Communication is a prerequisite for organizational success. If communication in an organization has mistakes, the organization could suffer substantial losses due to wastage of valuable resources such as time, goodwill, employee efforts etcetera.
Business communication is among the most dynamic forms of communication due to the mere fact that businesses are aimed at profit maximization, and any change towards more effective communication would make a business achieve this goal.
In the contemporary society, businesses are changing their forms of communication to keep in pace with changes in technology. I have personally experienced and witnessed most of the contemporary trends in business communication in my workplace.
Communication is particularly crucial in the day-to-day running of a business. The need for effective communication in the day-to-day running of a business is due to the fact that a business may have a number of workers and clients who will need specific information at certain times in order for them to play their roles in the business.
In order to work on something during the day-to-day running of a business, stakeholders need to be involved in decision making and action taking. This need will necessitate that these people be informed of a meeting in advance so that they plan for the meeting.
The stakeholders will, in most cases, be separated by space and thus the achievement of effective communication will prove to be difficult without the use of reliable communication tools. Thus effective and reliable tools such as email or text messaging to convene the meeting will be necessary.
Some tools of communication are also critical in the running of the day-to-day activities of an organization because they provide evidence of transactions (Bates, 2010, p. 1). For instance, correspondences between an organization and a customer could be used as an evidence of a transaction in case a misunderstanding arises.
Communication is also important in the day-to-day running of a business because it ensures that employees’ efforts are properly coordinated. This results in effectiveness of the operations of the business because there will be no cases of duplications and repetitions.
In the recent past, people in businesses used to communicate via letters sent by post. Communication within the business or organization was mainly done by the use of paper memos. Minutes of meetings used to be documented in paper form and delivered by hand or mail to the person they concern. Nowadays, communication has been completely changed by the use of technology.
E-mails have substituted virtually all the former forms of communication such as letters, memos and minutes. Emails are now, increasingly, used in businesses and organizations to send letters,
memos and they are even to send minutes of meetings in which a soft copy of the minutes is emailed as an attachment to respective recipients (Hunt, 2010, p. 1). Also among the main changes to business communication is teleconferencing in which people hold a meeting by the use of their phones while in remote locations.
Also similar is the use of videoconferencing for holding meetings in which the members can see each other in a video device. Businesses and professionals are also using social networking sites in carrying out their day-to-day activities. This is achieved by the sending of private messages on the social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
This is common with media houses that are increasingly using the social networks to reach their clients. Professionals and business people are also making use of blogs on the internet to look for customers and consultants (Ober, 2009, p. 37). The blogs also give their visitors a chance to post comments and messages to a given business, organization, or individual.
Although the contemporary change in the trends in communication has resulted in more effective communication, they also have their shortfalls. For instance, not everyone is technology-savvy, and thus an assumption by a sender of a message that the receiver is familiar with technology may have undesirable effects. Additionally, the tools of teleconferencing and video conferencing require effective planning for them to be successful.
The contemporary trends in business communication have seen the use of a variety of technology tools in day-to-day communication. There a numerous messages that have come as a result of the use of these technology tools. Some of these messages are stated in the discussion above and they include email messages, text messages and even private messages sent on social networking sites.
As evidenced from the discussion above, communication is a an important part of any business. Without communication, most businesses will, perhaps, be brought to a halt. The business community has thus been exploring ways in which to effectively communicate during their day-to-day activities.
From the discussion, the business community owes the contemporary effectiveness in communication to technology. This is because most of the changes that have taken place in communication over the years have been enabled by the presence of technology tools.
The tools include the aforementioned messages such as emails, text messages, and facilities such as teleconferencing, video conferencing, and the like. Business people who have not yet embraced the change in business communication should therefore ensure that they research on how they can use technology tools to make their communication effective.
Reference List
Bates, S. (2010). Workplace Communication Trends for 2010. Web.
Hunt, J. (2010). Current Trends in Business Communication. Web.
Ober, S. (2009). Contemporary Business Communication (7th Ed). New York. Wadsworth Publishing.