Vodafone Report: Improving Inter-Departmental Communication & Barriers

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This report delves into the communication barriers faced by Vodafone in fostering inter-departmental cooperation. It begins with a literature review highlighting the importance of clear and transparent communication channels, employee training, and understanding departmental capabilities. The report then analyzes measures to improve inter-departmental cooperation, such as building strong relationships, encouraging cross-departmental interactions, assigning joint projects, and establishing clear communication protocols. It identifies exterior, business policy, and individual barriers that hinder effective communication, including differing interpretations, psychological factors, lack of trust, and complex organizational structures. Finally, the report suggests methods to overcome these barriers, emphasizing clear communication, mutual trust, appropriate language, cordial relationships, and the selection of suitable communication channels, concluding that addressing these issues is crucial for Vodafone's efficient operation and success. Desklib provides a platform to access this and many other solved assignments for students.

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Individual Report on Communication Barriers of Vodafone
Student’s ID:
University Name:
Author’s Note:
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Table of Contents
Literature review............................................................................................................................................3
Analysis and discussions of both questions................................................................................................... 4
For facilitating inter-departmental co operation, measures to be recommended to colleagues and
subordinates...............................................................................................................................................4
Barriers faced in communication...............................................................................................................5
Methods to overcome communication barriers......................................................................................... 6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................................... 6
References......................................................................................................................................................8
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Literature review
According to Maguire and Pitceathly (2017), communication between departments should be
improved to manage the process of functions and distributions among various departments
existing in Vodafone. The information needed by every department daily has to be identified at
first to meet their demands without any conflict. An open two-way communication channel,
which is transparent enough, should be established to increase productivity within the
organisation. On the other hand, Locker and Kaczmarek (2019) are of the opinion that the gap in
the communication process should be identified first to improve communication. The employees
in every department should be given training and induction processes should be conducted so
that the communication is made strong among everyone.
As opined by Rosemann and vom, (2015), the base of any company is dependent on the various
units or departments, which helps in the progress of the company. The employees of each
department must know each other well so that there is no confusion among the departments and
the team members while executing a process. Without knowing each other’s capability, strengths
and weaknesses, the work cannot be allotted smoothly. On the contrary, Matteson et al., (2016),
has stated that if the team members of every department have good communication within
themselves, there is no need to waste time in knowing every employee of an organisation of the
departments. If every employee in a single department executes any work by strong
communicating, it will cause no problem in the finalization of the work.
From the research works of Holmberg-Wright and Hribar (2016), it can be stated that the
information provided by means of communication must be clear enough to redress the process of
grievances if any. It is also to be seen that the receiver who provides such information can make
the other listener understand the plan effectively or not. On the other hand, Hargie, (2016) has
stated that while communicating it should be seen that the plans, strategies and language in
which it is communicated are understandable or not. The members who are working in various
departments may be of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, hence it may not be
possible every time for them to understand the instructions provided by their superiors. The
employees within the departments should be given induction in a particular code language that
should be followed only within the organisational boundary by them. This will help to solve the
problem of communication among the employees.
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Analysis and discussions of both questions
To improve the co-ordination among the various departments of Vodafone, communication is a
strong platform. It helps in communicating with the other departments within a business unit.
Every department must discuss about the new products and services, future sales, new ventures
and promotions, which is affecting innumerable number of departments. It is the duty of owners
of Vodafone Company and the managers to keep it simple to be understandable by all.
For facilitating inter-departmental co operation, measures to be recommended to colleagues and
subordinates
To improve the process of inter-departmental co-operation, some measures can be recommended
to colleagues and subordinates. It is essential to build a strong relationship among the various
employees of the departments like sales, HR, production and distribution so that there arises no
conflict while delivering the desired products and services to the consumers. The organisation,
Vodafone must encourage employees so that they get to know the other people who are working
even outside of the department. For instance, to make employees know each other, Vodafone n
can arrange for seating. Even an individual can take initiative to know other fellow mates of the
departments (Danso, 2016). For instance, an individual can improve relationships with their
fellows by inviting them for a lunch or coffee. They can also organise events like holiday parties
or get together or any kind of celebrations. This will help them to know each other easily.
An organisation should persuade their employees to meet with the people of other departments.
For instance, Vodafone should give training and induction programs to employees to help them
in the process of communication. This will develop a process of selflessness and will help in co-
operation and effective communication among the various units. The organisation can also
assign employees with projects that they can work on jointly so that they take help from each
other and while taking such help they communicate (Vodafone, 2016). In case Vodafone
arranges for any meeting, an employee after understanding the do’s and don’ts must divide the
task between himself and herself so that there is no confusion in executing the task.
Each organisation has self-terms or terminology, which they follow to facilitate the process of
communication. Therefore, when the employee of various departments work united, each
department must explain their respective terms. In certain cases, it is better to avoid such terms to
remove hindrances (Essays, Research Papers and Articles on Business Management, 2017).
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Vodafone can also appoint or hire someone who can act as a bridge between the various
departments. For instance, to increase communication and marketing skills Vodafone can
appoint an individual who will take care of both marketing and business expansion squad.
To ensure effective communication between departments, the employees should follow a
chatting system that is in-house in nature so that the department of every employee is connected
by means of that (authorSTREAM, 2017). For instance, now-a-days social media platforms like
Whatsapp and Telegram or even any designed chatting app only for the employees of Vodafone
can be done to improve the process of communication and strengthen interrelationship among
departments.
Barriers faced in communication
The various barriers that Vodafone may face can be classified as exterior barriers, barriers due to
business policy and individual barriers.
Exterior barriers- The keywords used while communicating in the process of business
management or the ideas expressed during the process may be understood by different
employees differently. This creates hindrance, as all of them have understood the concept in a
separate way than others. The psychology of one employee is entirely different from the other.
During business meeting, an employee may be thinking of some other matters instead of
concentrating on the plans discussed in the meeting, which causes a problem while they are
given responsibility to execute the plan (Voinea et al., 2015). An employee has his own subject
matter of liking, which sometimes causes him to not pay attention about the other matters
discussed he is not interested. This causes a problem, as he is inattentive while listening. An
employee may not sometimes remember the full discussion process in the meeting and tend to
forget majority of it. Some have tenacity to decipher information before the total plans are
discussed, which causes a problem while they execute the plan. Many team leaders love to rely
on written communication rather than an oral one, which creates problem as such written records
sometimes, fail to address the correct motive of the job. Lack of energy of the subordinates
causes a problem in the process of effective communication El-(Mekawy et al., 2015).
Business policy barriers- A team leader fails to infuse a sense of trust, confidence and
motivation among the employees, which causes time lag and delay in the process of execution of
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task (Nickolayev et al., 2015). When the structure of an organisation is complex in nature, it
takes a lot of time to reach the correct information to the subordinates and the employees who
cause a sense of miscommunication and delay in work.
Individual barriers- The team leader may be too much overburdened with work, which causes
him to forget which information to deliver to his fellow mates. He may be unaware about the
importance of communication process, which causes problem among the team members.
Methods to overcome communication barriers
For effective communication, it is necessary that the person who is communicating the
information should communicate it in such a manner that the listener can understand it well. An
atmosphere of mutual trust and belief must be set up within Vodafone so that every employee
can communicate with each other properly. The appropriate language must be selected by the
communicator so that the listener can follow his instructions (Szulanski et al., 2016). The
employee and the boss must share a cordial relationship so that each of them can freely share
their ideas and thoughts. Selection of appropriate communication channel like e-mail, social
networking platforms or personal chatting app must be selected for effective communication.
While communicating the team leader must see that, the feelings and sentiments of the
employees are not hurt. While discussing on a topic, every individual must share his or her views
so that everyone can speak and the process is executed properly (Haas and Cummings, 2015).
Conclusion
It can be accomplished that to manage the company Vodafone effectively and efficiently, it is
necessary to maintain a proper framework or structure of effective communication. Without
proper communication, no work can be done easily. The hindrances arising in the path of
communication should be removed as soon as possible to achieve success. The employees and
team managers should also remove their personal differences and embrace each other to work
towards a common goal. This will help to develop the business functions and the business will
survive in the end.
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References
authorSTREAM. (2017). INTERDEPARTMENTAL CO ORDINATION. [online] Available at:
http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/harry7575-884412-interdepartmental-co-ordination/
[Accessed 10 Jun. 2019].
Danso, A., 2016. The effects of market orientation on business performance: the mediating role of
internal communication. Case study of Vodafone Ghana (Doctoral dissertation).
El-Mekawy, M., Rusu, L., Perjons, E., Sedvall, K.J. and Ekici, M., 2015, January. From Theory to
Practice: Barriers to Business-IT Alignment in Organizations Acting in Sweden. In 2015 48th Hawaii
International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 4523-4533). IEEE.
Essays, Research Papers and Articles on Business Management. (2017). Coordination: Meaning, Need
and Principles | Organisation. [online] Available at:
http://www.businessmanagementideas.com/notes/management-notes/coordination/coordination-meaning-
need-and-principles-organisation/4999 [Accessed 10 Jun. 2019].
Haas, M.R. and Cummings, J.N., 2015. Barriers to knowledge seeking within MNC teams: Which
differences matter most?. Journal of International Business Studies, 46(1), pp.36-62.
Hargie, O., 2016. Skilled interpersonal communication: Research, theory and practice. Routledge.
Holmberg-Wright, K. and Hribar, T., 2016. Soft skills-The missing piece for entrepreneurs to grow a
business. American Journal of Management, 16(1), p.11.
Locker, K.O. and Kaczmarek, S.K., 2019. Business communication: Building critical skills. New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Maguire, P. and Pitceathly, C., 2017. Key communication skills and how to acquire
them. Bmj, 325(7366), pp.697-700.
Matteson, M.L., Anderson, L. and Boyden, C., 2016. " Soft Skills": A Phrase in Search of
Meaning. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 16(1), pp.71-88.
Nickolayev, V.P., Svintorzhitskaja, I.A., Bondar, I.A. and Ermakova, L.I., 2015. On subtle distinctions
between lingual communication and interlingual miscommunication. European Journal of Science and
Theology, 11(4), pp.159-168.
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Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process management.
In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Szulanski, G., Ringov, D. and Jensen, R.J., 2016. Overcoming stickiness: How the timing of knowledge
transfer methods affects transfer difficulty. Organization Science, 27(2), pp.304-322.
Vodafone. (2016). Deputy Manager - Ahmedabad, Gujarat | Vodafone. [online] Available at:
https://careers.vodafone.com/job/deputy-manager-in-ahmedabad-gujarat-jid-18766 [Accessed 10 Jun.
2019].
Voinea, D.V., Busu, O.V., Opran, E.R. and Vladutescu, S., 2015. Embarrassments in managerial
communication. Polish Journal of Management Studies, 11.
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