Business Communication Internal Assignment Applicable for December 2022

Examination
1. Introduction: Effective Communication
Effective communication is the process paying attention to an entire action of speaking and listening,
not just the content of the message. When one is a messenger in this process, one should consider
potential barriers at several stages that can keep your intended audience from receiving your message.

Being aware of how your own body language, attitude, emotions, knowledge, and credibility with the
receiver, might impede or alter whether and how the message is received. Consider the attitudes and
knowledge of your intended audience as well. Diversity in age, sex, and ethnicity or race adds to the
communication challenges, as do different training backgrounds.

With regards to speeches, there are two major factors that one should keep in mind for the effective
communication of the message intended to be delivered by the speaker. First comes at the time of
preparing the speech and the second is while addressing the audience. Mr. Thomas should keep these
two factors in mind and approach his speech.

Concepts and Application:

Firstly, while designing his speech, he needs to adhere to the PAIBOC model and formulate the content
with the following parameters in mind:
a. Purpose: The purpose here is to address the post graduate students on the eve of Management Day
and hence he should keep in mind to keep his speech relevant to the field of management.
b. Audience: As he is addressing the students undertaking management courses, he must emphasize
on the importance of management principals and how it will help shape the students’ future, career
and professional life.
c. Information: He should provide factual information regarding the current development in the sector
of management and present facts which will motivate the students perform better and graduate
with flying colors.
d. Benefits: Advantages of the course and management as a career path must be emphasized and the
students should be made aware of the perks and rewards given to deserving and excelling students.
For example, Job opportunities if any must be presented in order so that students can look forward
to join such organizations after their course is over.
e. Objections: Questions, doubts or queries can be raised by the students or difference of opinion may
occur randomly from the crowd for example, during interactive sessions after the speech. Replies to
those must be on point and affective.
f. Context: As it is the Management Day, he can describe how he as a student approached the course
and how he used the resources available to him how it helped him as a professional and also while
he started his business so that the relationship with the audience also has a personal context.
 Secondly, while he is delivering the speech, he should follow the 7 Cs of effective communication so that
his message is interpreted in the same manner as he intended to. The following parameters will help
him deliver an affective speech:
i. Complete: The message being delivered through the speech must be complete and the motive
behind the message should be easily understandable by the students. Additional details or facts
pertaining to the matter may be included if it helps in conveying the message completely.
ii. Correctness: The communication style must be correct and as immaculate as possible with
regards to grammar, punctuation, pronunciation etc. so that the speech is interesting and easy
to understand. Correctness of the facts and information provided in the content must also be
verified before it’s laid out there to the students.
iii. Courtesy: A cordial, polite and slightly humorous tone in the speech is the best way for the
speaker to gather the attention of the audience and build a personal connect with them. This will
ensure the speaker and also help analyze the mood of the audience and will result in a positive
atmosphere all over. Rude, firm or serious tone may impact the students adversely and the
outcome of the speech may turn out to be a negative one. For example, talking about his own
college days and mentioning one or two of his own experience will cheer the crowd up.
iv. Concrete: The message delivered through the speech should be concrete, tangible should not be
ambiguous or vague. For e.g., If job placements are discussed correct Facts and figures such and
the probable companies and the tentative salary packages must be clearly stated so that there is
no incomplete information.
v. Clarity: The message delivered should be easy to decode by the students and the content for the
speech should move in a linear manner, if possible, step by step focusing on a single point at a
time. The proper use of hand gestures and facial expressions plays an important role in sending
the message out clearly and accurately.
vi. Consideration: The fact that the crowd being addressed are management students should be
kept in mind and their general attitude, mind-set, cultural background must be kept in mind. Any
type of prejudices or stereotypical statements must be strictly avoided and the whole message
must be kept neutral so as to not hurt the feelings of the audience. For example, there may be
female students also present in the crowd and to always address only the males in the audience
can have a negative impact and send a wrong message about the speaker.
vii. Conciseness: The message must be concise and up to the point so that the message is delivered
in shortest amount of time possible. Lengthy statements may be confusing, and the crowd may
lose interest in the speaker, but a brief and succinct message is retained for a longer time.

Conclusion:
These above are the most effective ways Mr. James Thomas will be able to craft and deliver his speech
generating the best possible conclusion and resulting in a successful outcome of the Management Day
session conducted by the Institution.
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2. Introduction: Communication Barriers
As Ms. Riya Singh’s communications trainer I would suggest a systematic approach after understanding
the barriers she’s experiencing and take a stepwise action towards overcoming these limitations.

I would begin with the most basic of the problems and get to know in depth, the major problem she
faces while she’s trying to communicate. In this case, Ms. Riya seems to always be conscious about the
way she speaks, which makes her nervous and hence, this is a clear indication of lack of confidence in
her.

To overcome this issue, there should be a holistic approach with working one step at a time and
improving gradually. Hence, I personally suggest a simple four step practice to make it easy for her to
conquer her nervousness whenever she’s the one initiating a conversation or responding. This is the
single repetitive process of an ideal communication:

Speak → Listen → Understand → Reply

Concepts and Application:

a. Speaking: As someone working in a senior position, it is imperative that Ms. Riya will often have to
initiate communication from her end, whether it be to address her colleagues, clients, or vendors.
This can often happen in a written or verbal form.
I will start by advising her to use clear language and simple words when she needs to convey a
message, avoiding jargons. With English being the preferred language at work, she will have to
undertake simple practice sessions such as a few minutes of talking to herself in front of the mirror
in English, recording her voice and video, reading aloud in private and start thinking in English. Day
by day we will need to analyze how she’s doing and suggest improvements and let her only focus on
the aspect of delivering words, forming those words into meaningful sentences, and simultaneously
using appropriate body language, even if it’s on a phone call.
The next step in this would be to highlight the content that she needs to talk about and the best
practices around them such as, clarifying the purpose of communication as she begins to
communicate, obviating differences in perception, setting clear expectations, choosing the correct
time, place an environment to talk, speaking without fear with her seniors and clients and politely
with her subordinates and vendors, and finally, making sure that the receiver has interpreted her
message properly. This way she will have cleared the first hurdle in her quest by learning how to
begin or reply to a verbal conversation with others.

b. Listening: The second aspect and one of the most important aspects of a good communicator is
determined by how good a listener that person is.
Once she has initiated a conversation or is on the other end of it where she is the receiver initially,
listening plays a very significant role. I will work on her ability to listen patiently, attentively, and
accurately which helps in processing the information and replying accordingly. A confident but
aggressive person who does not let the others finish and cuts them off in between is also a sign of a
 bad communicator and a polite but inattentive person who is distracted while someone is speaking
is no different.
As a senior level professional, it’s very important to have an open-door policy where she would
always have her team approach her directly and when it comes to clients, she will be better able to
discover client needs properly and/or vendor constraints if any. This will help her to build a
systematic work environment and all her responses will be on point pertaining to the job at hand.

c. Understanding: It is important to understand and construe the statement that you hear, correctly
and as accurately as possible. This will help formulate a reply and respond appropriately.
Usually, under-confident people are unable to handle themselves when they come across high
pressure situations, such as handling criticism, occasional feedback from superiors, achieving
deadlines, meeting targets and handling escalations etc. I will have to make sure that Mr. Riya
remains calm and collective during such situations and doesn’t respond impulsively in the heat of the
moment and relax, process, let the information sink in, take time and come up with the most ideal
response or solution.
Under normal circumstances, assessing the speaker correctly will help design the best and ideal
response, and make the process more efficient with respect to client meetings, requests to vendors,
team discussions, one on one conversations, interactive sessions etc. and the outcome will be a
positive one if everyone understands each other and is on the same page. This will then bring us to
the last part of the process which is all about delivering that response.

d. Reply: Replying is basically speaking to respond forward once you are prepared with your ideal reply
as discussed above.
Before replying, I will suggest her to weigh in factors such as: the person/group she’s addressing,
her tone and expressions, subconsciously assessing if cultural inclusivity and diversity is not being
compromised, being fair and transparent with organizational policies, following the chain of
command, etc. and giving out the best reply depending on these factors.
She can take her time to lay out a proper response if the situation is not urgent and if it is, then
the best course of action would be to choose the most rational reply and avoiding information
overload.

Conclusion:
It is to be noted here that by replying, she’s again on the speaking part of the process and should keep
in mind, the aspects involved there to make the conversation clear, precise, and conclusive. So, an ideal
communication is a repetitive process in which all these factors are obeyed, and when this simple four
step process is followed, conversation in the workplace is smooth, streamlined and up to the point. Along
with these, some facilitating points which will contribute to her confidence levels will be her attire and
grooming, work infrastructure, decent organizational structure and schedule, and establishing relevant
policies.
This will be the most successful method that I would follow as Mr. Riya’s communication trainer and
help her overcome all her communication barriers.
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 3. a. The channels of communications involved:
Notice: The Vice President must issue a notice to all the people supposed to attend the
meeting. A notice contains formal communication sent to the people attending the meeting.
It’s a formal announcement and usually used to announce an upcoming event.

Agenda: An agenda contains a list of to-dos, points, or ideas which are supposed to be
discussed in a meeting. The agenda must already be in place before the meeting could begin
and should be communicated to the team in advance so that everyone can prepare and
participate in the meeting accordingly.

Below is the example of the Notice supposed to be issued by Mrs. Ruth to the Managers and
the Engineers for them to attend the meeting.

Steel Rods Manufacturing Company

44 E. West Street Ashland, OH 44805, USA
Date: 2nd November 2022
Subject: Meeting with Production team based in Germany

Notice is hereby given that the meeting with our Production team based in Munich, Germany
is scheduled on November 7, 2022, at 2:00p.m. (Eastern Time), in the company conference hall for a
video conference with the German team. The company invites the Operations Manager, Production
Managers, and the team of all 15 engineers reporting to the managers to discuss improving
productivity with our current batch of 15mm steel rods.
Agenda
i. To approve meeting minutes from the last production meeting.
ii. To revise procurement policies.
iii. To source new supplier for better steel quality.
iv. To reduce production costs and improve quality.
v. To revise the company budget.
Thank you for your time and hard work. Please arrive at the meeting on November 7, 2022, 10
minutes before the assembly begins.

Sincerely,
Catherine Ruth
Vice President, Steel Rods Manufacturing Company
Ph: +1 xxx xxx 1245
[email protected]
 b. Quotation: Once an organization receives an inquiry asking for products, services and
rates and are willing to hire services from a prospective buyer, the seller provides relevant
information by replying to this inquiry. This reply is called a quotation and is prepared keeping
in mind factors such as the background of the buyer, company profile, information asked for
like rates, discounts, product detail etc.

Below is an example of quotation of the rates of raw materials and finished products the
Production Manager must send to the potential client:

Steel Rods Manufacturing Company

44 E. West Street Ashland, OH 44805, USA
TEL: 2nd November 2022 email: [email protected]
Ref: Quot/1122/97 Date: November 7, 2022

M/s Elegant Steel Furniture L.L.C

Sub: Quotation with reference to your email with letter no Inq-Nov-64 Dated 6th November 2022.

Dear Sir,
We are glad to receive your letter of inquiry to source steel rods for your furniture manufacturing
business. We would be very happy to meet your requirements and provide them to you.
The steel rods we supply come in 2 different types depending on your needs; raw form and finished
product, which serve individual purposes.
The raw form will need to be polished and threaded whereas the finished product can be shaped as
you want it to. I have mentioned the rates along with product details in the attached quotation pdf
mentioning our costs for all the thickness, forms, and quality.
We would be very happy to offer you a discount of 25% on orders above $50,000 and a grace period of
40 days for payments.
We are confident that you will find our prices the best in the market and be highly satisfied with our
quality. We look forward to a long and prosperous business relationship with you!
Thanking You,
Yours faithfully,
John Doe
Production Manager, Steel Rods Manufacturing Company
Ph: +1 xxx xxx 5474
[email protected]