Managing Communication, Knowledge and Information: A Report

This report delves into the critical aspects of managing communication, knowledge, and information within an organization, emphasizing their importance for effective decision-making at strategic, tactical, and operational levels. It explores various internal sources such as financial, personnel, and marketing departments, and external sources including government, trade groupings, and research. The report also examines the role of stakeholders, discussing their involvement in decision-making processes and their benefits. Furthermore, it highlights the impact of technological advancements like smartphones and digital manuals on information gathering and dissemination. The report underscores the need for continuous assessment of market changes and the significance of stakeholders' participation in ensuring the success of an organization, illustrated through the example of UFC (Universal Food Corporation). The report emphasizes the need for organizations to adapt rapidly to market changes through the effective use of internal and external sources of knowledge and information.

Managing
Communications,
Knowledge and
Information

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1.....................................................................................................................................................................4
1.1.............................................................................................................................................................................4
1.2.......................................................................................................................................................................5
1.3.......................................................................................................................................................................6
TASK 3...................................................................................................................................................................10
3.1.....................................................................................................................................................................10
So there should be formal and informal communication within an organisation in order to communicate
effectively.........................................................................................................................................................10
3.2.....................................................................................................................................................................10
3.4.....................................................................................................................................................................11
TASK 4...................................................................................................................................................................12
4.1.....................................................................................................................................................................12
4.2.....................................................................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Managing communication, knowledge and information has the vast area to discuss.
Today in the rapid changing information technological world where every one is limited to
one click it is necessary to asses the knowledge and information needs in an business
organisation to face the cut throat competition of market. It is very necessary to examine and
analyse each and every information and knowledge to take effective decisions. For this
internal and external sources of information are need to be studied which could lead the
organisation to achieve their standards and goals in quick and effective manner. Knowledge
is the centre of the both , successful functioning of organizations and to their strategic
direction (Case and Given, 2016). Managing Information and Knowledge in Organizations
leads to establish an effective communication among the employees which leads to
motivation an quality outcomes. This could be happened by regular feedback by the
employees in regard to the various strategies and their implementations because every
employee in an organisation belongs to different region, status and environment and thus they
could have much better ideas than managers sitting in AC rooms.
TASK 1
1.1
To understand the importance of information and knowledge we need to first
understand and discuss the range of decisions which are as follows:
1. Strategic Decisions: These are the long term decisions which affects the whole
organisation (Cornelissen, 2014). These decisions are made by the senior
management which lightens the path to achieve organisational goals. These are the
future plans according to the organisational mission and vision. Such decisions are
mainly taken by the Board Of Directors in board meetings for which resolution is
need to be passed in AGM or EGM. These decisions may be concerned with
possessing new resources, organizing others or reallocating others.
2. Tactical Decisions: These decisions are medium term decisions taken by the middle
managers to implicate the strategic decisions in an effective manner. Here the
managers need to take the decisions such as research work , developing divisional
plans, establishing distribution channels, acquisition of resources such as men,

materials and money (Golob and et.al, 2013.). Such decisions relies on internal and
external data. For example if an organisation wishes to launch a new product,it is the
duty of middle managers to find out the competitor’s price , work on the product
design, its packaging , its marketing and promotional strategies and its
implementation plans.
3. Operational Decisions :These decisions are day to day decisions taken by the lower
level managers to accomplish tactical decisions in effective manner. These decisions
very as per the requirement of the actions taken to achieve specific short term goals.
These are usually low cost decisions related to employees wages and their welfare.
1.2
In the rapid changing world it is not possible to be conservative towards the strategic
plans, it need to be rapidly change as per the demand of the clients and consumers, therefore
the business entity need to continuously assess the market changes and this is possible only
through assessing information and knowledge to take effective decision (Button, Harrington
and Belan, 2014). The knowledge need to be as fresh as daily newspaper ,as daily newspaper
do not has any significance next day similarly knowledge gains only when it is received as
quickly as possible because in this cut throat competition market the person who grab the
knowledge gains. But every knowledge is not useful it is the duty of the managers and related
persons to asses information and knowledge received as per the requirements. Today the
consumers have various alternatives so they can easily switch over to other better alternative
to fulfil their demand and satisfy their needs.
Information and knowledge is needed every level of decision either it is strategic ,
tactical or operational level because every level has its own importance . Strategic level is
involved with long term future plans which affects entire organisation so it requires detailed
research study because this information and knowledge collected here can lead to huge
disaster and high losses (Pinjani and Palvia, 2013). At tactical level the middle managers
need to take decisions which supports strategic decisions . This includes the decisions related
to marketing and designing the product to make it preferable for the outside audience so this
step also requires vast research about the competitors and the market therefore here also
knowledge and information has great importance. At operational level, company has biggest
risk to loose their employees because every employee run towards better facilities and

remunerations and working environment therefore, every entity need to have keen knowledge
and information about the changing requirements and quick and effective step need to be
taken to satisfy their employees so that they do not move towards other organisation because
the operational level is like the machine of the factory without which no production is
possible (Roggeri, 2013).
1.3
After understanding the importance of knowledge and information in an effective decision
making it is necessary to understand the different internal and external sources of knowledge
use by the UFC ,which are as follows:
1. Internal Sources : The internal sources of the information are mainly collected
within the organisation itself through financial, personnel, marketing, purchasing, sales,
manufacturing and administration departments which could be briefly described as follows:
 Financial Sources: Every decision need to be taken by the organisation is directly
related with the financial information. It gives the detail view of the retained earnings
of the company, their tax and interests burden, their debtors and creditors turnover
ratio which helps to take financial decision regarding the goal to be achieved
(Navarro-Ortega and et.al, 2015).
 Personnel Information: Here the information is collected by taking feedback by the
employees working within the organisation regarding various decisions need to be
taken by the organisation. This step builds up the feeling of oneness among the
employees and motivate them to work effectively.
 Marketing Information: This information includes the information collected by the
marketing team about the current scenario about the competitor's strength and
weakness and their future plans so that the decisions taken by the organisation could
be effective enough to face them and push them behind (Weller and et.al, 2014).
2. External sources: This included the sources like Government, trade groupings,
commercially provided information, database and research.
 Government : Government sources are more reliable than any other sources therefore
government data and manuals are preferred to take effective decisions. Companies
need to use important legal information from the Government to run the business
successfully and legally. For example various acts like wages act, labour act, tax rate

policies etc are need to be considered to take effective decisions regarding employees
and other administrative activities (Feraco and et.al, 2016).
 Researches : This is also the effective external source which helps to gather the
knowledge and information through various surveys and public feedback which
could lead to increase in sales and level of profits in the organisation.
1.4
Today as the technological world is growing rapidly therefore various improvements
could be made in this field in UFC . Today 100% people has mobile phones which has been
upgraded as smart phones which has number of features like camera, digital transactions
what up Instagram etc.
What up is the new feature which joins large number of people as a group and provide
facility to the group to continuously relate and share their views with each other and give
feedback on every current issue glowing in the region .Therefore , this could be also the
effective external source which can provide knowledge and information to take effective
decisions because through whats up we can easily reach to the large number of specific
people in one click which saves time and money too (Kabir, Han, Yu and Colman, 2014).
Digital manuals is also preferable to gain knowledge and information because
internet can be consider as sea of knowledge about each and every current issues and changes
in the world and its detail descriptions about its causes and consequences. So it is also the
major external source of information.
TASK 2
2.1
Stakeholders in UFC means the institutions or groups with the goal to support the
business entity having bright future perspectives and plans . Their main aim is to achieve
high returns than investing in the banks and keep eye on the performance of the company as
well as their decisions. Therefore they have the keen interest in every decision taken by the
organisation and thus every strategic decision of company has the involvement of
stakeholders. The company has to circulate a notice to all its small or big stakeholders about
the resolution to be made in the AGM or EGM (Frank, Ribeiro and Echeveste, 2015). They
are free to attend the meeting and give their presentations and dialogues to the company.
Company refer these presentations and dialogues as a meaningful part of formulating and

implementing the strategies. The company has its own article of associations and
memorandum which defines the stakeholders strengths and limitations. As per the legal
frameworks, stakeholders involvement has become an important issue for every essential
plans, programmes or specific activities which means he is the person whose action
determine the outcome of the business decisions .These could also be the employees who
have been offered some benefit packages by the company, they need not be any equity
holders but has enough power to give necessary recommendations and views about the
decisions taking place in the company. For example in the UFC 'universal Food Corporation '
The stakeholders could be factory manager, planning manager, material manager, R&D
manager, transport manager etc (Evans and Alire, 2013).
2.2
The effective participation of the stakeholders in UFC is possible only when they are
closely associated with the entity and have complete knowledge about the operations.
Therefore it is necessary to make harmony relations with them which is easily possible when
they are internal like with factory manager . It is easy to have close contact with him when
he is working This could be possible through inviting him to lunch or other formal and
informal get together through mail or personally call him. We can even simply walk to his
desk and have the discussions with him. It is the best way to take every stakeholder views on
the platform and speak about the problems and the decisions need to be made by the
organisation thus no formal meeting is required for the same.
If the stakeholders have large position stakes in the organisation it is necessary to call
general or quarterly meetings and have a good dialogue with them . Stakeholders
participation can also be possible through developing social networks i.e. social clubs and
various sport leagues can also be performed to create good environment with the stakeholders
(George, Haas and Pentland, 2014).
2.3
Depending upon the descriptions identification of the stakeholders and their benefits which
are as follows:
 Factory Managers has the biggest involvement in this process as he has the detail
information about the product and its manufacturing process so he has the great
experience about the the manufacturing operations. Thus he could assist in tactical

and operational decisions like in purchasing of machines and its effectiveness and
efficiency.
 R&D team also helps in providing decisions related to new product to be launched as
this team has large network in market and they continuously monitor the changing
marketing trends through various surveys and data collected through various sources.
 Material Manager provides the knowledge and information about the decisions related
to raw materials required for the product and other decisions related to its quality, cost
and its quantity as they are closely related with this process (Eriksson and Stanton,
2015).
 Transport manager provides the knowledge and information about the decisions
related to transport facilities to be increased in the organisation as per the
requirements and the decisions taken by the board or is to be taken by the board.
Thus every stakeholders are genius in their respective areas and fields, so they can
provide effective knowledge about the same therefore it is good to involve them in decision
making.
2.4
The above strategies are mainly applicable and effective on small business but in large
business like UFC which needs to cover large network. Therefore, these companies requires
strategies that would help the company to maintains the personal network with external
stakeholders and develop business relationships through media or social media like
Facebook, twitter, blogs, websites and TV adverts etc. These new IT techniques help the
company to share their knowledge and information and receive instant feedback ,
strengthening the link with customers by using them into the decision making process. This
helps the company to rectify the issues and their mistakes rapidly as per the responses
received by them which saves time and money both because the execution of the whole
process is very time consuming and expensive and once this amount is discharged it cannot
be regain (Nakamura, Umeki and Kato, 2016).
Social media is the way to maintain direct link with customers and in the same way
blogs help to maintain informal and personal network with the external stakeholders.
The business entity can take feedback from their manufacturing operations to reduce the
production cost for example the company can outsource manufacturing operations to

suppliers that can help companies to increase profit and customer satisfaction, by
decreasing costs and keeping up with consumers demand. Thus, the social network
development is effective step and strategy to improve the role of stakeholders in the effective
decision making.
TASK 3
3.1
There are different ways used to communicate in UFC which could be classified as
follows :
1. Upward communication allows the employees to share their views and thoughts with
their leaders freely. This motivates the employees to work harder for the organisation
as they feels respected and honoured to give their views as they are part of the
organisation rather than just a salaried employee. Thus it also creates mutual trust
between employees and their managers.
2. Downward communication is very important process in an organisation as this
process leads to fulfil organisational goal . Until and unless the employees are not
well informed about the task and consumers are not known about the product newly
launched , neither the employees will able to perform their task effectively nor the
consumers will get attracted towards the product (Why Business Communication Is So
Important, 2017).
3. Horizontal communication is also required to maintain and develop the mutual
relations among the employees at different levels which helps in saving time and
money by sharing ideas and problems to solve them effectively instead of always
following management and bureaucratic levels.
So there should be formal and informal communication within an organisation in order to
communicate effectively.
3.2
Today in the rapidly develop IT world , whole organisation could closely relate with
each other through cordless phones and mobiles. This could easily be possible through online
chatting i.e through SPARK . This facility allows the person to communicate with any
person within the whole organisation sitting on his desk itself. It allows instant sharing of

views and receiving feedback spontaneously and also leads to develop mutual relations
among the employees of the organisation as they are in continuous contact with each other .
This saves time of moving desk to desk to all its employees and take feedback or share any
important decision with every one and ask them to work accordingly .This feature also has
various other facilities like sending any snapshot of the copy of the project or sending a report
to the specific person rather than sending it through any person or moving to his desk
personally which is very time consuming (6 Reasons Why Effective Communication Should
Be a Focus in Your Business, 2014). The e-mails are also the effective source of the
communication within the organisation which helps in effective delivery of the information.
Meetings in the regular intervals can also develop mutual relations within the organisation as
continuous conversation between the people help to develop personal network with all its
employees and gain face to face views from them.
3.3
The above described sources of communication is implicated in the food company
UFC i.e Universal Food Corporation. The company has called off the software technicians to
develop a online network in the organisation so that every employee is inter related with each
other and could express and share their views any time and can have clear vision about their
task without consuming much time on the desk itself. The online network joins whole
organisation which helps to build good and positive relations with every one in the
organisation . But this could also create gap between the leaders and employees which could
effect their time management and their task performance. Therefore there should also be
regular personal rounds to know the right picture of the work done by the employees because
it is not necessary what is written online is on the platform too. So personal touch is also very
important spontaneously.
The company has declared to call regular meetings either weekly or monthly with all the
leaders and trade unions to interact with each other about the achievement of the task and
further steps need to be taken to develop it to achieve the organisational goal . The meeting
also discuss the future perspectives of the organisation and the possibility of heir implications
with the help of stake holders (6 Reasons Why Effective Communication Should Be a Focus
in Your Business, 2014).

3.4
Myself as a developer of personal communication plan I have the view that every
person is expertise in one or the other region according to their backgrounds, upbringing,
culture and region to which they belong. So it is very important to grab there expertise skills
and convert them into real to improve the organisation performance as these people are
passionate about their skills and have better vision to implement the mission . I would
motivate the employees for self development in order to get the best out of them to achieve
common organisational goals. Complete independence need to given to employees to explore
as much as they can and can give their best to the organisation. I would work on SWOT
Analysis which gives the detail information about the strengths , weakness, opportunities and
threats. With the help of such analysis I could understand the strength of organisation which I
need to use to remove the weaknesses and threats prevailing in the organisation and grab the
opportunities prevailing in the market.
TASK 4
4.1
Historically ERP system was used in the organisation in which all information is
collected in the different locations as per their prime objective for example in case of
accounting TALLY 9 is used to store all the financial transactions in different sections and
the p&l, balance sheet, sales HR accounts etc are automatically developed and formed and
could be stored for long period of time but at the time of transferring the data there is chance
of getting data corrupted (Eriksson and Stanton, 2015).
But now DXB is effective means to get accurate and timely information and then
data could be transferred quickly without any problem in terms of formatting and data
corruption. The large organisation has massive records to be store so they need to be
effectively and timely collected, formatted , stored and disseminated. Since, documents are
valuable for an organisation to submit annual returns, applying loans, providing annual
reports to their shareholders and taking various effective internal decision. Therefore there
should be proper system to collect and store them and thus DXB is the best effective way .

4.2
DXB is an effective system to collect, format, store and disseminate the data timely
but it lacks the access of lower people because it is strongly hold by the managers and they do
not share it with everyone because strategic decisions are confidential and are need to be
protected from wrong hands. So they need to locked by the various security systems through
passwords, firewalls and smart cards control etc . These security systems can only be shared
with the person authenticated to receive the information and knowledge. Assign passwords to
each staff member, instead of banning them from seeing anything, create levels of access.
The Chief information Officer need to be appointed to keep close eye on every information
to be shared and by whom (Evans and Alire, 2013).
4.3
In UFC as a Chief Information Officer I like to incorporate the effective system
where every information related to the organisation whatever be the subject it should be
collected, formatted and stored. There should also be the effective system to timely
disseminate the information as and when required . Every employee should be free to access
the knowledge and information but I need to keep close eye on every one using the
information so that such news need not get misused by anyone. In DXB I need to make some
alterations in order to make more safe and effective through various security systems (6
Reasons Why Effective Communication Should Be a Focus in Your Business, 2014).
CONCLUSION
The above discussion helped us to understand the importance of information and
knowledge in our company i.e. UFC to take effective decision to achieve organisational goal.
Information and knowledge could be collected through various internal and external sources
which have now upgraded with the changing market and IT world like social media, what's
up , twitter, Facebook , blogs, e-mails etc. In this task we have also highlighted the
importance of stake holders and their role in decision making as they are part of the
organisation and give effective knowledge about their respective areas. In large organisation
Like UFC the communication level need to be also effective share the views and opinions on
any task as and when required.