Managing Communication, Knowledge & Information

Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: Adil

BTEC EDEXCDEL HND DIPLOMA IN BUSINESS (MANAGEMENT & HUMAN RESOURCES)

OFFERED BY INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY

UNIT 16: MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS, KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION

NAME: ADIL MUHAMMED NAZEER

BATCH NUMBER: BM-25

ICBT KANDY CAMPUS

SUBMITTED TO: MRS. NILUKA SAMARAKOON

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 11TH-JANUARY-2013

Batch: BM-25

Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: AdilAssignment brief

Included in this assignment is the firstly, the general idea of how organizations of different type make use of

effective decision making and how stakeholder analysis helps to make these decisions. Examples from the

industry were evaluated related to the decision making and stakeholder analysis process.

Secondly, the communication process, its flaws and methods to improve the existing communication process

of an organization of choice was shown. This was illustrated using tables and figures to elaborate on the

existing system. Furthermore, communication flaws within a unit of the organization; the employees, were

identified using various methods and recommendations for improving the communication skills of the

identified people were addressed.

In the presentation, an organization of choice was analyzed into its existing information technology system

used to manage information and knowledge. Furthermore, its effectiveness was analyzed and proper systems

of information were brought up as recommendations for improvement. Illustrated with it were tables.

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TASK 01-

ESSAY

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Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: AdilAn organization can make use of various decisions in order to successfully achieve its goals or objectives.

In order to efficiently make a decision at pre-implementation stage, an organization will have to consider the

types of information it will have to gather. Gathering information from different sources will aid in the

comprehensive decision making process. Larger organizations tend to take more complex decisions, whilst

smaller organizations take simpler decisions.

These decisions that have to be taken in relation to the organization are called organizational decisions,

which are taken by higher officials of an organization. Example:- CEO, Managing Director, Chief

Accountant. This decision will have to be taken by the higher level officials of the company and will reflect

the policy on which the company acts and what the employees adhere to.

At the same time, these organizational officials will also have to undergo certain personal decisions, and an

example could be telecommuting which is considered a decision he had to take personally, since the

influence of others in the organization will not help him make a proper decision, as these are mostly based

on that certain officials mentality. Delegation of such decisions will also be ineffective since as other

individuals wouldn’t possess the same mentality as the managing director himself.

The colloquial decisions that are usually taken in organizations are that of a basic nature and/or routine. For

example, organization being an importer of automobiles may take decisions regarding to the types of

vehicles to be imported, the price range to be selected when purchasing, selecting the appropriate importers,

the appropriate pricing for domestic customers, an efficient foreign dealer, following standard import

procedures and allocating funds to purchase the desired vehicles for import are all of complex nature, where

mistakes will be tolerated only at huge costs to the organizations, whereas routine decisions are delegated to

employees on the lower hierarchical level since they are decisions take are taken on a frequent basis. Basic

decisions are timely, deserve a lot of thought and tend to be more centralized, hence being taken by the

managing director himself. Delegating the task of taking such decisions of major complexity to other

employees will only result in conflict of ideas and lead to an inefficient decision making process, since each

employee will have different views which contradict the views of others.

On the contrary, routine decisions such as deciding which vehicle to repair, the way vehicles are parked, the

petty cash, book-keeping and employee grievance handling are carried out in a decentralized format, where

workers under the higher hierarchical employees are allowed to take. However, a certain degree of

intervention from the top hierarchy level will be needed when it comes to conflicts between lower

hierarchical employees in making these decisions.

Based on the above mentioned decisions, they can be further dissected into being either structured,

unstructured or semi structured.

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Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: AdilStructured decisions are basically decisions with similar characteristics to that of routine decisions. These

can be exemplarily Inventory Control Systems (stock reordering) since they have to be taken on a frequent

basis, and they also possess the feature of being programmed, which means they can be done on

computerized systems.

Unstructured decisions are decisions with similar characteristics to that of basic decisions. These are

complex and do not necessarily have a fixed solution. An example would be to select a partner for an

organization. Selecting a partner is a timely decision and a wrong move on this part will prove costly for the

business on a large scale in the long run. These decisions are not taken on a repetitive basis, but rather at

specific points, and involves lots of judgment and brain storming, hence giving it a similar characteristic to

that of an un-programmed decision.

On a further note, most decisions are classified by organizations in terms of the hierarchical level of the

people who take them. These decisions are taken at 3 different levels of management, namely the strategic

level, tactical level and the operational level.

Strategic level decisions are carried out at the top of the hierarchical level, or rather, with the higher officials

of an organization, and thereby, can be considered similar to basic decisions, as they require high levels of

strategic planning and implementation to deal with complex issues. These decisions are of high value to the

organization, so it is highly risky if stepped on the wrong foot, and can prove very costly to the organization.

These decisions are related to the core attributes of the company and its policies, resource controlling &

allocation and objectives and hence such decisions are authorized to be taken by high level workers in either

the organization, or a department within the organization.

Tactical level decisions are quite routinely and is basically a managerial control used to ensure the efficient

and effective uses of resources in order to attain the organizations objectives, that were set upon by the

strategic level decision makers. These decisions relate to the use of resources within an organization in such

a way that its objectives are reachable, hence considering how economically are these resources used. An

example could be to provide an incentive plan to employees to encourage increased production within the

organization. The resources according to the example are the employees and their productivity levels. The

decision maker would be the Human Resources manager. Hence, by issuing incentives, employees tend to

increase their productivity and thereby the production, which in the end proves an economically efficient

tactical decision made.

And at the bottom of the triangle is the operational level. These decisions focus on the efficiency and

effectiveness of tasks carried out on a daily basis, thereby helping to ensure that these tasks have a smooth

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Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: Adilflow and help the organization to achieve its objectives set. The decision makers can be front-line managers

of lower level managers, for example. An exemplar decision could be the daily allocation of resources

(finance) for raw material purchases for the daily targets of production.

On the contrary, an effective decision is based on the information used to make those decisions. Various

types of information can be used to make decisions of different natures. And this information can be

retrieved either internally or externally. Furthermore internal information is information that can be obtained

within the organization, example: Human resources manager obtaining employee attendance sheet or having

access to payroll systems of the organization, and external information is the information obtained from

sources out or away from the organization, example: Production manager seeking information on the

distribution channel existing currently in a certain country.

The information used, either internally or externally will have to be obtained from various places. These

places are known as sources. Furthermore these sources can be classified based on where they are taken

from; either internally or externally. Internal information sources for an organization can be documents,

paperwork or anything related to make decisions that can be found from within the organization or its

departments, whereas external sources of information for an organization can be furthermore classified into

two criteria for more specificity, namely formal and informal. Informal external sources can be in the form

of rumors word of mouth, grapevines, meeting with external parties such as customers or suppliers or even

attending governmental business conferences. Formal external sources can be in the form of documents or

statements related or made by officials of the company.

In summarization, it is important to note that the use of information to make decisions will vary depending

on the type or structure of the organization. An organization, presumably a large one, would have a taller

hierarchical structure with many levels of management, where mostly strategic level of management uses

more of external information since their organization is larger and has more relation to external parties, such

as suppliers and consumers. Whereas, in an organization with a flatter hierarchy structure, it is vice versa.

The workers at the lower levels, presumably the tactical or operational level tend to use more information

that is internal to the organization, since their decisions are mostly of repetitive nature relating to the internal

activities of a business such as organizations daily expenses management, employee grievances and stock

controlling.

The decision making process, whether it be complex or simple, requires a degree of stakeholder involvement

in order to make it effective. Stakeholders can be an individual or a group that is affected or has an interest

in the way the business is run, or the activities of it. Therefore, it is essential to maintain a good relationship

with stakeholders in order to obtain effective and efficient input from them to contribute to the decision

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Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: Adilmaking process. Stakeholders can be either primary or secondary. Primary stakeholders have a direct

influence on the organizations activities, example: shareholders, employees, directors, suppliers and

customers, whereas secondary stakeholders have an indirect influence on the organizations activities and are

less likely to be affected by it, example: politicians, media, competitors, governmental authorities.

Therefore, an organization is most likely to improve its contact with stakeholders who are highly influential

to it, so that its decision making is more relative to the organizations goals and objectives, thereby making

the decision process more effective. Stakeholder relationship improvement seeks to create partnerships and

encourage constructive dialogue between all parties so that all sides can learn from and listen to each other

to produce a better decision output and make an efficient final choice. To do this, a stakeholder analysis can

be carried out. It attempts to analyze, assess and identify stakeholders, who are likely to be impacted by

organizational decisions, example: A supplier, probably a long-time supplier, whose supplies are essential

for the production process of the organization and its final output quality to the consumers, or the board of

directors, whose contribution in the form of managing resources within the organization results in the

efficient production of goods and services. To carry out proper ways to engage with stakeholders, an

organization can hold meetings within the company where the most relevant stakeholders are invited to

participate in making decisions and voice out their opinion as to what they think satisfies them the most.

After all, stakeholder satisfaction is key to improving input to decision making. Questionnaires and surveys

could also be used to obtain input from quite external stakeholders such as customer feedbacks and

community opinions. This could aid in analyzing feedbacks and allocating resources for betterment and

hence satisfying them. If all mentioned is not possible for an organization, they could make use of emails,

video-conferencing and telephone calls. It could make use of media, internet or newspapers to obtain

general information from external stakeholders such as political climate, government and community.

Yet it is essential to understand that the type of decisions taken will depend on the hierarchical structure of

the organization.

An industrial example could be GEELY EMGRAND, who are manufacturers and importers of Chinese

automobile. By importing to Sri Lanka, they are entering a new market, which means they are enabling an

extension to their stakeholder lineup. Examples are the Sri Lankan government, community, customer base,

foreign competition within Sri Lanka, investors, shareholders, etc.

Presumably, before entering the market, GEELY would have made use of mostly external information for

decision making about Sri Lanka such as the economic climate, political stability and consumer taste. The

sources of this information are a mix of secondary as well as primary nature and might have been the

internet, newspapers, media, and management consultancy offices in Sri Lanka, consumer questionnaires

and surveys and government officials. After the analysis of these information, GEELY would have tried to

improve relationship with its potential shareholders as mentioned above.

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TASK 02-

PORTFOLIO

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BTEC EDEXCDEL HND DIPLOMA IN BUSINESS (MANAGEMENT & HUMAN RESOURCES)

OFFERED BY INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY

UNIT 16: MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS, KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION

NAME: ADIL MUHAMMED NAZEER

BATCH NUMBER: BM-25

ICBT KANDY CAMPUS

SUBMITTED TO: MRS. NILUKA SAMARAKOON

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 11TH-JANUARY-2013

Batch: BM-25


Acknowledgement

It is with heartfelt gratitude and appreciation I place on record the unstinted guidance of lecturer, Mrs Niluka

Samarakoon, all my batch mates for the valuable ideas we exchanged with each other on the assignment and

my parents who have been behind my every effort.

Sincerely,

Adil.

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Table of ContentsExecutive Summary..........................................................................................................................................12

[3.1 ]Existing processes of communication in an organization..............................................................................13

[3.2 ]Designing ways to improve appropriateness..............................................................................................14

[3.3 ]Implementation of improvements.............................................................................................................16

SWOT Analysis to aid in preparing the personal development plans effectively.....................................................22

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Executive SummaryThe report provides a description of the existing communication process adopted by an organization to

communicate to its employees amongst a line of branches. The weakness in the communication process of

the organization is identified and methods of eliminating these weaknesses are assessed as a justification for

recommendation and improvement of the communication process within. Further, linguistic skills of the

employees in the organization are evaluated and proper focus and recommendations for improvement are

given to those in need of improving their communicational skills.

Various methods of analysis of the current system and its weaknesses have been used throughout the

portfolio. Gantt charts were used to design ways to improve and implement the communication system

within the organization, along with questionnaires to evaluate weaknesses in people’s communication skills

and the use of Action plans to effectively improve the communication skills of those identified to a desired

level suitable for the organizations objectives.

Analysis and assessment of the communication processes within the organization resulted in findings that

aided the recommendation and improvement process. Initial findings proved that the flow of communication

from lower level to higher level was not very effective and efficient. Further findings showed that there was

an improper set up of the communication system within the organization which lead to certain barriers in

communication. And lastly, it was found that 80% of the workers in the organization had communication

skills in par with industrial standards and requirements while certain workers in the organization lacked

proper communicational skills.

After analysing and assessing the findings, recommendations for improvement in the communication

systems of both, the organization and the workforce were brought forward, and proper methods were set up

to effectively implement these systems on the areas of weakness. Yet, it is essential to the organization that

these areas of weakness have to be given continuous focus in order to effectively eliminate in the long run,

the weaknesses identified.

Drawbacks and limitations were faced and acted as an obstacle to research, analyse, assess and find more

information on the organizations communication process. Lack of time to carry out findings was a major

concern, which resulted in not being able to provide further methods of analysing and evaluating such as

interviews and observations into the communication process of the organization and its employees.

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Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: AdilImportance of Managing Communication for a successful business

[3.1]Communication process is the way information, knowledge or data is passed or exchanged between people

in a way that each other is able to decode them in an understandable way.

The communication process used in Royal Auto Mart, which has 3 branches around Kandy, uses a rather

basic communication system by nature, which is semi-computerized. The communication channel within the

organization is more of an offline (personal & non personal) form. The owner (and CEO) of the organization

currently uses posters, letters, notice boards, telephone calls and Short Messaging Services to communicate

with employees in the lower level. If information had to be passed down, a messenger is sent to each branch

to set up posters or letters on notice boards in each branch. On the contrary, telephone calls and Short

Messaging Services are passed down by the owner himself, making it rather direct. Throughout the research,

it was found that the organization had intact a mostly top-down sort of communication, and it was noticed

that bottom up communication was rather inefficient, thereby we can say that the organization has a formal

method of communicating.

The sender, who is the owner encodes the information in the form of anything mentioned above and choses

the right communication channel to pass the information. Responsibility lies with him as to choosing the

right communication channel, since the way the receiver understands the information will depend on how

rich the communication is. In order to effectively transmit understandable information to the receiver, the

sender will have to possess certain characteristics such as the right attitude and linguistic skills so that the

receiver is able to decode, understand and interpret the information further down the hierarchy.

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Then the receiver receives the information through the communication channel that the information was

sent, and he decodes it, which can be in the form of understanding or reading it. And if understood properly,

a response is given back to the other party. This response/feedback is sometimes essential to ensure that the

information was understood, making it effective. However, as mentioned earlier, bottom-up communication

system within this organization was researched and proved to be ineffective and inefficient. The reason

behind this is that “Noise” existed and was seen to disrupt the communication process. This is further

elaborated in the diagram below.

Figure 1

As seen above, the Noise that centres around the process acts as a barrier for effective and smooth flow of

information in the organization. So the organization will have to design ways to remove the Noises

mentioned above by implementing certain methods. The noise created within the communication process is

the weakness identified and ways to tackle this issue will be brought forward for implementation.

[3.2] With the objective of the organization being to grow into more branches in and around the city in order to

capture higher market share, the current communication system proves to be ineffective if needed to ensure

greater control and management of these branches. Geographic proximity between the branches is a main

reason for the organization to seek an extensive/complex communication system. By further research, it was

found that the organization wants to adopt a fully computerized system, whilst simultaneously eliminating

the use of manual systems to ensure greater efficiency, accuracy and ease in the future communication

processes.

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Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: AdilThe idea is to adopt a more real time computerized approach to the communication process. The move from

semi-computerized to fully computerized. This requires taking off the old system in place for the new one.

The new computerized system starts off with the implementation and set up of advanced computer systems

at all branches. It includes setting up of email addresses to all the employees within the organization, video

conferencing facilities at all branches which is altogether connected to a central/core server system called an

intranet. This enables instant and more efficient communication between workers from top to bottom and

bottom to top. After the implementation, employees at all levels will be able to pass information directly to

their receiver without having the need to face communication barriers/noises.

The following factors will determine the effectiveness and feasibility of the implementation;

- Time: Less time since travelling will not be needed, and ultra-fast transfer of information

- Complexity: The computerized system will offer an efficient user-friendly interface which will make

it easier for employees to use and cope with.

- Distance: There is no need to travel a distance to pass information, since it can be transferred within

the network of computerized systems within a short span of time.

- Cost: Is probably the only disadvantage since advanced computer systems along with their set up is

very costly, but, can prove effective in the long run.

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[3.3]For an effective implementation process, the following Gantt chart was created in order to ease the process.

Table 1In the above gantt chart created, as seen, the implementation process spans over a period of one month, over

which the tasks are divided into a set of days, so that it effectively can achieve efficiency in the process. As

can be seen, some tasks overlap others. This is to ensure that no lag remains within the process, since these

will cause discontinuation of the process and may exceed the proposed goal of fully implementing the

system within a span of one month.

The results of how feasible the implementation was will be done at the final stage, where the management

will analyse and assess through the feedbacks the employees give.

To further improve the communication flow within the organization the owner spared some time into

looking into the communication skills of all his employees. Inorder to evaluate them, a questionnaire was

created and distributed amongst 15 employees. Thereafter, the questionnaires were short listed and

categorized into workers with good communication skills and workers who needed more attention and focus

into the improvement of their communication skills.

Table 2Royal Auto Mart – Employee Linguistic Skills Evaluation

Name of person under evaluation: Manoj Samarathunga

GoodModerateWeak

Oral skills:

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Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: Adil√

√

√

√

√

- Pronunciation

- Vocabulary base

- Grammar use

- Fluency

- Delivery/interpretation

√

√

√

√

Written skills:

- Spelling

- Clarity

- Letter writing

- Report writing

√Reading

√Speaking/ Presentation skills

√Listening/ Understandability

√Body Language

Table 2

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Royal Auto Mart – Employee Linguistic Skills Evaluation

Name of person under evaluation: Ahmed Abdal

GoodModerateWeak

√

√

√

√

√

Oral skills:

- Pronunciation

- Vocabulary base

- Grammar use

- Fluency


√

√

√

√

Written skills:

- Spelling

- Clarity

- Letter writing

- Report writing

√Reading



√Body Language

Table 2.1

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Royal Auto Mart – Employee Linguistic Skills Evaluation

Name of person under evaluation: Janaka Tissera

GoodModerateWeak

√

√

√

√

√

Oral skills:

- Pronunciation

- Vocabulary base

- Grammar use

- Fluency


√

√

√

√

Written skills:

- Spelling

- Clarity

- Letter writing

- Report writing

√Reading



√Body Language

Table 2.2Above are the 3 questionnaires that were short-listed from the 15 questionnaires. It was evaluated that three

employees from the operational level (one vehicles condition reporter and two vehicle sales representatives)

of the organizations hierarchy needed attention and focus into improving their communication skills. These

questionnaires were made and passed down to the branch managers, who conducted these evaluation

sessions at their respective branches.

However, other forms of evaluation such as interviews and observations weren’t carried out due to lack of

time and ineffectiveness in doing so since it would disrupt the business activities. The only self-criticism

here is that these questionnaires results wouldn’t be very reliable since there could have been personal

barriers such as attitude, lack of motivation, mood or unwillingness to communicate either by the superior or

the subordinates. Carrying out other methods such as interviews and observations would have added to the

feasibility of identifying the weaknesses since they’re more personal and real-time.

Furthermore, in order to improve the communicational skills of the identified employees, the

owner/management decided to create personal plans for each employee to improve their skills. Each

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Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: Adilemployee had an action plan set up for them that they had to adhere to in order to effectively bring up their

skills. The action plan covers the need to improve skills in all forms of communication types.

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Action plan

Reviewing methodsDurationMethodsObjectives

Close observations and

instant clarifications,

done by a superior

6 months- Off the job

training

- Ask for practice

reports to be

made after each

sale, for

evaluative

purposes

To be able to read, write,

handle and provide

understandable reports

Retrieving audience

feedback as to the clarity

of presentations

Assess and recommend

any improvements to the

tasks delegated by the

superior

Holding examinations to

test linguistic skills and

use findings for further

improvement of skills

6 months,

simultaneously with first

objective

- Assign basic

presentations to

carry out and

present in front of

an audience

- On the job

training

- Assign or

delegate tasks of

a superior, so that

speaking and

understanding

skills improve

Improve presentational,

interpretational and

speaking skills

Obtaining feedback of

workers about their

satisfaction with the way

top-down, bottom-up

communication is done.

Familiarize workers with

other workers so that

they create mutual

understanding which

enables them to pass

8 months,

simultaneously with first

two objectives

- Training to

familiarize with

computer systems

in order to carry

out instant

communication

processes within

the organization

- Motivate workers

to speak out their

needs to the

To be able to

communicate by sending

and receiving

information to and fro

the higher hierarchical

level

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Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: Adilinformation effectively

in the future

Giving trials for workers

to demonstrate their

skills obtained in the

period of learning, and

thereafter recommend

and improvements

management

level

- Getting

information and

interpreting it to

other works in an

effective and

understandable

way

Table 3

SWOT Analysis to aid in preparing the personal development plans effectivelyStrengths:

- Access to wide range of knowledge resources to hone linguistic skills.

- Proper social networking skills identified amongst these workers.

- Out-of-the-box thinking displayed.

- Access to public lectures, in order to adopt the linguistic skills of such professional people.

- Ability to grasp things quick and punctually; essential to complete and achieve the objectives within

the given time.

Weaknesses:

- Lack of incentive to do further out-of-job activities related to improving linguistic skills.

- Unwillingness to take responsibility.

- Language barrier (Ability to adapt to better communication skills in another language would be

weak)

Opportunities

- Training camps can be organized within the organization- Task delegation from superior to involve greater experience and aid in improvement of skills- Future potential promotions opened due to the increase in this particular set of skills.- Cost-free learning opportunities-

Threats- Lack of time to allocate for these activities by workers- Competing to gain knowledge resources between workers in order to gain competitive advantage

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Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: AdilList of references used:

Ingram, D. (). How to Improve Communication Skills in the Workplace. Available: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/improve-communication-skills-workplace-10565.html. Last accessed 7th Jan 2013

Allen, R. (2011). Stakeholder Analysis. Available: http://www.customer-insight.co.uk/article/874. Last accessed 6th Jan 2013.

Bryson, J., Cunningham, G. and Lokkesmoe, K. (2002) 'What to Do When Stakeholders Matter: Public Administration Review, 62:5

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TASK 03-PRESENTATION

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Managing Communications, Knowledge & Information Individual Assignment: AdilList of references used for presentation:

Power, D. (). Types of Decision Support Systems (DSS). Available: http://www.gdrc.org/decision/dss-types.html. Last accessed 29th Dec 2012.

.() .-The Differences Between Data, Information and Knowledge. Available: http://www.infogineering.net/data-information-knowledge.htm. Last accessed 1st Jan 2013.

Dhawan, S. (). BASICS OF INFORMATION DISSEMINATION. Available: http://www.unesco.org/education/aladin/paldin/pdf/course02/unit_05.pdf. Last accessed 1st Jan 2013.

Ross, W Weill, P. (). Four Questions Every CEO Should Ask About IT For starters: Are we thinking big enough?. Available: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704336504576258561056702944.html. Last accessed 5th

Jan 2013.

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Managing Communication, Knowledge & Information

Documents

Transcript of Managing Communication, Knowledge & Information