Communication in Boots.

P4.

Communication is essential in any business and is vital for the business to be successful. Boots and their employee’s communicate in both formal and informal ways. During working hours communication between a boss and his/her employee would be formal, as it is concerned with work. This includes meetings, written memos and telephone conversations and reports would be formal or formally presented. But if it was during a lunch hour or out of work time, I would believe the communication would still be formal to a certain extent, but not as formal as it is their own time and can do as they wish unlike at work they must obey members of staff above them.

In Boots they have lines of communication which is formal way of communicating. They have both main categories of communication which are oral and written.

Lateral communication

In Boots they have lateral communication is communication which takes place across the different functional areas and is usually the same level. For example;

A meeting between marketing sales and finance about the following month’s advertising campaign.

Possibly a training exercise/event run by human resources

A design brief from sales to production with information on the product(s) which may be wished for from the customers of boots and this may have been done with a questionnaire which is field research.

A meeting for all functional managers to discuss the aims and objectives ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Lateral communication

In Boots they have lateral communication is communication which takes place across the different functional areas and is usually the same level. For example;

A meeting between marketing sales and finance about the following month’s advertising campaign.

Possibly a training exercise/event run by human resources

A design brief from sales to production with information on the product(s) which may be wished for from the customers of boots and this may have been done with a questionnaire which is field research.

A meeting for all functional managers to discuss the aims and objectives for the prosperous year to come.

Vertical communication

In Boots they also have vertical communication which is from the top and going down which are usually orders or instructions, but in Boots they also encourage feed back which is from the staff at the end of the hierarchy usually the operatives up to the senior managers, informing the managers of their views and alternative ideas.

Supervisors to Employees or Employees to senior managers (feedback)

Also vertical communication could be used to praise to an employee of a job well done this is one of the methods Boots use to help motivate employees.

Feedback from employees on new working methods, response to surveys or questionnaires, and employees may also give their own opinions and suggest methods which may be more suitable.

Quasi- vertical communication is where staff representatives have direct contact and dealings with their line managers or senior managers.

Oral Communication

Oral communication is verbal. There are two main ways of oral communication which could either be face to face or over the telephone. With the technology of today if we called someone and they did not answer we could leave a message on the answer phone or a voice message, which is a type of electronic answer machine. I believe the biggest advantage of using the telephone is that the message is direct and there is not way any unauthorized person can hear the information. Also most employees of high status have a company mobile phone or some employees have mobile private mobile phone lines. The majority of employees have pagers, bleeper’s to receive messages and mobile phones can return messages. Some staff such as security guards may have private radios with private stations to communicate between employees and pass messages easily and quickly.

Written Communication may be sent by mail or transmitted electronically. They can include illustrations or graphics as well as text. A letter is the most obvious example of a business communication. Others include telephone messages, notices on notice boards, newsletters and reports. Brochures and catalogues advertising products are also a form of written communication. Documents accompanying a purchase or sale communicate information about the price and the product or service that has been brought

Written communication is basically words on a sheet of paper. There are many methods of written communication which can be either formal or informal.

There many types of communications:

Peer Reviews

Here's what a star student thought of this essay

danielbeal

23rd of Feb 2012

Quality of writing

The technical term 'Lateral Communication' is quite unclear. The student has tried to explain this, however the description is quite poor. This will need to be re-written, as this will show the examiner poor understanding of what this term means. On the flip side, the term 'Vertical Communication' is explained well and the examiner will most likely read this with ease.

Level of analysis

The section 'Oral Communication' is quite good. As this clears defines the term, and gives their opinion. The report can have opinions, as long as there are justified, and the student has given their reasoning to this. This paragraph of the report, would gain high marks. The section 'Written Communication' is lacking some detail, as this mentions how letters can be used. However letters are not commonly used within business, and their could state 'However letters are not commonly used in the majority of business's, as I've mentioned above businesses can also use e-mails'. This would show the examiner understanding of how business work at this stage of technology.

Response to question

In summary, the report states a number of different methods Boots would use to communicate to their consumer's and employee's. This is quite good, however more detail is needed. The report uses the case study of Boots. However the report doesn't state what Boots is? I understand that this is a retailer high-street store, however this may not be clear to the examiner.

Did you find this review helpful? Join our team of reviewers and help other students learn