WHAT IS BUSINESS COMMUNICATION?
When you hear the term “business communication,” what comes to mind? Perhaps you think of email, letters, and reports. You might also think of the audience, requirements, the digital tools used to create the documents along with the platforms for making the documents available, and the research that goes into creating those documents. And you would be correct. Business communication is an umbrella term that usually is understood to encompass all these–as well as business writing. Business writing is a genre of non-fiction writing that encompasses not only business documents, but also sub-genres like correspondence, proposals, media releases, and many kinds of reports. It includes the communication of specific information relating to day-to-day operations along with projects, policies, compliance, and the like. And because oral and visual presentations are such an important part of professional life, business communication also encompasses these as well. This first part of the text introduces you to the basic concepts related to business communication overall, then moves on to discuss report types and employment documents.
Unit 1 Learning Objectives
This unit will help you to understand what business writing is, why its important, and what it looks like:
1.1 Apply a “problem-solving” approach to communications tasks, starting by learning how to fully define the problem before looking for solutions.
1.2 Recognize the main conventions and characteristics of business writing, and how they differ from other forms, such as academic and journalistic writing.
1.3 Understand the importance of defining the “rhetorical situation” in which you are communicating.
1.4 Apply what you have learned so far by examining “case studies” that demonstrate the costs of poor communication.
1.5 Appreciate the complexity and iterative nature of the writing process.
Why are Business Communication Skills Important?
You may be wondering why a business communication course is included in your program. Information in the business fields must be conveyed concisely with precision and clarity. Relationships must be sustained even in complex interpersonal and intercultural contexts. Knowing how to document and transmit your communications in various situations can affect the outcome of those communications. Business communication courses offer opportunities for you to learn the skills and techniques for communicating effectively and efficiently.
Recent statistics on business communication emphasize its impact on productivity in today’s workplace (Expert Market, 2021):
- Organizations with connected employees show productivity increases of 20-25% (McKinsey and Company).
- 64% of businesses list communicating their ‘strategy, values, and purpose’ to employees as a key priority (Bonfyre).
- 97% of workers believe that communication impacts tasks every day (CMS Wire).
- 28% of employees cite poor communication as the reason for not being able to deliver work on time (AZ Central).
- Miscommunication costs companies with 100 employees an average of $420,000 per year (SHRM).
Business communication is “transactional” and often “transformational” – it entails a purposeful transaction between sender and receiver that provides specific information for practical and specific purposes (informing, instructing, persuading) and is usually geared towards the needs of a specific audience. Business communicators produce a wide variety of documents and other products, such as
- Proposals and requests for proposals (RFPs)
- Business or research reports
- Procedures
- Online tutorials
- Reference information (encyclopedia-style information)
- Consumer literature (information for the public about regulations, safety issues, etc.)
- Marketing literature (product information, brochures, promotional literature)
- Business journalism (found in business magazines, media releases, etc.)
A 2015 Seneca College survey of our business Professional Advisory Council and through conversations with faculty in marketing as well as accounting and finance revealed that among business forms of documentation and communication the following were identified as the top five in-demand in business workplaces (Potter, 2016):
| Top Five Documents | Top Five Report Types |
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Business communication is a “designed” form of communication that requires practitioners to have a heightened awareness of the conventions (rules and expectations) and rhetorical situations (audience, purpose, context) in which they are communicating. This textbook aims to provide you with that heightened awareness – that is, to introduce you to the basic conventions of business communications, and to train you to take a reader-centred or audience-centred approach to communications tasks, to find the tools and methods that will work best to communicate your ideas to your target audience, and to achieve the desired results.
What Does Business Writing Look Like?
Business communication can take many forms, depending on the purpose and intended audience. However, the style of business writing is distinctive. Consider the following example of business writing, which is an Executive Summary from a report entitled The Future of Higher Education in a Disruptive World (KPMG, 2020). From the text in the box below, what can you tell about the intended audience?
Executive Summary
The Golden Age of universities in the developed world is passing and life is becoming tougher. Rising costs are no longer matched by a willingness of governments and students to pay for them. And yet the traditional operating model of a university cannot produce sufficient productivity gains to cover the gap.
Even before the pandemic, the relentless rise in costs was going to bring matters to a head. The broad support for universities that has been a feature since the 1960s is faltering and real increases in per-student funding are unlikely in many jurisdictions.
In addition, universities are being buffeted by other forces. Technological change and a new world of work are generating calls for new types of post-secondary education. Demographic change will likely mean smaller domestic cohorts of students in most liberal democracies. Climate change is leading to expectations that public bodies will be carbon neutral in their operations. Competition from non-traditional entrants investing in large scale digital delivery threatens a portion of their markets. The Age of the Customer has arrived and students have higher expectations about the experience and what it will lead to.
Traditional universities are approaching a crossroads. They must decide whether to transform themselves into new kinds of entities, optimize their existing operations in a search for further efficiencies and increased capability, do nothing in the hope that if no rescue appears they will have time to decide what to do later, or do nothing in the belief that they are invulnerable.
This report analyzes the current state of higher education in a disruptive world and suggests four building blocks for a way forward, in terms of strategy, capabilities, operating model and technology. The result will be a ‘connected university’ able to keep delivering the extraordinary benefits that higher education can deliver for its communities.
EXERCISE 1.1 Draft some business writing related to your interests
Reflect on the description and example of business writing above in relation to your experience as an employee, as a student, or as a practitioner of a hobby. What kinds of documents have you written that could fall under the genre of Business Writing?
Write a paragraph or two on a topic about which you have some specialized knowledge and can use specialized terminology to explain the idea or instruct the reader. For example, you might write about effective techniques for executing certain skateboard maneuvers or how to execute a yoga position such as a “downward facing dog.” Consider your audience when choosing how to write this. Will the audience have to be familiar with the terminology used, as in the above example? See if you can “baffle me with your specialized jargon” and then re-write for a general audience, using plain language.
References
Expert Market. (2021, January 18). Communication in the workplace: Statistics for 2022. https://www.expertmarket.com/phone-systems/workplace-communication-statistics#link-the-importance-of-good-communication
KPMG. (2020). The future of higher education in a disruptive world. https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/xx/pdf/2020/10/future-of-higher-education.pdf
Potter, R. L. (2016, February 16). EAC594 Business Communication for the Digital Workplace: Summary of business communication course updates. Faculty of Business. Seneca College, Toronto.
