Business Communication Courses

Communication is an essential element determining business success. ‘Business Communication’ is the process of transferring information from one person or party to another, within and outside of the business environment. This term is derived from the general communication linked with business undertakings. In other words, communication between people or business parties for business-centric tasks is known as ‘Business Communication.’

As per the fundamentals of business communication, the methods, types, process, principles, etc., are almost identical to general communication. The key difference exists in their areas of application. Communication is considered the lifeblood of business, considering its value to businesses in several ways.

The constant flow of information is the key idea behind business communication. Its integral part is feedback. These days, organisations involve a huge number of people, and different levels of hierarchy exist in an organisation. The number of levels is directly proportional to the difficulty of managing the organisation. At this point, communication plays a vital role in the business environment in directing and supervising the people in the organisation.

Effective business communication between subordinates and superiors is the secret to business success. It helps avoid misunderstandings and facilitates immediate feedback. Generally, business Communication covers various aspects like interpersonal communication, marketing, customer relations, public relations, etc.

A few decades back, business communication was restricted to telephone calls, paperwork, etc. However, with the technology revolution, we now have cell phones, emails, video conferencing, satellite communication, etc., to support business communication.

Effective business communication assists in creating goodwill for an organisation. Moreover, effective business communication is the approach management, and employees communicate to achieve organisational objectives. The key objective is to enhance organisational efficiency by decreasing mistakes.

Fundamental elements of Business communication:
If you aim to learn business communication, you must know its fundamental elements stated below:

• Sender
• Business Information
• Receiver
• Feedback

The aforementioned elements denote business communication as a process in which business-centric information is exchanged between various business parties like employees, business clients, suppliers, customers, etc. The purpose is to have effective administration in place.
For successful communication in business communication, a regular flow of information and feedback is crucial. Due to various levels of hierarchy and the participation of a huge number of people, business communication is vital in various management functions like planning, directing, organising, and controlling.

After getting familiar with the fundamentals of business communication,one must understand different business communication methods.There must be clear methods of communication in place in a workplace. They ascertain that everybody knows the exact process and that nothing would get missed.

Each method comes with its purpose and benefits. You can determine which approach to employ based on what message to impart.

1) Email Messaging:
One of the greatest methods of business communication is sending emails. Email messaging offers a rapid, easy, and economical way to send messages wherever an Internet connection is accessible worldwide. Emails can be delivered 24 hours daily, and the delivery is prompt.

One of the key benefits of email messaging in the workplace is you can easily refer to the message history. This method reduces the need for printing and storing physical documents. Moreover, it decreases the issues of ‘who said what’ in the conversation because you can easily track the message from the email. It is one of the most prevalent written business communication skills to learn.

Emails are extremely useful for delivering messages that include too detailed or lengthy information. Sending an email is a perfect method to reach out to a client, seek approvals, and send business approvals. The reason is the formal tone the emails convey. Moreover, emails are useful for sending a project brief, organising a task, and sending business documents (like invoices, contracts, etc.). Email messaging is also useful when the message sent doesn’t need an instant response. The corresponding example can be circulating company newsletters and announcements.

Although email messaging offers various advantages at the workplace, it has some limitations. Firstly, sending and reading emails can be time-consuming and productivity-killer. Secondly, it can be annoying when you are copied to email threads that don’t need you to be in. Thirdly, email messaging can make you susceptible to viruses, phishing scams, spam, and ransomware risks

2) Team Meetings:

Team meetings work as a collaborative tool that engages employees with the business. Team meetings must be used to keep ideas flowing, brainstorm, share immediate feedback, and make mutual decisions. When used effectively, it can assist employees in becoming more productive and creative.

To ensure a meeting doesn’t become disruptive, ascertain that it always follows a predefined agenda. Get rid of getting off-track or discussing irrelevant concepts. Keeping meetings action-focused and brief will help you a lot. Moreover, it is recommended to be watchful of the duration of the meeting. Without being lengthy, it should outline the decisions and call to action.

Team meetings are often used for brainstorming sessions. As an alternative, people about to attend meetings must be ready with their suggestions before they approach. Keep in mind that team meetings should serve as a platform to discuss and improve the idea, not a place to think of fresh ideas.

3) One-on-One Personal Communication:

In several cases, face-to-face conversation is the best approach to discussing business-centric matters. The digital forms of conversations may not feel natural. On the other hand, the body language and non-verbal cues involved in one-on-one personal communication eradicate misunderstandings usually experienced with electronic communication.

This business communication method is useful for various purposes. If you wish to discuss a confidential or sensitive issue with a client or colleague, it is better to face-to-face meet another party instead of a phone call or email.

Managers also use one-on-one meetings to give feedback or training. Employees can use one-on-one meetings to describe a project detail, provide status updates, or obtain a quick decision from a superior or client.

4) Presentations and Training:

Most employees refer to presentations and training sessions as meetings. But they serve a unique purpose. Meetings are collaborative and demand the active participation of the attendees. On the other hand, training and presentations are typically one-sided.

One team or employee presents their ideas to another party in a presentation session. Their major time is devoted to one party while explaining messages. The presentation session usually concludes with a question-and-answer portion. In most cases, the content of a presentation is extended for the first time in the session, so you must not expect detailed feedback.

Companies conduct training sessions to educate their employees about new processes. Although several tech innovations are prevalent, training is still valuable.

5) Instant Messaging:

Instant messaging is outstanding tool employees use to exchange messages in real-time. These messages can be sent one-on-one, or employees can be engrossed in a group conversation.

You can use online applications (like Skype, WhatsApp, etc.), text messages linked to your phone line, or direct messaging tools over your social media channels.

Usually, one-on-one instant messaging is used to have quick updates, deliver reminders to your colleagues, or ask easy questions. The response is quicker than email. But unlike in a phone call, there is no pressure to answer instantly.

Several online applications like Skype and Slack allow multiple users to engage in team conversations in real-time. It is beneficial specifically for connecting employees from various business locations and departments.

Several young workers choose Instant Messaging because it is less formal than emails and doesn’t need much time, unlike Team Meetings.

6) Video Conferencing:

The advent of fast Internet connections in various parts of the world has improved video conferencing. Video call is an upgrade from voice calls because it allows participants to see one another over calls. So, video conferencing avoids dialogues’ overlapping.

This method is a superb alternative when in-person conversations are not possible due to location constraints. Video conferencing is a great option if in-person meetings and training are unachievable.

7) Voice Call:

Many businesses still use voice calls either via phone or Internet applications. Frequently, customers reach out to companies through toll-free numbers or hotlines. Clients, colleagues, and business partners also use voice calls.

Although voice calls used to be a favoured business communication method, it has become less popular these days. The reason is that phone calls are not free and can cost excessively if you call somebody from another city or country.

Avoid voice calls to discuss sensitive information and lengthy topics. With voice calls, it is possible to detect whether that person is ready with a response or not. Hence, more employees prefer emails or instant messaging.

The aspects discussed below will further strengthen your fundamentals of business communication:
1. Listening:
Without listening, you can’t understand how the team feels and can’t know their ideas for the organisation’s growth. The team’s voice indicates their interest in the project. Businesses must ensure the right forum for the team to explore their views. In a group discussion, every team member will not be confident to convey their opinions. They can feel more confident if they practice listening skills.

Speaking only when necessary adds value to a conversation. If you do not have anything valuable to add to a conversation, you must listen to absorb what the speaker is delivering fully. Attentive listening ensures effective communication with the team.

2. Trust:
A team can’t work effectively for you if they don’t trust your actions or instructions. Establishing trust is the most significant aspect of a successful leader. Without trust, the team can’t follow the strategy or direction suggested.

Trust is one of the vital aspects of business communication because it can resolve mistakes or misunderstandings. Moreover, it helps the team feel encouraged to take up the responsibility. Transparency from the leader makes sure the team is more likely to work instantly without any fear. Consequently, it fosters an honest partnership between the manager and the team.

3. Control and focus:
In business environments, many projects may not accomplish as per the plan. So, the question is how to maintain control of the situation. It is possible by focusing, being judicious, and guaranteeing that the team is being communicated effectively. The team should be agile and problem solvers to ensure control and focus.

For example, team members may feel demotivated in a crisis if their leaders got out of control and stressed. So, the team members need a leader who can control the situation and bring things back on track.

4. Encouragement and Confidence:

Confident people can easily tackle a challenge and can influence people around them. Such people can inspire others with their determination and ability to handle tasks consistently. So, if you are not confident in what you speak, you can’t expect anyone else to be. Therefore, confidence and encouragement are the key aspects of business communication.

Especially when formulating the vision of the business, confidence and encouragement are the foundation stones. Many businesses often overlook these aspects, but business success is difficult without them.

5. Clarity

Lack of clarity can create misunderstandings and other unexpected concerns that can significantly impact the business. Firstly, the team must always remember the idea it aims to deliver. Next, they should know how to express their views clearly.

Often, the message is not clearly expressed because it isn’t customised to the right audience. The message may have lots of acronyms that people find difficult to understand. The person delivering the message must always keep the target audience and their expectations in mind.

When delivering the message, make sure there are more applicable people to deliver it better. This is because the right person can better deliver the message. Furthermore, the message must be brief, concise, and clear.

When you learn business communication, one of the key facets you must not ignore is the communication barrier. You may thoroughly learn the fundamentals of business communication, but without knowing the barriers, the learning is incomplete.The communication barrier prevents a message from being received as envisioned. In some instances, the message may not reach its targeted audience at all or may reach only in parts. In other cases, the message may be poorly translated, fragmented, or misinterpreted by the recipient(s).
Key types of barriers to effective business communication:

a) Language barriers

b) Physical barriers

c) Psychological barriers

d) Cultural barriers

e) Organisational barriers

f) Technological barriers

Let’s look at their details:

a) Language barriers:
Language barriers usually occur due to miscommunication associated with translation difficulties or vernacular differences. Effective business communication skills can help reduce the impact of these barriers. Misunderstanding can arise due to ineffective use of language, accents, and dialects.

People in the same organisation may suffer from differences in vocabulary. To reduce the language barriers, things to look after are frequent misunderstandings, disagreements about multiple interpretations of the same message, or complaints about a dearth of clarity.

b) Physical barriers:

The most common physical barrier is distance. Due to remote work becoming increasingly common, team members may be separated from their colleagues by thousands of miles away. In the absence of a powerful communication system, they would find difficulties in communicating.

To reduce the physical barriers, things to look after are excessive delay in the submission from employees and distraction due to noise or other physical causes.

c) Psychological barriers

Psychological barriers are the result of individual mental health concerns. Disagreements are vital in workplaces, but occasionally, such conflicts can lead to serious concerns. Employees with conflicting perspectives, priorities and communication styles negatively impact the whole team.

A common psychological barrier is the lack of trust, which can make communication difficult.
To reduce the psychological barriers, things to look after are empowering employees, facilitating employee engagement or feedback, and strengthening team collaboration.

d) Cultural barriers:

Cultural barriers arise from differences in social values and norms. It’s vital to be aware of ethnocentricity and the hypothesis that all cultures share your organisation’s beliefs, values, and lifestyles.

Dealing with ethnocentrism will help the team members feel significant and engaged, irrespective of their background. Moreover, you can train your team to prevent business etiquette mistakes in other cultures.

To reduce the cultural barriers, things to look for are ostracism, stereotyping, or some other ethnocentric behaviours

e) Organisational barriers:

Organisational barriers in business communication arise from a dearth of understanding of your business configuration and personnel’s roles. Typically, these barriers occur because employees are either unaware of or don’t entirely understand the existing business structure. These barriers can impact businesses of all sizes.

Communication bottlenecks and silos are the typical causes of these barriers,

To reduce the organisational barriers, things to look after are educating employees on how to share/request information, educating team members to contact the right individuals for specific information, and ensuring no loss or delay of vital information in the chain of command.

f) Technological barriers:

In business communication, technological barriers may arise when people don’t have the proper tools or training to use them. The other causes are lack of up-to-date hardware and lack of systems guiding employees about their duties.

To reduce the technological barriers, things to look after are frequent technological failures (for example -poor Internet connectivity or computer crashes), slow-performing platforms, and wrong use of technology due to inadequate understanding.

There is no exact way to communicate in an organisation. But evaluating different types of business communication and their benefits with limitations helps you decide which strategies work best for the organisation. Types of business communication are listed here:

i. Upward communication

ii. Downward communication

iii. Lateral communication

iv. External communication

Let’s get into details of each of these types:

i. Upward communication:
Upward business communication flows from a manager to a superior-level executive. This type of executive business communication enables those in charge to monitor things happening in the organisation.

Let’s understand its working with an example. Suppose a data specialist prepares a marketing report comprising website analytics to convey decisions at the top level. In this example, the data specialist is at a lower level of the hierarchy, and it would communicate to the superior level of the organisation. Hence, it is an example of upward communication.

Advantages of Upward communication:

• The information collected from team members keeps the management responsive to the requirements of their employees. So, employees who feel appreciated would be more dedicated to giving their best efforts.
• In upward communication, management can recognise issues early before they intensify.
• The early access to management allows the employees to share their innovative ideas to help the organisation grow faster.
• Businesses with upward communication are typically popular for adopting a friendly, harmonious environment.

Limitations of Upward communication:

• The accuracy with which employees convey information to the higher authorities is limited to their comfort level while communicating with their supervisors.
• This business communication method is successful only if there is a transparent, accessible, and instantaneous chain of commands flowing from bottom to top.

How to improve upward communication:

• Maintain an open-door policy.
• Regularly engage employees in conversation.
• Listen to employee concerns while displaying empathy.
• Arrange anonymous suggestion boxes, Q&A sessions, surveys, email chains, or internal chat forums to collect honest feedback from employees.
• Use multiple communication channels to guarantee hassle-free accessibility to all workers.

ii. Downward communication:

The flow is from management to direct reports, i.e., the top-down approach.

Let’s understand its working with an example. Suppose the manager shares project information with the team. Another example is the CEO conducting a meeting to discuss the previous year’s performance and discuss the coming year’s objectives.

Advantages of Downward communication:

• Vital information like instructions, operational details, and clarifications of complex issues can be rapidly distributed in a downward flow.
• Easier allocation of key responsibilities.
• Company-specific rules, standards, and disciplinary consequences can be easily strengthened to support compliance.

Limitations of Downward communication:

• Employees may feel insignificant, unfulfilled, or unenthusiastic about their work.

How to improve downward communication:

• Keep leadership visible, available, and reliable.
• Provide a communication schedule to guarantee that employees will value and prioritise your messages instead of feeling irritated or overwhelmed.
• Management must implement friendly body language and ask employees about how the work is going on.
• Management should maintain exhaustive notes about employees, permitting them to add extra details (if any) when dealing with individual employees.
• Conducting business communication skills training to train inexperienced employees.

iii. Lateral communication:
Its flow is through employees, departments, or managers of identical status in the organisation.

Here are a few examples of Lateral communication:

• A team communicates upward and downward via emails.
• Coworkers participate in a team chat to solve an issue.
• Managers unite for a brainstorming session.
• The marketing team discusses the modification of a website’s design with a web designer.

Advantages of Lateral communication:

• Helps in problem-solving, information sharing, and task coordination.
• Valuable for large-scale enterprises that depend on interdepartmental coordination.
• It tries to merge organically without requiring upper-level approval; hence, it speeds up the communication flow.
• Conflict and misunderstanding are reduced, and teamwork is reinforced.
• Employees feel motivated both socially and emotionally.

Limitations of Lateral communication:

• Employees might communicate in a more unprofessional, casual tone which can lead to potential quarrels.
• Teams may grow provincial about the tasks they are working on and dislike interjections from other departments, thus discouraging collaborative efforts.

How to improve Lateral communication:

• Communicating via one-on-one conversations, phone calls, or video chat helps avoid misunderstandings.
• With exceptional written business communication skills, a written follow-up like a memo or email can make meetings more effective and helps avoid confusion.
• Using contemporary project management tools to facilitate interdepartmental communications can reduce bottlenecks and barriers.

iv. External communication
The information flows from within the organisation to external parties like customers, prospects, vendors, the media, investors, sponsors, partners, regulatory bodies, lawmakers, consultants, or the general public.

Examples of External communication:

• Deployment of a press release to notify the media about a new product’s launch.
• Presentation of a sales proposal to create interest from investors.
• A website informs customers about the benefits of the company’s services or products.

Advantages of External communication:

• Positively influences the company’s reputation, making it more desirable to customers and stakeholders.
• Helps create and maintain good relationships with customers.

Limitations of External communication:

• If poorly executed, customers can get conflicting messages that weaken the company’s reputation.
• Every piece of external communication must be meticulously curated and assessed. Any wrong data, inappropriate quotes, or a missed target audience can descend a whole marketing campaign. So, it can negatively impact the company in the minds of the general public.

How to improve External communication:

• Convey straightforward, keeping in mind what readers/customers want.
• Extensive research will help you know your audience. It lets you use the correct tone, language, and channel.
• Complement but never replace internal communication styles.
• Connect customers and employees so customers can more effectively engage with your brand and employees attain a deeper perception of the target audience.