BSS063-6 Introduction Existing processes of communication in an organisation

Introduction

The main aim of this paper is to provide an idea about the range of decisions and how to assess information and knowledge for an effective decision-making process for a new start-up that will open a shop. The paper will discuss internal and external sources of information. It is important to create strategies for increasing personal networking to involvement in the decision-making process of a company. So a proper decision-making procedure is very much important for every business. This assignment will help the new start-up in identifying stakeholders for a decision-making process and building a business relationship with them. It will design strategies for improvement. Furthermore, the paper will provide a recommendation for the new start-up. 

The range of decisions to be taken

Decision making is one of the most important functions for an entrepreneur. First of all, the decision to avoid joining a service and be prepared to be an entrepreneur should be taken after considering all valid points like:

•           To start something new will not only create opportunity for self-employment but also the job for others may be five which may go up to 500 or even more

•           The possibility of earning more which is much more than which can be earned through a job

Therefore the decision making is important as the first step for the entrepreneur. After that at every step, the proper decision has to be made to the selection of alternative raw materials, reduction of cost in the production process, quality up-gradation of products, marketing strategy to combat competition, sourcing of funds, and recruitment of employees and so on.

For a new start-up, the decisions should be taken by the head of the company. There will be various types of decision for the new start-up like the financial decision, sourcing of products, recruitment of personnel, and marketing strategy.

Financial Decision: For every new start-up, the decision regarding finance is the key important decision. Supply of fund or money for the business is the first thing that comes into the mind of an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur should also make a decision on how to make more profit and earnings from the business. A proper decision has to be taken by the contractor about the source of financial support. It means who will provide them money for the firm. There must be a reliable source of finance. Besides that, a new business needs financial supports for marketing and human resource purpose. So the entrepreneur must be able to make a correct financial decision according to the future needs.

Source of products: The other important decision is the source of products. The new start-up will be based on selling high-quality food products, so it is important to make sure about the origin of the products. It means from where does the product will be sourced? So the entrepreneur needs to make a decision about the source of his business products.

The decision regarding recruitment of personnel: Personnel or the employee are considered as the assets of the company. While recruiting staff for the shop, the entrepreneur must be careful. He needs to assess how many employees are needed for their shop. He should also select skilled employees for their store.

Marketing Strategy: Decisions regarding marketing strategy are crucial for every business. These decisions have life-long effects. It includes product strategy, pricing strategy, identification of target customers, SWOT of competitors and promotion strategy. The entrepreneur should be very much careful while making decisions on the marketing strategy of his business.

The information and knowledge needed to ensure effective decision-making

Proper information and expertise must be needed to ensure effective decision procedure. The new start-up should have some kinds of information. The company should know about their target customer, preferences of customers, financial source, product availability, competitors' business style and current market demand for their products. They must access internal information as well as external information to take an effective decision. The entrepreneur must gather knowledge about the business process. He should know about the regulatory process policies. The knowledge about products and business domain is also necessary. The entrepreneur should know differential advantage sought regarding quality, price, service and the basis on which these are to be achieved. It is known that decision-making process has an impact on the business directly. It helps to gain more profits and earnings, build a good image of the company in the eyes of stakeholders, customers and others.

Internal and external sources of information

Internal Sources of information means the information which is available within the organisation. Internal information can be various types of financial data, personnel information, marketing information, purchasing information, sales information, manufacturing and administrative information.

The organisation gathers external sources of information from official or unofficial sources. It means they collect information from them who are externally affected with the business. Some examples of the foreign source of information are Government, trade grouping, commercially provided information, database research information.

To manage a decision-making process needs proper aspect of accessing internal and external information. It is seen that faster decision making can react to the market changes quickly.

Recommendations for improvement

It is important that the information and knowledge must be improved for the effective decision-making process. The new start-up can collect information by engaging a representative to do a survey on customer demand. They can get information about competitors by attending trade shows and by joining industry associations. They can start formatting information method with the implementation of the paper backup system so that they can have information paper for quick reference. The ranges of decisions must be taken carefully. To collect information and knowledge about the customer, they should create a website. The collected information should be analysed properly, and the target customers must be segmented according to their needs and personal information as collected. The internal and external sources of information must be reliable as these sources are a vital source for any business. The decisions regarding marketing strategy which includes several sections like product strategy, pricing strategy, the promotional strategy should be unique.

Stakeholders for a decision-making process

Stakeholders are basically investors of a business. The management of an organization should be able to identify the stakeholders for their business. The definition of stakeholder is that they are the large investors of a company and holds stake of a company. There are two types of stakeholders- Primary stakeholders and Secondary stakeholders. Primary stakeholders are those who investors, customers, suppliers and employees of the company. They directly affected directly by any positive or negative actions taken by the business entity.  Secondary stakeholders are indirectly affected by the positive or negative actions taken by the business. They are general public, communities, business support groups, activist groups, and media. Stakeholders are liable to make decisions about the company. Their actions establish the outcome of the business decisions. It doesn’t mean they must be equity shareholders. Stakeholders can also be the employees of the company. They are liable of an organization’s and products’ success. Stakeholders can be the business partners who are trustworthy to keep the supply chain of a business going. Every organization takes different approaches to the stakeholders. Their roles and responsibilities differ from company to company. The decision making process includes various types of decisions. Types of decisions includes what to produce and how to produce, how much to produce and what selling types to use, where to locate, who to employ and how many, whether to use new business styles or stick to the existing one etc. They communicate with the organizational head while making decision. Organizations engage stakeholders to check the social and environmental issues which matter most to them in their performance to improve decision making process.

Make contact with those identified and develop business relationships

It is important to develop good business relationship with the stakeholders. After identifying the stakeholders of the company, the management should contact them and build a good rapport with them. Building good relationship with the stakeholders helps a company to increase profit margin.

Involve those identified in the decision making as appropriate

It is obvious that involving identified stakeholders in the decision making process is an appropriate key part of the business. It is seen that there are many benefits of involving stakeholders in decision making process. It is seen that stakeholders have unique vision to identify issues. They are capable to secure resources for assisting in decision making process. Engaging stakeholders in decision making process makes the decision more transparent.

Design strategies for improvement

Designing strategy for improvement involves seven stages. These are:

·         Determination of mission or purpose

·         Environmental Assessment (Threats and Opportunities)

·         Organizational Assessment (Strengths and Weaknesses)

·         Specification of objectives/goals

·         Formulation of strategy or strategic plan to achieve objectives and goals

·         Implementation or execution of strategic plan

·         Monitoring, Reviewing and Evaluation

Determination of mission states that before planning any strategic plan, one should fix the goals and objectives of the company. These goals will be achieved through the strategies.

Environmental Assessment includes opportunities and threats assessment. A company should examine the external environment of the company. Business is a part and parcel of a company. Therefore, the environmental assessment is needed to implement strategic plans. Opportunity assessment implies identifying available opportunities present in the market. Threats assessment means determining threats for the company like high competition from the competitors.

Organizational assessment includes strength and weakness assessment. There are strength and weakness present in a company. A company has some positive parts which are their strengths like good location and negative parts or weakness like high overhead cost. A company should always increase their strength by eliminating their weaknesses. A strategic plan implementation requires swot analysis of the company.

Specification of objectives and goals means specify goals of the company. There must be many goals and objectives but the company should specify some particular goals and objectives which will be a part of the strategic plan.

Formulation of strategies means create unique strategic plans which will be achieved in the strategy implementation process.

After formulating strategic plans, implementation is done. This stage is a delicate stage as proper implementation is needed to achieve the set goals and objectives.

Monitoring, reviewing and evaluation is the last stage of strategic plan implementation. After implementing the strategic plan, it is important to monitor and review the implemented plan and evaluate it positively.

 Task 2

Introduction

The main aim of this section is to present a scenario for developing communication processes within the organization with the stakeholders and provide an idea about how to improve systems relating to information and knowledge for a new start-up which will open a shop. The paper will discuss the existing communication process in an organization. It is important to designwaysto improvecommunicationin a company. Therefore a proper communication process is very much important for every business. This assignment will help the new start-up in implementing improvements to ensure greater integration of systems of communication in that organization. The paper will include a personal plan to improve communication skills and carry out appropriate changes to improve the collection, formatting, storage and dissemination of information and knowledge. Furthermore, the paper will implement strategy to improve access to systems of information and knowledge for the new start-up. 

 

Existing processes of communicationin an organisation

Communication process is the way to communicate with the internal and external stakeholders of the company. In every business, the effectiveness of the internal and external communication process of a company play a pivotal part in overall success of the company.

In this scenario, the purpose of the business is to expand the business by acquiring a new business. So there is a two-way communication process which has been followed by them. The communication process can be explained by Schramm’s Model of communication where both sender and receiver are able to send and receive message. This is a two way process. In this communication process, the message is only sent after encoding it and the sender is called encoder whereas the encoded message is decoded after receiving by the receiver and the receiver is called decoder.

The following image is the snapshot of Schramm’s Model Communication:

Here, the sender is the shop owner who is going to sell his store to me. Receiver is myself. The sender is communicating with the receiver with the message that he is going to sell his business. No medium is used in this case as both are communicating face to face. After decoding the message or understanding the purpose of the communication, the receiver can send feedback to the sender. In this case, the feedback will be either to purchase the business or not.

There are various processes of communication which the business can follow. These are Shannon and Weaver Model, David Berlo communication model, Schramm’s Model of Communication, Constructionist model etc.

The purpose of the business is to expand their business by opening more outlets or by extending goods and services or by developing channel of distribution. To fulfil the purpose, the business must follow a particular effective process of communication. The Linear Model will be appropriate in this case. It is a one way communication process. Here sender only can sends message to the receiver and the receiver cannot give feedback or response. This model is applicable in mass communication where sender sends messages to the mass. In this aspect, the owner of the business informs to the external stakeholders of the organization. He sends messages to mass by using mass media like social media, television and internet. The business owner uses this model to inform the mass about their new business outlets or extension of providing goods and service using print media or television or social media.

Similarly, Lasswell Model of Communication is also followed. Lasswell Model suggests that the receiver can provide feedback after receiving the message. After communicating with the external stakeholders, the sender can get feedback from them. For an example, the owner is communicating with the stakeholders for expanding his business store. The stakeholder can give feedback like he is ready to invest in the business or not.

The following figure showcases the Lasswell Model of Communication:

Design ways to improve appropriateness

It is seen in the existing communication process that there are lots of bottlenecks in the process. These are known as communication barriers. Some communication barriers like emotional barriers, difference in perception and viewpoint, distance problems, cultural barriers, conflicts etc. To overcome communication barriers and fix the problems, the business must follow some ways. These are the following:

·         Video conferencing- Human psychology suggests that people prefer face to face interaction in business purpose and it seems more reliable.

·         Video of representatives in one of the blogs- The business should include some blogs including the representatives’ talks.

·         Include testimonials of customers- It is very much effective to drag the attention of future customers by providing testimonials of existing customers. These testimonials will include their experience with the business.

·         Use multiple communication channels for organizational communication- The management can send their messages by using multiple communication channels like e-mail, fax, meetings etc. It can reach to maximum number of people.

·         Repeat important messages- It is seen that repeating important messages for several times can improve communication. 

·         Focus on listening- In one-way communication process, listening carefully is a key part. It helps the listener to understand the message easily and he/she can able to interpret it.

·         Be able to handle communication problem easily- All communication problems like cultural difference, conflict etc. should be solved easily.

 

 Implement improvements to ensure greater integration of systems of communication in that organisation

Communication happens when one person is communicating with other or others. To be successful in communication process, some communication planning must be implemented. Communication plan is the art and science to communicate with the target audience by using communication channels like public relations, advertisements, direct mails etc. A communication plan includes the followings:

·         Understand the present scenario- The business should analyses the internal and external business scenario.

·         Define organizational goals and objectives to the employees- The management should define the goals and objectives clearly to the employees of the organization. It means the employees should aware about their responsibilities and duties.

·         Identify the target audience- Identifying target audience is important for every business. Listing and analysing of target audience is also important for every business communication.

·         Send importantmessage- It is important to send key message to the target audience so they can get proper information about the company product easily.

·         Build strategiccommunication process- Management should create a good communication strategy for communication.

·         Evaluation- To check the success of the delivery of the message, an evaluation of the successfulness of the message should be done.

 

 Create a personal plan to improve owncommunication skills

It is important to make an effective communication process to achieve business goals. The following steps can be followed to improve own communication skills.

·         Improve listening skills- It is important to listen carefully while communicating with a person. Listening is more important than hearing. After listening something, one can response or give feedback.

·         Take care about other’s emotion-In communication process, maintaining eye contact, facial expression is important. Beside that it is also important to understand other person’s emotion.

·         Emphasizing situation-Every communication should be unbiased and support environmental situation.

·         Encourage communicators-In a communication process the communiators should encourage and praise each other.

·         Treat each people same- Equality must be maintained in communication process. It is important to treat each people same to avoid partiality.

·         Be able to resolve any conflict- It is important to be able to resolve a conflict in any communication. The one who is resolving conflict should be effective in resolving conflict.

·         Maintain positive attitude- The persons who are communicating must maintain positive attitude. They should be friendly, optimistic and positive minded.

·         Minimize stress- It is seen that stress can be a huge barrier of communication. So it is important to be calm and positive minded while communicating with anyone.

·         Receive feedback- Every communication process needs feedback of the receiver of the message. It makes the communication more positive and unbiased.

 Report on existing approaches to thecollection, formatting, storage anddissemination of information and knowledge

It is important for a person to understand what information must be used in the communication process. The organisation should evaluate the particular information aginst the objectives and goals of the organisation. If there is any issue or problem of the receiver, the sender must understand this and collect required information. There are various types of information like Practical information, Statistical data, Bibliographic information, Referral information and analytical information. After collecting the information, proper formatting must be done according to the requirements of the organisation. Then the collected information should be stored properly in organisation. After that the information should be disseminated after verifying the receiver of the information. There should be communication channel for determination of the information. The communication channel can be electronic media (TV, radio, internet, email, fax, video, podcasts, teleconferencing, and webcasts) and oral media (words).

 Carry out appropriate changes to improve the collection, formatting, storage and dissemination of information and knowledge

Information should be collected from reliable source. For improving the information collection, formatting, storage and dissemination should be very systematic. Traditional and innovative method should be used in collecting information. The formatting of information should use unique process. The storage section should be protected as well as it can be retrieved easily. Database creation should be efficient and effective. The channel for information dissemination should be effective in communication process.

 

Implement a strategy to improve access tosystems of information and knowledge

Every company should make the information and knowledge easily accessible. The information must collect information of different departments. The managers should communicate with the employees to get information. The management must make up-to-date information level. Company should make developments of information by gathering feedback from the employees.

Conclusion

For making good decision, every organisation must interpret and collect information properly. Communication process is sharing meaningful information between two or more than two people aiming that the receiver of the information understands the sender’s message. It is seen that in many jobs strong communication skills are required and improved communication skills are also needed. Organization should be careful while communicating with others. In this section, two communication models are written. One is Wilbur Schramm's communication model and the other is Lasswell model of communication. These two types of communication models define how the organization is communicating with the stake holders. The first model states how the owner communicates with the buyer. The second communication model states how the organization communicates with the stakeholders. The stages of collection, formation, store and dissemination of information require delicate handling. The collection of information is done by organizational management. The dissemination includes communication channels like advertisement, brochure, and telephone. The implementation of strategy regarding information and knowledge is a Key part of every business plan.

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