CFPBUS006 Individual Report: Business Communication in Digital Age

This individual report analyzes business communication and collaboration tools, focusing on their role in helping businesses survive the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies tools like MS Teams, Zoom, Outlook, and Skype, discussing their impact on internal and external communication. The report also ex...Read More

Individual Report
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Table of contents
INTRODUCTION 3
MAIN BODY 3
Identify and discuss different communication and collaboration tools and how they have
helped the businesses to survive the current pandemic 3
Advantages, disadvantages, suitability and applications of cloud storage and computing 5
Compare and contrast positive and negative aspects of services and products being sold online
and offline 8
CONCLUSION 10
REFERENCES 12
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INTRODUCTION
Business communication is the means through which the communication takes place
effectively and efficiently between the employees and through this the information and the data
is being transferred to the employees and the employers (Guffey and et.al., 2021).
The report will analyze the communication and collaboration tools helping in many ways to
make the business survive the current pandemic and making the process more effective and
efficient. Along with this, cloud storage and computing will help in making the process of
business to maintain online services and along with this, advantages, disadvantages, suitability
and applications of cloud computing will help in assessing the term more effectively and in
detailed manner. Further, positive and negative aspects of services and products being sold
online and offline will provide the detail knowledge in a significant manner.
MAIN BODY
Identify and discuss different communication and collaboration tools and how they
have helped the businesses to survive the current pandemic
Communication and collaborative tools helps the businesses to survive the current pandemic in
making the work and the process more easy and convenient. There are various communication
tools that have emerged in the market to be industry drivers and revolutionary. There are various
communication tools that cater to different types of organizations and have helped the business
run smoothly in the pandemic (Maican and et.al., 2021). Following are the most prominent
communication and collaborative tools that have emerged as the industry drivers. These are as
follows –
MS Teams – MS teams is an application which typically helps businesses in its internal
communications. With options as diverse as any social media platform, this application has
catered the communication needs between employees, clients and business escalations very
efficiently. MS teams include the functions such as group calls, individual as well as group
conversations, sharing of files with limited weightage.
Zoom – Zoom is an application that is typically used for group calls, scheduling client meetings,
both audio and video (Oostervink and et.al., 2021). This application has not only improved
communication, in this pandemic, internally, but also dealing with the clients and conducting
business with any third party, in this pandemic more effectively and efficiently.
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Outlook – Outlook has, in the pandemic, emerged as a market player as it has changed the
business of communicating formally, sharing data, information, internally as well as with any
third party more efficient and safe. Since, only authorized users can have access, through their
accounts, security and confidentiality while sharing data, files and organizational information is
well assured.
Skype – Skype has made communication in the industries, specially the IT ones more hurdle
free. With more and more communication, formal and informal, being done in an organization,
Skype has proved to be a very user friendly application with easier interface for its new users
than any other complex business communication tool (Zhang and et.al., 2021).
Therefore, these collaborative and communication tools have made pandemic hurdle free for
many businesses and the organizations that were capable of transacting itself online. Although,
big firms require higher amount of communication which these tools have well catered, the
medium sized entities were also benefitted by the use of these communication tools. Following
pointers concludes what the standards benefits were being grabbed by various entities in the time
of pandemic.
● Conducting business was never easy and with communication gaps lumbering over
business conduct, these tools have managed to mitigate these gaps to run business
smoothly and efficiently.
● Although, pandemic had hit different industries in different ways but the biggest
challenge was communication because without communicating even the most trivial
transaction in an organization seemed impossible but by using these tools the
communication gaps were reduced up to a very large extent.
● Organizations, although were prepared to have a big hit on its profitability but mitigating
communication gaps has even brought that affect to a lower level. These communication
gaps were not only in the conversation but also sharing of information, data, files and
many other formats were affected by the pandemic but these tools had immensely helped
in bringing such devastation, from such challenges, down to very lower level.
● If organizations which are not technology friendly are considered, pandemic had brought
a whole new set of challenges but these tools had helped these organizations run their
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businesses to a significant level online and also more efficiently making communication
internally as well as with the clients effective.
● If new businesses are being considered, they already been introduced in this super fragile
market conditions. Although the competition hasn’t gone down in the pandemic, benefits
have still been grabbed by smallest of the smallest businesses to approach the target
market and it ultimately grasps its share of profit in any of the non monopoly industries.
● Conducting businesses online hasn’t ever been this easy. New methods were although
known but were never openly practised in the entire industries (Byrnes and et.al., 2021).
With employees working from home to industries turning its entire business transactions
online, pandemic has made businessmen learn new techniques, tactics and redefine doing
business monitory as well as barter, completely online.
Therefore, we can conclude that collaborating and communicating tools have changed the world,
by changing the very mindset, by expanding the boundaries of conduct of business to beyond
thinkable, making businesses more expandable, flexible and profitable. With more online
options, businesses have reached market which was beyond reach, ultimately making businesses
more profitable and mitigating the deteriorating affects of pandemic.
Advantages, disadvantages, suitability and applications of cloud storage and computing
Cloud Computing - Cloud computing is a data storage service held online where
confidential as well as non – confidential infinite amount of data is stored, managed, archived
and held for the purpose of retrieval and managing data backups.
Advantages –
● It makes data managed more easy and accessible, to firms with higher volumes of data.
● With multiple options being given by Cloud Service Providers, businesses have options
to choose services as per their needs and budget (Abu-Darwish and et.al., 2021).
● Most of the times these volumes data is confidential in nature, but cloud services makes
confidentiality management there first priority solving multiple business problems in one
go.
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● Cloud Computing Services are nothing more than outsourcing services, but performs
function much more than just maintain and storing data.
Disadvantages –
● Although confidentiality is assured by the service providers, but it’s not always fulfilled
as it’s highly vulnerable to malwares.
● As confidentially assurance increases, the package gets expensive and ultimately burdens
the business.
● Data leaks, viruses, and hackers makes data storage, quite a challenge for even the
service providers, ultimately affecting the business.
● Sometimes a particular cloud space is shared by multiple businesses entities, making it
risky and less confidential but because of the budget constraint, entities are forced to opt
for such a sharing option.
Suitability –
● Cloud computing is flexible in serving its various clients by providing options such as
private cloud, public cloud, community cloud, hybrid cloud (Wang and et.al., 2018).
● These options helps the organizations opt for the most suitable option as per their budget,
data volume and data secrecy.
Application –
● Cloud computing serves companies and organizations such as IT, e – commerce,
education, entertainment software developer etc.
● The application areas are so diverse and flexible that bulky, multi millionaire entities
transact and conduct their entire business on the internet only by the use of cloud
computing applications, interfaces and software (Taneja and et.al., 2017).
● In a business, from the beginning of a transaction to the very end of its trail, entire
transaction is held and concluded online which makes running business more smooth and
efficiently.
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Cloud Storage - Cloud storage is defined as a pool of computer storage devices for storing
information and data online. It serves as a business tool for storing infinite amount of data in a
chain of computers called the servers which can manage and store data, transacted, in real time.
Advantages –● Data storage becomes more flexible and easy for entities having voluminous amount of
day to day transactions.● Even for the medium sized organizations storing, archiving and retrieval of such day to
day data becomes easy making business more significant (Abdalla and et.al., 2019).● Data storage becomes more convenient as multiple options can be accessed and assessed
by different sized organization.● Although, cloud storage might prove to be expensive but there are various cheaper
options to the companies to opt for and make their data management budget friendly.
Disadvantages –● Internet is a highly dynamic tool and accessing data storages depends on the internet
network which may bind the entity on the network quality.● These storages are highly prone to viruses, malwares and third party destructions which
may completely destroy the very use of this business tool.● Although, cloud storage may not cause much but the above stated cons may destroy the
budget friendliness, viability and significance of such data storage tools.
Suitability -
● Cloud storage provides various options to the companies and organizations in storing data
in various formats, various extensions, various genres and various confidentiality levels.
● The storage can be private, public, community and hybrid. An organization or
organizations can even opt for combined storage that can have features of multiple cloud
storages (Chidambaram and et.al., 2019).
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● Where organizations that prefer high confidentiality to be maintained can opt for a
private cloud or there might be a company or more than two of them to opt a suitable
combination.
Application -
● Cloud storage acts as a separate interface which the company can access separately for
the purpose of data storage.
● This helps the organizations by making data backups, disaster recoveries and assessing
malware dysfunctionalities more easily (Song and et.al., 2017).
● Not only storage, data analysis is also a significant part of conducting business and data
storage caters to this need very efficiently and effectively.
● By data analysis, companies projects its future conduct which ultimately affects its data
storage needs and forecast its confidentiality levels more proficiently.
Compare and contrast positive and negative aspects of services and products being
sold online and offline
Positive aspects of services and
products sold online
Positive aspects of services and products sold
offline
1. The communication with clients and
wholesaler while selling products online
is technology driven hence it is fast and
reliable (Xu and et.al., 2017).
2. The cost of infrastructure needed to
sell products online is low and minimal
1. Products when sold offline build a long lasting
and loyal customer list who believe in the seller and
its products (Li and et.al., 2020).
2. Selling products offline gives customers a chance
to feel the product and try it to find out if it matches
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structure is required in the physical
world.
3. Each step from stocking inventory to
sales invoices is properly recorded and
can be operated and accessed at any
point of time.
4. The inventory is well calculated and
organized to be able to deliver accurate
data about availability of the product
and when it will be available next if out
of stock (Shafiee and et.al., 2018).
5. Various IT software are available to
analyze market trends and forecast about
the next steps that can be taken and
marketing techniques that can be opted
to increase sales.
6. Selling a product online gives the
seller an opportunity to reach and
operate in the global market and make
international connections.
7. With the infinity of the online space,
the seller “can” showcase millions of
products that he can sell and not what he
“has” to sell.
and excel in their parameters.
3. Products when sold online under a retailer gives
the retail outlet the power to establish itself as a
known place with a legacy in the market (Yan and
et.al., 2018).
4. Products when sold offline are able to reach the
people even with no internet knowledge. The pool
of potential customers is bigger as both internet
savvy people and the ones with no internet
knowledge can access it in a certain geographical
boundary.
5. Selling products offline gives the consumer the
freedom to purchase at any time of the day with
getting the product immediately in hand and in
whatever quantity they desire.
6. Attractive physical infrastructure persuades the
consumer to enter and buy. Giving the consumer
the feel of window shopping ultimately results in
good time for the shopper and heavy sales for the
seller.
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Negative aspects of products and services sold
online
Negative aspects of products and
services sold offline
1. The market for a product when sold online is more
competitive. There are hundreds of other sellers
offering the same offer due to low cast infrastructure
(Filieri and et.al., 2018).
2. The shipping charges and uninformed taxes
included during the payment may scare off many
potential customers as they don’t want to pay any
extra amount for the product.
3. Returns can be more frequent due to no direct
engagement and attachment with the product overall.
4. The casualties during shipment products and the
chances of damages are high hence it may reduce the
net profit for the seller.
5. Since, there are millions of ventures selling the
same products online, there are fraud retailers too and
that too in significant numbers (Yu and et.al., 2018).
Hence when customers have such experience online,
they no longer trust who is fraud and who is not and
1. The geographical boundary for
selling the product offline is limited.
An offline retail outlet can be a
significant one only in a fixed physical
boundary and that limits the
connections for it (Yan and et.al.,
2018).
2. The product sold offline cannot be
customized and can only manage the
generic versions of the products and
not the limitless variety of them.
3. Due to cash back and endless deals
customers find online, they avoid
visiting offline market space thinking
that they can save money as well as
time if they shop online.
4. The infrastructure cost and
investment in setting up an offline
retail space is an expensive process.
For many it means taking loans and
that is something that makes the seller
restrict himself (Sarkar and et.al.,
2017).
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that leads to loss of some potential customers.
CONCLUSION
Thus, it is concluded from the above report that communication and collaboration tools have
helped in many ways to make the business survive the current pandemic and this has made the
process more effective and efficient. Along with this, cloud storage and computing have helped
in making the process of business to maintain online services and along with this, advantages,
disadvantages, suitability and applications of cloud computing have helped in assessing the term
more effectively and in detailed manner. Further, positive and negative aspects of services and
products being sold online and offline have provided the detail knowledge in a significant
manner.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Guffey, M.E. and et.al., 2021. Business communication: Process & product. Cengage Learning.
Maican, C. and et.al., 2021. Exploring the Factors Influencing the Use of Communication and
Collaboration Applications. Journal of Organizational and End User Computing
(JOEUC).33(4).pp.94-124.
Oostervink, N. and et.al., 2021. Making collaboration tools work at work: Navigating four major
implementation dilemmas. Journal of Financial Transformation.52.pp.76-85.
Zhang, Q. and et.al., 2021, March. Research on the impact of online collaboration tools on team
creativity. In Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International
Conference (pp. 327-334). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education
(AACE).
Byrnes, K.G. and et.al., 2021. Communication, collaboration and contagion:“Virtualisation” of
anatomy during COVID‐19. Clinical Anatomy.34(1).pp.82-89.
Abu-Darwish, N.J. and et.al., 2021. The mediating role of cloud computing in the relationship
between talent management and competitive advantages. Competitiveness Review: An
International Business Journal.
Wang, P. and et.al., 2018. Performance modeling and suitability assessment of data center based
on fog computing in smart systems. IEEE Access.6.pp.29587-29593.
Taneja, M. and et.al., 2017, May. Resource aware placement of IoT application modules in Fog-
Cloud Computing Paradigm. In 2017 IFIP/IEEE Symposium on Integrated Network and
Service Management (IM) (pp. 1222-1228). IEEE.
Abdalla, P.A. and et.al., 2019, June. Advantages to Disadvantages of Cloud Computing for
Small-Sized Business. In 2019 7th International Symposium on Digital Forensics and
Security (ISDFS) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Chidambaram, N. and et.al., 2019. A cloud compatible DNA coded security solution for
multimedia file sharing & storage. Multimedia Tools and Applications.78(23).pp.33837-
33863.
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Song, W. and et.al., 2017. A privacy-preserved full-text retrieval algorithm over encrypted data
for cloud storage applications. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing.99.pp.14-
27.
Xu, X. and et.al., 2017. The influence of e-services on customer online purchasing behavior
toward remanufactured products. International Journal of Production
Economics.187.pp.113-125.
Shafiee, M.M. and et.al., 2018. Behavioral customer loyalty in online shopping: the role of e-
service quality and e-recovery. Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce
research.13(1).pp.26-38.
Li, M. and et.al., 2020. Competition and cooperation in a supply chain with an offline showroom
under asymmetric information. International Journal of Production
Research.58(19).pp.5964-5979.
Yan, Y. and et.al., 2018. Strategic introduction of the marketplace channel under spillovers from
online to offline sales. European Journal of Operational Research.267(1).pp.65-77.
Filieri, R. and et.al., 2018. Consumer perceptions of information helpfulness and determinants of
purchase intention in online consumer reviews of services. Information &
Management.55(8).pp.956-970.
Yu, S. and et.al., 2018. Selling luxury products online: The effect of a quality label on risk
perception, purchase intention and attitude toward the brand. Journal of Electronic
Commerce Research.19(1).pp.16-35.
Yan, Y. and et.al., 2018. Strategic introduction of the marketplace channel under spillovers from
online to offline sales. European Journal of Operational Research.267(1).pp.65-77.
Sarkar, R. and et.al., 2017. Online shopping vs Offline shopping: A comparative
study. International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and
Technology.3(1).pp.424-431.
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