Report on Business Communication Challenges Post-Terrorist Attacks

This report delves into the critical role of business communication, particularly in the context of the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka, focusing on the luxury Shangri-La hotel chains. The report begins with a literature review, examining the impact of the attacks on organizational communication and inter-departmental cooperation, highlighting the stress and trauma experienced by employees. It then analyzes the challenges faced, including inter-departmental cooperation issues and various communication barriers, such as lack of planning, cultural differences, and emotional distress. Furthermore, the report provides recommendations for improving communication practices, including creating plans, utilizing the right communication tools, and fostering effective communication to overcome these challenges and help the hotels regain their position in the market. The report emphasizes the importance of communication for successful business operations and overcoming barriers.

BUSINESS
COMMUNICATION- 2

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The report is based on communication. The communication refers to a process through
which one person transfers the information and messages to another person. The communication
is very necessary for the successful running of the business and for interacting within the
business and outside the business (Baena, Cano and Giraldo, 2019). The present report is based
on the recent terrorist attacks which held in Sri Lanka. The attack was basically done on the
luxury hotels and Churches present there. The report will outline the literature review and a
thorough analysis of the different barriers which occurred due to the terrorist attacks.
MAIN BODY
Literature Review
In the words of Bargiela - Chiappini and Nickerson, (2014), the communication within
the organization is defined as the sending and receiving of relevant information, data, facts and
figures and other messages among the employees within the organization and with the external
world. After the terrorist attacks the organizational communication was not good. According to
Kernbach, Eppler and Bresciani, (2015), this is because of the reason that due to the severe
attacks all the employees were in stress and mental trauma. And because of this the
communication was not good as the people were not in the state of communicating.
In the views of Bovée, Thill and Raina, (2016), the interdepartmental coordination is very
crucial for the successful running of the business. This is because of the reason that for a
business to be successful all the departments of the company needs to work in a sync and
coordinated way. This coordination can be ensured with the help of proper communication only.
If the departments does not communicate the working and progress of their assigned work then
there will be a lot of problem and chaos. So with help of improved communication the inter
departmental cooperation can be improved.
Jussila, Kärkkäinen and Aramo - Immonen, (2014), articulates that because the
communication is done between two or more persons then there can be many barriers also in the
process of communication. This is majorly due to the reason that all the person are different in
their thinking and perception. There might be possible that what one person is speaking and it
might be possible that the other person understands the message in wrong sense. So it is of

utmost importance that these barriers are eradicated from the flow of information within the
business so that the business runs successfully.
Analysis
Inter-departmental cooperation
The inter departmental cooperation refers to as the level that in how coordinated the way
do all the departments within the hotel works. After the terrorists attack this was the major
problem faced by the luxury Shangri- La hotel chains in Sri Lanka. Resultant to the attacks all
the business working and the operation in the hotels got mismanaged. This is because of the
major reason that the employees of the hotel were in serious mental trauma and stress because
the major result of the attack was on the Shangri- La hotels only (Holliday, Kullman and Hyde,
2016). So because of this the inter-departmental cooperation was less among all the departments
of the hotels. So for this the hotel needs to improve the inter-departmental cooperation. This can
be done in the following ways-
 The first and foremost step in improving the cooperation is to improve the
communication among the different departments of the hotels in Sri Lanka after the
attacks.
 Also one department should get involved in the working of the other department because
all the departments are inter connected with each other (Antunes, Pino and Tate, 2019).
For example if the marketing department of the Shangri- La hotel is there so it needs to
work in coordination with the production department to know that what are the services
and products that the hotel deals in which are to be marketed.
 Another recommendation to facilitate the inter-departmental cooperation is to apply the
principles of effective communication. The principles of effective communication
includes the 7 C's which are clarity, correctness, completeness, concreteness, conciseness,
courtesy and coherence. These principles can be applied in order to improve the inter-
departmental coordination and cooperation (Herrmann and Herrmann - Nehdi, 2015).
 Another major step which the company can follow to facilitate inter departmental
cooperation is to document all the necessary and crucial information and have a record of

it. This helps the hotel because all the information is readily available because of the
recorded documents and the information.
Communication barriers
The barriers are the blockages or the disturbances which the person or the company faces
while communicating with others either within the organization or outside the company. Without
communication not a single work can be done because for every work to be done it needs to be
communicated with other (Veldeman, Van Praet and Mechant, 2017). As the communication is
done between the people so it is possibility that there may differences in the thinking of the
people and there way of perceiving thins. In Sri Lanka after the terrorists attack there was many
barriers which posed a problem in the communication among the people and the hotels. This is
because of the major reason that the attack was majorly on the luxury Shangri- La hotels. So it
created many barriers for the hotels in communicating with others. The major barriers faced by
the hotel are as follows-
Lack of planning- this is the major barrier which the Shangri- La hotel faces after the
attacks. This is because of the reason that after the attack the employees of the hotel were not in
the state of taking decision as what to do next (Ilie, Nickerson and Planken, 2019). This is the
major barrier in communication because if there will not be any plan that what the employees
have to do. If the manager has not made proper plan than how it will communicate with other.
Cultural barriers- these are the barriers which occurs due to the differences between the
cultures of the different employees coming from different cultural backgrounds. Because of the
attacks many people of different cultural background who have came for roaming have been
blocked there only. And there might be possibility that they do not understand the basic language
of the Sri Lanka. So this might be a barrier for the hotels as these people will live in the hotel
only till they go to their places.
Emotional barriers- these are the barriers which occurs when the person is not in its state
of mind. The people are full of emotions and it plays a very important role in the life of the
people. In the case of Sri Lanka terrorists attack many people might have lost their families and
friends (Park, El Sawy and Fiss, 2017). So it might be possible that they are not in proper state of

mind as they will be shocked due to mishaps. So if anything communicated to such people might
be possible that it does not listen to it or not pay attention or might misunderstand the meaning of
it (Bannier, Pauls and Walter, 2019).
Improvement through communication practices
For improving the state of the hotels in Sri Lanka it is very necessary for the Shangri- La
hotels to improve the communication and to motivate the people to come to Sri Lanka as it is a
tourist destination. For this it can adopt to the following communication practices-
Create a plan- this is the first and foremost thing which the hotel can use. After the attack
everything needs to be started with a new scratch. So the Shangri- La hotels have to rebuild there
structure. For this the most important part is doing proper planning so that every employees
beforehand only knows what they have to do and in what manner. This will clear all the doubts
of the employees and they will work more efficiently and productively.
Right communication tool- this is yet another practice which the hotel can use to
motivate people and bring them to normalcy after the terrorists attacks. This will help the hotel in
communicating with the people and the employees relating to overcoming with the effects and
trauma of the attack. This is only possible when it uses right tools of communicating and
marketing the Shangri- La hotel in the market (Lobo, Samaranayake and Subramanian, 2019).
This is done in order to attract more and more new customers so that the hotel regains it position
back in the market.
CONCLUSION
With the in depth study of the report it can be analysed that the communication is of
utmost importance because of the reason that without communicating the person cannot work.
For every work to be done it requires communication. This is because if the person will not say
what it wants then how its work will be accomplished and achieved. The report outlined the
importance of inter departmental cooperation and some recommendations. At last the report
discussed some of the challenges in communication and ways to overcome those barriers.

REFERENCES
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