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 flow 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 making 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.
TASK 02-
PORTFOLIO
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
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.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
The 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.
Importance 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.
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.
The 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.
[3.3]
For an effective implementation process, the following Gantt chart was created in order to ease the process.
Table 1
In 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 2
Table 2
Table 2.1
Table 2.2
Above 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 employee 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.
Table 3
SWOT Analysis to aid in preparing the personal development plans effectively
Strengths:
- 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
List 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
TASK 03-
PRESENTATION
List 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.
by
adil_nz (student)
