Business_Communication_Trends

Business Communication Trends By: Nicole Bavone University of Phoenix Business communication takes place in many day-to-day activities in my previous activities at work. The trends I have seen in my previous workplace are technology changes, a focus on quality and customers’ needs, and teamwork. The messages sent from the trends positive and negative messages. Communication. In sales, the newer the technology usually the better because anytime you can access more information for the customer or the primary audience the better, this is the case most of the time. When starting with the company, all sales representatives were issued a piece of technology called a tell-son. It was a device that the representative would key in the customers’ orders in by item number and them connect the device to a telephone and dial into the organization. The organization had a department that accepted all the orders into the warehouse and looked the orders over. The department would call the representative if something looked out of ordinary. An out of the ordinary situation would be a regular customer usually orders 1 case a week of a specific item and now there was an order put in for 20 cases. All messages that need to given to the sales representatives was done through voice mail. The entire sales representative had office voice mails and the supervisors would leave group messages to the entire sales team. The Tel-son device worked for a few years but soon the new technology arrived, laptops. The new software program on the laptop enabled the organization to save a lot of time and money. The laptops sent a message that the organization was focusing on quality and customers’ needs. The representative was able to tell the customer face to face if there was any out of stocks on items and when the out of stocks were scheduled to be received in the warehouse, the total of the order, the ship date, the code date, and any special pricing offers. The laptop came with an air card that connected directly to the organization. Using the web to connect and then sent the orders directly over to the warehouse. The entire organization was set up on emails this helped the representative communicate with the office personnel and their customers in another form. The entire conversion of taking the information from the tell-zon and converting the customers item numbers to the organization’s item number was eliminated and so was the department. The organization saved a lot of money by eliminated many salaries due to the new technology. Many mistakes were made with the laptops and money is loss from the mistakes. Many times the laptops would freeze up or turn off in the middle of the order and much of the representative’s time was wasted. The sales representatives would make a key in error and accidentally send 55 cases instead of 5 this would cause the purchasing department to bring in to much inventory, the time spent by warehouse personal to pack the order, and the time wasted to bring the order on a truck to the customer and then bring it back to the organization for the warehouse personal to put away. The time and the cost of the mistakes are massive, but comparing the loss of profits to the salaries of an entire department, the organization benefited with the technology. Many companies have found the trend of technology has paid off for them and the technology could send a message to the customers that the organization is tiring to meet all the customers needs, however the message to the teams with in the organization is not the same. Technology could help teams build and exceed; however the technology could also send the message that the employees are replaceable. Technology is beginning to replace many job functions and as a company continues to update technology this may lead to a lay off situation. The organization first eliminated the transmittal department and next was centralizing the accounting departments from 4 divisions to 1. The accounting departments were the next to get laid off. The scare and panic begins in every employee. Teamwork is a trend the company had always seems to push but that was destroyed; everyone began to look out for him or herself. In conclusion, the growing trends of technology could result in an organization saving money and increasing profits. “Communication is key to pay” (Business communication, 2008). The technology could make the communication better or could make the communication poor. The messages sent out of the trends could be heard from many different viewpoints. Reference: Kitty O. Locker, Donna S. Kienzer (2008). Business and Administrative Communication, Eighth Edition. Retrieved July 25, 2010, from access ebooks of University of Phoenix