Analyzing Communication Challenges and Solutions for Deere & Company

This presentation analyzes the communication challenges impacting Deere & Company, a multinational agricultural equipment manufacturer. It identifies three primary issues: weaknesses in social media utilization for information sharing, a lack of effective customer feedback mechanisms, and intercultural communication challenges leading to misunderstandings. The presentation delves into the impacts of these issues, including reduced customer satisfaction, limited sales, and misinterpretations within the organization. It reviews relevant literature on social media's role in crisis communication and customer engagement. Recommendations include hiring social media managers, revamping customer feedback processes, and implementing diversity training. The presentation concludes by emphasizing the importance of investing in social media, actively seeking customer feedback, and addressing cultural differences to improve overall performance and achieve organizational goals.

Slide - Introduction
- The international agricultural equipment market is founded on a strong and robust long-
term demands as well as growth drives linked to the ever increasing global population.
- There is a high demand in the industry as the mouths to feed increase globally year after
year.
- There is stiff competition in the global business industry
- There is need for effectiveness in performance of the organizations dealing with the
agricultural equipment.
Slide - company information
- Deere and Company Ltd is a multinational organization that operates in several countries
- Countries include USA, Australia, India, Vietnam, India, Oman and Nigeria.
- The organization deals in the manufacture of agricultural equipment and sale of the same
to both local and international clients.
- It focuses on producing agricultural construction machines, diesel engines, and drive
trains among other heavy equipment used in the agricultural industry.
- Has 8000 employees across the borders of operation
Slide : The Purpose of the Presentation
The main scope of the report will focus on;
- Identifying communication challenges facing the organization
- It will also a detailed literature review of the issues identified

- Suggest relevant recommendations that can be adopted by the organization as a solution
to the challenges
- Have a conclusion for the main points
Slide - The Challenges facing the performance of the Organization
The organization has been facing three main communication challenges. These include;
- weaknesses in the use of social media platforms such a blogs, wikis, Whatsapp, twitter
and other networks in promoting information sharing and the sharing of ideas among
employees.
- Lack of meaningful feedback from clients on ways of improving customer satisfaction
with quality of product and services.
- Intercultural communication challenges which through misunderstanding breeds mistrust
in the organization.
Slide: Scope/Boundary of the Study
The boundaries of the presentation will be on;
- ways in which the organization can use social media platforms to change the way
information is shared between the different levels in the organization
- Explore ways in which social media can be used to provide clients with better interface,
convenient channels of accessing information about the organization and its products and
services.

- Reviewing methods that the organization can engage in order to provide its clientele with
avenues of reaching the organization with feedback on what they feel about the
organization’s products and services.
- deconstructing the challenges that arise from intercultural communication and provide
solutions to minimize future misunderstandings within the organization in order to ensure
that employees of various nationalities are all brought on board and feel part and parcel
of the operations of the organization
Slide - Literature
- Social media is commonly used for crisis communication in both small and large scale
organizations.
- This is because of technological advancement in the business industry.
- scientists and innovators are creating mind-blowing technological solutions, an aspect
that is changing the business performance
Slide - Issue 1
The weaknesses in the use of social media platforms has affected the performance of the
company and limiting its services to clients through social media. Weaknesses in the use of
social media to share between employees of various organization
- It limits the motivation and stimulation of services to customers
- There is limited sharing of ideas between customers and the organization
- There is limited opportunity of sharing information in regard to the services
Slide - Impacts

Because of the poor or weak traction of the use of social media, the organization has suffered
from the following;
- There is limited access to information concerning the company’s products and services
- Reduced customer satisfaction due to limited reporting services
- Reduced sales volume
- Limited opportunities for customers to engage with the organization
Slide 9- Conclusion on the issue 1.
 Social media platforms provide prompt access to information concerning the company’s
products and services thus improving customers’ satisfaction.
 It improves sales volume since customers’ since it acts a marketing platform. In this case,
consumers also find an opportunity to engage the company on different issues regarding
the products and services offered.
 Social media and knowledge management tools can be integrated to filter information to
be accessed by the customers using the channel of any choice.
Slide 10- Issue 2
The Poor Collection of Customer Feedback as affected the performance of the organization
in several ways. It is vital to note that;
 Customers’ feedbacks are important for pursuing profit
 It helps the organization analyzes quality of the products and services as well as the level
of satisfaction.

 Example- there are cases of dissatisfied customers sharing information against the
services of the organization
Slide- Impact
From the issue identified, the following have been felt in the organization (Pitt et al., 2011);
- Collection of customer feedback has been made easy through Facebook, Twitter,
WhatsApp, LinkedIn, etc.
- Example- The organizations are unable gather information on people’s conversations
about certain products
- Improper use of the media to reach more customers and a combination of in-house and
third party employee
Slide- Issue 3
There is also misunderstanding breeds mistrust in the organization.
- Communication is direct in Western cultures
- Communication is discrete in Eastern culture
- Intercultural misconnection leads to work disconnection
Slide- Impacts
Conclusion on issue 3

- Advantages- John Deere and Company has advantage of hiring employees from different
cultures.
- Provide wide range of expertise that steer organizations to realization of objectives.
- Disadvantages-Use of social media in different management level of communication
results into misinterpretation of cultural signs
Slide on cont.…
 Experts opine again that dissatisfied customers can share the information with 8 to 10
others and sometimes up to 20 (Waters et al., 2011). In this case, the organization gets the
opportunity to deal with pressing issues before they get viral.
 Every organization has to be keen on social media since it has given consumers an
avenue to influence organizational decisions making and public policy; thus prompt
action on every feedback is required (Auer et al., 2011).
Slide on Cont...
• Every organization has to be keen on social media
• It use has given consumers an avenue to influence organizational decisions making and
public policy
• It also prompts action on every feedback is required (Auer et al., 2011).
Slide on Impacts
- Capability of hiring employees from different cultures
- Availability of wide range of expertise

- Disadvantages
- Social media causes misinterpretation of messages
Slide - Recommendation
There is a need for the organization to;
1- Hire social media managers to create social media sites and platforms for the
organization to engage with its staff and employees: will help to boost the information
sharing among employees.
2- Customer service department to revamp its feedback and monitoring techniques to
enable effective reception of feedback.
3- Organize and conduct diversity trainings to employees to build their capacities to blend
in a multicultural organization.
Slide - Conclusion
There is strong need for Deere and Company Ltd to invest in social media as information
sharing tool among clients and employees. The organization thus needs to ensure it receives the
feedback from the clients as a way of reviewing their performance and understand areas of
improvement. It is common that multicultural organizations face challenges in communication.
Therefore, cultural diversity training helps to bridge the gap in cultural differences.