Friday, April 29, 2016

Tips to Streamline Business Communication from the Best B.Com College in Greater Noida

The best B.Com College in Greater Noida, Ishan Institute of Management & Technology follows a teaching methodology that aims to develop skills for higher education and professional lives of students in their future. To this extent the academicians of the B.Com College have observed that students need to be taught the difference between generic and business communication. Communication in the generic sense is based on feedback. Business communication defines the scope and ambit of that feedback and thus streamlines the expected outcomes and reaction functions. Hence the adage of “think before you speak” is all the more relevant to business communication than to generic communication. While it may be too heavy to use the term of “professionalism” and expect undergraduate students to absorb subtle nuances of business communication when mature adults and working professionals find the going tough, we have defined a template to offer some time tested advice that is applicable to business communication across different dimensions of time, space and scale.

The 5S of Business Communication

The 5s of business communication refer to substance, science, story, style and speed. These 5s are the pillars of business communication and need to be focused on. The substance of business communication is the core. It is the heart of communication. Depending upon the second party in the conversation and the possibility of grape vine, there has to be a measured action towards choosing the summary of the subject matter. Science in business communication refers to following a measurement system to assess and analyze the effectiveness of communication. Modern day social media platforms come with tools that enable measurement of metric like the number of likes, shares, comments and the level of user engagement. The science of measurement is vital to the scalability of communication. There is a simple thumb rule. Repeat or scale up the substance that scores high on positive affinity from the target audience and eliminate the stereotypes that produce negative feedback. In daily lives the science of measuring effectiveness of communication may be difficult but not impossible. Next there has to be a great story around a business communication attempt. There has to be a punch of passion in the way one communicates in business. Story telling in fact is a skill that great marketers use to great effect to sell dreams and encroach upon the minds of their target audience. Great ad films, jingles, films, sops and plays have a story that we remember and relate to. Unless the audience feels that they are a part of the communication it is difficult to motivate them to produce the desired outcome in business. Style in business communication is an outcome of many factors like confidence, audience analysis, sense of timing, presentation and coordination with the audience or the other party. This is particularly the case in corporate presentations, meetings, seminars and conferences. In fact at the local level even a client meeting in a very seemingly casual Indian backdrop also mandates the fulfilment of this condition. This is an element of art and maturity. Art in business communication is not to be mistaken with art in the generic sense though. Art in business communication carries a value component that is integral to business.  Speed in business communication is managed according to short term and long term business actions. Many business actions of the short term are urgent and most of the business actions with a long term orientation are important. There is a big difference between urgent and important business actions. We have in the recent past covered the difference between urgent and important business actions through a separate post on Goodmorning Ishan. To cut a long story short it is important to understand which conversation will have multiple rounds and those that will end within definite number of rounds.

3Vs of Business Communication: Vocal, Verbal and Non-Verbal

The 3Vs of business communication are vocal, verbal and non-verbal elements of business communication. Communication in business has three different forms. The voice quality of a communicator includes features like pitch of the vice, clarity, tone, power and most importantly voice modulation. Think of great business leaders and even actors. They have a great ability to bend their voice according to time and space. This quality is truly an asset. These virtues are counted under vocal elements of business communication. Verbal communication refers to not just spoken form of communication but the choice of language in spoken and written forms of communication. Of course there are differences between the implications of spoken and written forms of communication but in the modern day landscape that is driven by technology, one has to be prudent in the choice of language. Non-verbal communication refers to the leveraging of coded forms of communication. Coded forms of communication refer to implicit substance that may not necessarily be communicated in words that are spoken or written. For example the dress code for a social or professional setting, hairstyle, shaven or unshaven look, furniture arrangement and decoration of a place and others reflect implicit messages that are visible to people who observe keenly. Visual merchandising is the biggest evidence of non-verbal communication in business.


At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, we use unique techniques like business movie screenings of art films and middle cinema, role plays, theatre and memory association games to improve business communication skills of students. Our efforts in innovating the teaching methodology include special screenings of the works of Shyam Benegal, Satyajit Ray, Daniel Boyle, role plays on “How Stella Saved the Farm” by C.Vijaygovindrajan and Chris Tremble and “An Enemy of the People” by Henrik Ibsen.