SVKM’s NARSEE MONJEE INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

BENGALURU

POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT

SUBJECT NAME: Business Communication III

SUBMITTED TO: Professor Deepti Ganapathy

SUBMITTED BY:

MADHUMITHA GNANASEKAR C029

NISHTHA JHA C037
RADHIKA MODI C044
 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

PROF DR. DEEPTI GANAPATHY

NMIMS Bangalore,
Bangalore February 21,2019

Subject : Submission of WAC report on capstone projects covering Health

Awareness

Dear Ma’am,
As requested, please find a WAC report on capstone projects covering Health
Awareness. We have recommended that creating awareness through effective usage
of Internet mediums like Emails, WhatsApp and the buss through social media would
create a more significant impact on the target audience. The following pages will
present the situation, problem, options, criteria for evaluation, evaluation of options,
the recommendation, action plan and contingency plan.

Regards,
Group 2, Team 3
PGDM 09
CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: ........................................................................................... 4
SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS: ........................................................................................ 5
PROBLEM:................................................................................................................. 5
OPTIONS ................................................................................................................... 5
RECOMMENDATION ................................................................................................ 6
ACTION PLAN ........................................................................................................... 6
CONTINGENCY PLAN .............................................................................................. 6
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Health is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely
the absence of disease or infirmity." There are various determinants that influence the
health of people across various age groups. Some of them include income, education,
gender, social and physical environment and employment. It has also been found that
there are major health inequities between states. The project aims at analysing the
effectiveness of various methods of communication used for creating awareness
among the different target groups. Age group is a vital factor that needs to be
considered while choosing the apt strategy. The size of the crowd that is being
approached is also one of the factors. The action plan and the contingency plan was
also charted out based on the same.
SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS:

14% of global diseases are attributed to neuropsychiatric disorders. 13.7% of India’s

population is suffering from mental illness but there is lack of awareness about the
same. Stress is a major factor contributing to this mental illness. Depression in India
has increased by 67% between 1990 and 2017. Menstrual hygiene is still a taboo topic
in India. Even today, 70% of Indian women do not have access to appropriate
menstrual hygiene products. Only 32% of rural households have their own toilets and
less than half of them have toilets at home. These are some of the facts that have led
us to choose and analyse this topic.

PROBLEM

Health is a broad field which can be bifurcated into hygiene, physical and mental health
and nutritional education. Sifting through the Capstone Projects of PGDM 08 and
PGDM 09, we could analyse a common problem throughout. The main concern is lack
of understanding of the importance of health. Physical health is mostly ignored as
something related to physical activity and people tend to hide if they are aware of their
mental instability due to the fear of rejection from the society. Communicating the
acceptance of these issues across various age groups is the major challenge. Different
communication strategies need to be adopted for diverse groups according to the level
and ease of understanding.

OPTIONS
The lack of knowledge of the importance of maintaining one’s health, be it physical or
mental has been the prime concern for the undertakers of a majority of the Capstone
Projects. This defines the problem statement and the solution aimed at eliminating this
knowledge gap by using different mediums of communication. Each group had
adapted more than one medium for the outreach to cover a wider spread of audience.
The number of mediums ranged from three to four kinds each covering a segment of
the target audience. One of the most commonly used medium was the internet, at par
with the current dynamics of the world. The other mediums used were telephonic, face
to face surveys/interviews, google forms, opinion polls, social media, posters, videos,
site visits, Community pages on Facebook, hashtag trending and conduction of games
as ice breakers.
Criteria
As discussed earlier, the plethora of outreach programs used is aimed at addressing
various segments of the target audience. The segments under the target audience are
identified based on their individual elements of perception of the optimum
understanding of the topic presented. Age group is a vital factor in choosing the
communication medium. Senior citizens, adults, teenagers and children would each
have their criteria for reception, interpretation, acceptance and implementation of the
information. These factors need to be considered when choosing the medium of
communication and this in turn explains why no Capstone Project ran on a single
medium of communication.
Evaluation of Options
Each option available needs to be credited based on their affinity to satisfy the
perception of each segment of the target group. The internet being the common
denominator in each Capstone Project reflects on how the medium complements the
mind frame of the undertakers of the Capstone Project and would also be successful
in penetrating audience of similar generations. The question is if the medium
resonates in the same manner with age groups of baby bloomers and pensioners.
Google forms and opinion polls serve as preliminary awareness spreading tools as
they help ascertain the current situation(level of knowledge of importance of health)
and in turn implant the first step in awareness. Physical forms of communication such
as face to face surveys/interviews and posters always have the restrictions of not
being able to grasp the attention of a large crowd but are highly effective in penetrating
the smaller target audience.

RECOMMENDATION
From the possible options, usage of Internet as a medium of communication should
be an effective option. Involving modes like Emails, WhatsApp messages would
make it convenient and easier to communicate things effectively without a time lag.
Face to face communication involving demonstrations, role plays would promote a
two way communication and make it more effective as an alternative. Keeping in
mind the buzz social media campaigns can create, mediums like Facebook and
Instagram can adopted for awareness.

ACTION PLAN
Since the target audience for most of the projects is diversified, it is always better to
adopt a separate medium of communication for each level. One of the projects had
target audience as stakeholders of educational institutions which could be divided at
three levels, being, the Principal, the teachers and the students. Thus, adopting a
formal mode of communication like emails and letters at the principal level,
amalgamation of formal and informal mode of communication, like emails and
WhatsApp messages for the teachers and taking it to the next level for the students
like usage of audio visuals and interactive sessions for the students would have
facilitated apt communication. For the social media, trending hashtag and tagathon
campaigns can be adopted.

CONTINGENCY PLAN

While approaching to the target audience for Face to Face campaigns, dealing with
semantic barriers could create a lag. Thus, keeping either a person or medium of
translation as a backup would assist in overcoming this barrier. In addition to this,
there is always an issue with the Social Media campaigns that they lose their buzz
after a certain point of time. Audiences tend to forget. Thus, it is really important to
revive the campaigns by repeatedly bringing it under the spotlight. This repeated
exposure to the campaign would ensure that awareness translates into action.