendations
Respected sir and the team of Woolworths Group,
With due to respectfully, I wanted to make aware about the issues faced by customers and
other business professionals regarding for the website of the company. They are not able to
put a complaint on the website and also not get a solution from the website. This is the
main reason to inform you that it is important to take right actions otherwise it will provide
an impact on the sales and revenues of company because may be people are getting
frustrated and they will not purchases goods from your company websites. It is important
to inform you that you may be chose another sites for taking feedbacks from the people and
also may be work on improvement of website. I informing you that I am a software
developer so in this process I can able to support you by developing or improving your
software which used for the website. In addition to this, it is also recommended that you
should focus on the satisfaction of customers as it is necessary for your company’s success.
With Regards,
XYZ

Reflection
From the analysis of my peer feedback, I found that there are some mistakes in my
work and I understand that it is very important for me to improve all that mistakes. I also
found that every individual needs to work on their communication skills and they should not
only focus on verbal communication because communication includes written
communication as well. In professional life, verbal communication is not work in each and
every situation because there are some situations that will occur where people are required to
write emails and messages and notice periods and any other activity. At that time, if
individuals are not good at writing skills then how they are able to communicate the message
in the right manner. In my experience, peers' feedback is playing a very important role
because they provided me guidance that what I need to improve. With the help of the
feedback, I am able to develop and prove my communication skill. So according to my
experience, I can say that it is very important for each and every individual that they need to
work on their communication skills.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the discussion of the above task that every day the
importance of communication is necessary because without communication no one is able to
do anything. It is analysed from the above task that communication is not only about verbal
communication because it includes non-verbal communication as well.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Ali, B.J., and et.al., 2021. Business communication strategies: analysis of internal
communication processes. Ali, BJ, Anwar, G., Gardi, B., Othman, BJ, Aziz, HM,
Ahmed, SA, Hamza, PA, Ismael, NB, Sorguli, S., Sabir, BY (2021). Business
Communication Strategies: Analysis of Internal Communication Processes. Journal
of Humanities and Education Development, 3(3), pp.16-38.
Bannier, C., Pauls, T. and Walter, A., 2019. Content analysis of business communication:
introducing a German dictionary. Journal of Business Economics, 89(1), pp.79-123.
Bolten, J., 2020. Intercultural business communication: An interactive approach.
In Exploring the rhetoric of international professional communication (pp. 139-
155). Routledge.
Heo, M. and Lee, K.J., 2018. Chatbot as a new business communication tool: The case of
naver talktalk. Business Communication Research and Practice, 1(1), pp.41-45.
Kalogiannidis, S., 2020. Impact of effective business communication on employee
performance. European Journal of Business and Management Research, 5(6).
Pikhart, M., 2018, August. Technology enhanced learning experience in intercultural
business communication course: a case study. In International Symposium on
Emerging Technologies for Education (pp. 41-45). Springer, Cham.
Schartel Dunn, S.G. and Lane, P.L., 2019. Do interns know what they think they know?
Assessing business communication skills in interns and recent graduates. Business
and Professional Communication Quarterly, 82(2), pp.202-213.