Costa Coffee UK: Improving Communication, Knowledge & Information

This report provides an in-depth analysis of communication, knowledge, and information management at Costa Coffee UK. It discusses various decisions the organization needs to make, including strategic, tactical, financial, and operational decisions, and emphasizes the importance of information and knowledge in effective decision-making. The report assesses internal and external information sources, justifies recommendations to increase customer base, identifies key stakeholders, and proposes communication channels to engage them. It evaluates Costa Coffee's current communication structure, suggests improvements, and outlines implementation plans to enhance communication with the local community. The report also includes a personal plan to improve communication skills and focuses on improving systems related to information and knowledge within the organization, aiming to enhance overall business growth and stakeholder engagement. Desklib provides a platform to explore similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

MANAGING
COMMUNICATION,
KNOWLEDGE AND
INFORMATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................2
LO1....................................................................................................................................................3
1.1 DISCUSSING THE RANGE OF DECISIONS TO BE TAKEN BY THE ORGANIZATION.....3
1.2 ANALYSING THE INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE NEEDED TO ENSURE
EFFECTIVE DECISION MAKING.....................................................................................................5
1.3 ASSESSING THE PRESENT INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION THAT
ARE AVAILABLE FOR COSTA COFFEE UK......................................................................................7
1.4 JUSTIFICATION OF RECOMMENDATIONS TO INCREASE CURRENT AND POTENTIAL
CUSTOMERS.................................................................................................................................8
LO2..................................................................................................................................................10
2.1 IDENTIFYING FIVE IMPORTANT STAKEHOLDERS FOR COSTA COFFEE.................................10
2.2 COMMUNICATION CHANNELS USED TO INVITE THE STAKEHOLDERS................................11
2.3 STAKEHOLDER’S INTEREST AND FEEDBACK ABOUT THE FIRM............................................12
2.4 DESIGNING THE BEST POSSIBLE STRATEGY FOR THE LAUNCH OF COSTA COFFEE NEW
PRODUCT TO BE OUTSTANDING AND UNFORGETTABLE..........................................................13
LO3..................................................................................................................................................14
3.1 THE CURRENT COSTA COFFEE UK’S COMMUNICATION STRUCTURE AND SYSTEM............14
3.2 DESIGN WAYS TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM....................................................15
3.3 IMPLEMENTATION PLANS THAT WILL IMPROVISE THE COMMUNICATION MEDIUMS
BETWEEN COSTA COFFEE AND THE LOCAL COMMUNITY.........................................................16
3.4 CREATING A PERSONAL PLAN TO IMPROVE OWN COMMUNICATION SKILLS....................17
LO4 IMPROVING SYSTEMS RELATING TO INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE..............................18
CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................20

REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................21

INTRODUCTION
The growth of any business depends upon the strength of information and knowledge available
in the company. The effective communication skills play a very major role in gaining success of
the firm. The report presented below analyses the information and knowledge needed by the
Costa Coffee UK in developing a new product plan. The report presents various kinds of
decisions might be taken by the firm to enhance the growth of the firm. It also identifies the
different stakeholders of the organization and also seeks the various the cost-effective channels
for communicating with them. Also, various strategies have been suggested to enhance the
communication with the stakeholders. The existing communication process of the organization
has been analysed and improvements have been suggested to enhance communication skills.

LO1
1.1 DISCUSSING THE RANGE OF DECISIONS TO BE TAKEN BY THE
ORGANIZATION
The Costa Coffee is a British multinational coffeehouse company that is headquartered in
Dunstable, UK. It is a subsidiary company of Whitbread, which is the largest coffeehouse brand
in the UK. This firm is currently operating in 30 countries worldwide and wants to expand its
business in other countries also. The main target of the firm is to create 5000 new jobs for the
poor people and have to build 100 new schools for the vulnerable children in the UK. Another
main goal of the organization is to increase sustainability by reducing carbon emission by an
amount of 15% of the total emitted carbon (COSTA COFFEE, 2018).
Figure 1: Costa Coffee Logo
[Source: https://www.docsity.com/en/a-case-on-costa-coffee/2331493/]

For achieving these goals, certain decisions need to be taken by the firm to perform operations
effectively in the direction of goal achievement.
Strategic Decision- The top management of the firm must plan strategies to successfully grow
in the market. Strategies must be designed to perform the tasks effectively that would lead to
goal achievement. These are long-term decisions taken by the top management of the firm to
provide new jobs to the people and to increase sustainability.
Tactic Decision- The tactic decisions are made by the middle management in order to change
the planned strategies to gain short-term goals. This involves the analysis of the current trends
and practices and decisions are made based on the proper analysis of the current situations.
The firm may change the planned strategies of building new schools for the children as per the
requirements. New temporary development plans can be made by the firm to build the schools
at the proper location and with proper facilities.
Financial Decision- It is imperative to design a plan for investment in the projects. The financial
decisions help in analysing the cost factor involved in the development of new products and in
carrying out new projects. The products and the services must be cost-effective and profitable
for the firm.
Operational Decision- The operational decisions are very helpful in successfully performing
daily activities and responsibilities in the estimated time and desired performance. This involves
decisions regarding employees' wages, the performance of employees etc. The activities
involved in the expansion of the firm must be carried out successfully to achieve the desired
objectives.

1.2 ANALYSING THE INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE NEEDED TO ENSURE
EFFECTIVE DECISION MAKING
The effectiveness of decisions taken by the firm depends upon the information and knowledge
gathered and used in the decision-making process. These two are considered as the core
elements of the decision-making process. The data and information gathered during the market
research must be analysed properly from every aspect before taking any decision (Binder,
2016).
Following factors must be analysed by the firm Costa Coffee for successfully achieving the
product and market development plan-
Competitors- There are huge competitors of the firm in the market. The Costa Coffee must
analyse the strategies adopted by the competitors to attract customers. The analysis of quality
and type of products provided by the competitors would help the firm to gain the competitive
advantage by providing better products to the customers.
Market- The firm must analyse the trending market needs and demands in order to gain
success. The customer needs must be properly analysed and serve the customers with quality
and innovative products to satisfy them and hold their attraction.
Customer Inclination- The management department of the firm needs to determine the
customer’s choice along with the market trends in order to acquire and serve market
effectively. The buying power of the customers must be analysed so that the firm may plan
effective strategies to overcome these factor.
Reliability- The information or the data gathered during the market research must be reliable
to best serve the purpose for which it is gathered. The efficiency of decision making totally
depends upon the reliability of information.

Quality- The information gathered must be quality information and must be relevant to the
purpose of gathering. Irrelevant data is of no use.
Time Factor- The information gathered must help in the effective decision making. It must be
gathered in estimated time. The data gathered after the estimated time would be of no use in
decision-making.
Assessing the knowledge type- The knowledge that is derived from the information must be
analysed for proper decision-making. The type of knowledge must be analysed before use
because tactic knowledge is very difficult to use and share with anyone. So, the knowledge
derived must be explicit.

1.3 ASSESSING THE PRESENT INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL SOURCES OF
INFORMATION THAT ARE AVAILABLE FOR COSTA COFFEE UK
There are various sources of information available to the firm for gathering the data and
information needed for effective decision-making.
Internal sources- The internal information can be gathered from the internal sources available
in the organization. The internal information can be collected from daily activities and
operations performed in the firm. SWOT analysis can be performed by the Costa Coffee to
analyse its internal strengths and weaknesses. It would also help the firm to grab various
opportunities available to the firm to grow more in the market and gain competitive advantage.
It would also analyse several threats for the firm so that the Costa Coffee may plan strategies to
overcome and handle those threats efficiently to ensure smooth operations of the firm. Apart
from the SWOT analysis, the firm may gather information from the customer feedbacks,
balance sheets, monthly finance reports etc to find out the performance of the firm (Louhiala
and Kankaanranta, 2011).
External sources- External environments affecting the firm’s performance can be analysed
through PESTLE analysis. PORTER’S five forces model would also help the firm to analyse the
competitors in the market. Market research can be done using several tools and techniques
such as direct feedback from customers by interviewing them. Questionnaires can be used to
analyse customer needs. Social media, research papers and journals would help in gathering
information about the market trends and demands, market conditions and dimensions of
market expansion.

1.4 JUSTIFICATION OF RECOMMENDATIONS TO INCREASE CURRENT AND
POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS
The recommendations suggested to the Costa Coffee for improvement in the decision-making
process for the global growth would help the firm to attain the desired goals in an efficient
manner. The firm is growing very fast and it is the nation’s favourite coffee shop. It has a huge
customer base. But there are several competitors emerging in the market with the aim to grow
more than the Costa Coffee and gain more popularity to become the customer’s favourite
brand. The competitors are providing better and quality products to the customers at lower
rates to attract the customers (Guffey and Loewy, 2012).
The top management must plan effective strategies to compete with the competitors and hold
customer’s attraction. Several recommendations for the improvement of the firm are-
Determining customer needs and market trends- It is very necessary for the firm to analyse the
competitor’s strategies to attract the customers and the quality of products they are delivering
to the customers. This analysis would help them to plan strategies to compete with the other
companies in order to hold the attraction of customers.
DICAR Model- The firm must make use of the DICAR model to evaluate the accuracy and quality
of information gathered for decision-making. DICAR stands for data, information, knowledge,
action and results. The data collected from the market must be consistent and complete. The
information gathered must be relevant and must provide some results or knowledge. The
knowledge presented for decision-making must be explicit that is it must be easily
understandable. The action refers to the eventual utilization of all these data, information and
knowledge gathered. Results produced must be helpful in achieving desired goals.

CRM- The customer relationship management is a very necessary and widely used tool for
establishing and maintaining a healthy and fruitful relationship with the customers. They are
the main asset of the firm. Modern tools such as data mining and data warehousing must be
used by the firm to store and maintain customer feedbacks. These feedbacks would help the
firm at the time of decision-making in order to identify customer needs and their views about
the firm.
Performance management- The performance of the employees must be monitored on a
regular basis. This would reflect the firm’s performance and would also help the firm to ensure
that the employees are working in the direction of achieving organization’s goals.

LO2
2.1 IDENTIFYING FIVE IMPORTANT STAKEHOLDERS FOR COSTA COFFEE
The stakeholders of the firm play a very vital role in the decision–making process. It is necessary
for the Costa Coffee firm to identify its important stakeholders in order to manage them
effectively to gain success of the firm. As a customer service manager of the firm at Edgware
Broadway, it is my duty to identify and invite the major stakeholders of the firm at the launch of
the new business chain.
Customers- The customers are the major stakeholders of the organization. They are considered
as the main asset of the firm. The growth and success of the business depend upon the
satisfaction level of the customers. So, it is necessary to identify customer demands and deliver
them quality products and services.
Shareholders- The shareholders play a very major role in the firm by providing the funds and
investments in the business. The firm must establish and maintain healthy relations with the
shareholders to run their business smoothly. The investment of shareholders depends upon the
productivity, growth and performance of the firm in the market.
Government- The rules and policies designed by the government affects the business a lot. The
laws and taxation policies formulated by the government of UK directly affects the decision-
making and growth of the organization.
Employees- The productivity of the business depends upon the performance of employees. It is
necessary for the firm Costa Coffee to satisfy employee needs and motivates them towards
achieving the firm’s goals.
Competitors- The approach and the strategies followed by the competitors must be analysed
properly in order to fight with the competitors in the market. This would help in efficient
decision-making and also help in holding the customers base.