BUS709 Communication in Business

Introduction

Business communications form an extremely important part of any business organisation and I personally think that there are a lot of differences in the form of communication that is used for businesses and corporate purposes. There are a lot of concepts underlying effective business communications that I was exposed to during this course. I was aware of the general characteristics but this course unfolded many new perspectives to the topic of business communications. Essentially, I have also been able to correlate what I have learnt and implement the same in my daily life and for academic purposes as well. In this reflective journal I will be talking about the various perspectives and concepts that I came across and learnt through this course and how these can be used by me from now on to improve my already existing set of skills. The two parts of business communication that I will emphasise on in this journal include the usage of verbal and non-verbal modes of communication for business purposes and on the potential barriers and the overcoming of those barriers in the field of efcetive business communication.

Use of Verbal and Non-Verbal Modes of Communication

Through this course I have been able to gather knowledge in the field of communication competency. It is the single concept that helps businesses in gaining and establishing successful business and marketing relations. I feel that the field of communication within any business is essentially two fold. I have learnt that there should be a proper balance between  the communication carried out within the organisation amongst the employees working at different levels as well as the communication carried out by the organisation or the business with the customers and clients.

On careful reflection of this course, I found that if communication in the field of business is used in a strategic manner, it can actually yield to larger revenue generation through increase in the existing market share of the firm in the industry. I personally feel that effective means of communication helps in building relations with customers and help in understanding the demand patterns of the customers better. I will hence try to run a business that handles both the internal and external parts of the business communication effectively and also try to keep the two in sync. I feel that using this strategy will enable to increase the reach of my business and help my organisation to gain a larger market share.

To maintain, I think that it is extremely essential to use both verbal and non-verbal modes of communication. Verbal modes of communication include, features use of sound, the pitch of the voice and even the tone of the speaker in which he is speaking . The volume of the voice is also an important feature and characteristic of verbal communication. The non-verbal modes of communication on the other hand include use of proper expressions, gestures and body language while communicating verbally (Mehrabian 2017). I feel that a use of both in the right proportion is very important for gaining the trust and confidence of the customers. This will essentially enable my organisation to increase customer satisfaction and hence the market share for any given financial year. This course has helped me reflect on the fact that the use of non-verbal communication helps to increase the impact and effect of what is being communicated verbally. I think that the use of non-verbal communication helps in bolstering the verbal portion being communicated. This will also effectively help in dealing with barriers to communication in the multi-cultural aspect (Burgoon, Guerrero and Floyd 2016). I also feel that the use of non-verbal communication will help to easily explain the context being put forth by verbally communicating the same.

Further, the usage of both verbal and non-verbal modes of communication helps in gaining larger amounts of customer attention and increases the retaining power of the customers so that they continue to be loyal to the firm or the purpose of communication per se (Barnlund 2017). One of the most crucial points in this respect is that the use of non-verbal modes of communication help in modulating the length and intensity of verbal communication by altering the length of the parts expressed verbally (Mandal 2014).

I also think that even when there are no barriers to communication use of non-verbal modes of communication and especially, proper body language helps in portraying the personality and confidence of the individual. This is important in gaining trust from the audience and creating the best possible impression on them. It complements the points told verbally and brings out the best effect possible.

Barriers to Communication

While studying this course I also happened to come across a few barriers that leads to ineffective communication at least for purposes of business and academics. These barriers to communication mostly emerge from differences in background and culture when the business under consideration is trying to effectively expand its horizons (Baker and Warren 2015). Hence, one of my chief goals of business management and administration will be to eliminate the effective and valid barriers in the context of communication.

I think it is very crucial to understand the importance and usage of verbal and non-verbal modes of communication in this context. I will try to study the cultural patterns in terms of origin and languages before the decision of expanding to new regions is made and finalised. In case of expanding to a new region and country, where there is prevalence of a different language, I think employees who can use proper non-verbal modes of communication like expressions, gestures and body language to gel with the people from another origin should be given roles in that subsidiary. Further, I also think that there are numerous new options developed through the use of proper technology and innovated devices that can be implemented to reduce the dependence on languages and verbal modes of communication. I will take steps so that such devices or technology is used to reduce the communication gap in case of multi-cultural conversations. Moreover, it is also important to use the exposure and increased horizon of knowledge provided by expansion to new countries with varied cultural backgrounds (Madera, Dawson and Neal 2014).

The use of reading and writing as well as visualization as a means of effective business communication becomes very important (Yousif et al. 2017). I think that these provide with options that can help overcome potential barriers i the context of effective business communication. For example, I think the usage of mails with succinct use of words completely based on the purpose of communication is a good way of reducing problems related to barriers in communication. Mails help to reduce the total time of communication and also help to serve the purpose of communication in a very specific manner (Yuriev et al. 2018). I also feel that the usage of visualization is a very important method of communicating for business purposes in the face of existing barriers. For example, I feel that the use of presentations for preparing pitches and offers for clients is a very effective way, of generating cogent and persuasive communications. I also think that it is very important to understand that visualising the context of communication is a better option compared to an option like usage of written mails. This is so because the person on the reading end of the mail might not be able to decipher the tone in which it was written in the first place.

I also personally think that English can be effectively used as a language tool to reduce most barriers in the field of business communication. This again will require me to understand the extent to which English is used as a source of communication in the country or region, the business is being expanded into. It will also require me to understand what is the intensity of English usage in that region or country for business and official purposes both a means of verbal communication and writing. This in turn will require me to understand the commonly used phrases of that region or country especially in the professional context.

I think that the problem of communication for efficient business communication also poses threats on the quality of socialising for the employees of the business and the organisation. Hence, it should be dealt with proper strategies and technologies like those that I mentioned in the preceding sections.

Conclusion

According to my perspective that the two most important concepts of communication and business purposes are barriers to business communication due to inter-cultural communication gaps and use of verbal and non-verbal modes of communication. I think that this course has helped me correlate these two concepts so that I can use the same to overcome problems in the future related to business purposes and improve relations with clients using the same. I think a proper combination of different modes of communication in combination with other features like technologically advanced modes of information sharing will enable me to overcome most barriers arising due to gaps created by languages or different cultural origins and even sense of comfort.

References

Baker, T. and Warren, A., 2015. The Nine Common Barriers to Communication. In Conversations at Work (pp. 54-74). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Barnlund, D.C., 2017. A transactional model of communication. In Communication theory (pp. 47-57). Routledge.

Burgoon, J.K., Guerrero, L.K. and Floyd, K., 2016. Nonverbal communication. Routledge.

Madera, J.M., Dawson, M. and Neal, J.A., 2014. Managing language barriers in the workplace: The roles of job demands and resources on turnover intentions. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 42, pp.117-125.

Mandal, F.B., 2014. Nonverbal communication in humans. Journal of human behavior in the social environment, 24(4), pp.417-421.

Mehrabian, A., 2017. Nonverbal communication. Routledge.

Yousif, L.M., Alsamahi, M.A., Alkaabi, W.R., Alnaqbi, W.A. and Castillo, F.G., 2017. Communication barriers in a multi-diversified workplace: the case of Fujairah International airport. European journal of economics and management sciences, (2).

Yuriev, A., Boiral, O., Francoeur, V. and Paillé, P., 2018. Overcoming the barriers to pro-environmental behaviors in the workplace: A systematic review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 182, pp.379-394.