Master of Business Administration-MBA Semester 1 MB0039 Business Communication - 4 Credits (Book ID: B1128) Assignment Set- 1 (60 Marks)

Q.1 Explain the different types of communication with relevant examples? Communication is a process that involves exchange of information, thoughts, ideas and emotions. Communication is a process that involves a sender who encodes and sends the message, which is then carried via the communication channel to the receiver where the receiver decodes the message, processes the information and sends an appropriate reply via the same communication channel. Types of Communication: Communication can occur via various processes and methods and depending on the channel used and the style of communication there can be various types of communication. Types of Communication Based on Communication Channels: Based on the channels used for communicating, the process of communication can be broadly classified as verbal communication and non-verbal communication Verbal Communication: Verbal communication includes written and oral communication whereas the non-verbal communication includes body language, facial expressions and visuals diagrams or pictures used for communication. Verbal communication is further divided into written and oral communication. The oral communication refers to the spoken words in the communication process. Oral communication can either be face-to-face communication or a conversation over the phone or on the voice chat over the Internet. Spoken conversations or dialogs are influenced by voice modulation, pitch, volume and even the speed and clarity of speaking. The other type of verbal communication is written communication. Written communication can be either via snail mail, or email. The effectiveness of written communication depends on the style of writing, vocabulary used, grammar, clarity and precision of language. Nonverbal Communication Non-verbal communication includes the overall body language of the person who is speaking, which will include the body posture, the hand gestures, and overall body movements. The facial expressions also play a major role while communication since the expressions on a persons face say a lot about his/her mood. On the other hand gestures like a handshake, a smile or a hug can independently convey emotions. Non verbal communication can also be in the form of pictorial representations, signboards, or even photographs, sketches and paintings. Types of Communication Based on Style and Purpose Based on the style of communication, there can be two broad categories of communication, which are formal and informal communication that have their own set of characteristic features. Formal Communication: It includes all the instances where communication has to occur in a set formal format. Typically this can include all sorts of business communication or corporate communication. The style of communication in this form is very formal and official. Official conferences, meetings and written memos and corporate letters are used for communication. Formal

communication can also occur between two strangers when they meet for the first time. Hence formal communication is straight forward, official and always precise and has a stringent and rigid tone to it. Informal Communication: It communication includes instances of free unrestrained communication between people who share a casual rapport with each other. Informal communication requires two people to have a similar wavelength and hence occurs between friends and family. Informal communication does not have any rigid rules and guidelines. Informal conversations need not necessarily have boundaries of time, place or even subjects for that matter since we all know that friendly chats with our loved ones can simply go on and on. Q.2 What are the general principles of writing especially business writing? The process of good writing involves three basic steps - preparing, writing, and editing. Practicing the following 16 principles will help you be a more effective writer 1. Know your objective: Think before you write. What's your goal? Make sure you fully understand the assignment. Are you writing a one-paragraph executive summary or a five-page report? Try answering this question: What specifically do I want the reader to know, think, or do? 2. Make a list: Write down the ideas or points you want to cover. Why? This helps you get started in identifying the key ideas you want to discuss. If you have trouble getting started, try discussing your ideas with someone else. "Kicking an idea around" often helps you clarify your objective and fine-tune what you are trying to accomplish. 3. Organize your ideas: Just as it's difficult to find what you want in a messy, disorganized desk drawer, it's hard to find important ideas in a poorly organized message. Here are a few ways you can organize your ideas: Importance Begin with the most important piece of information and then move on to the next most important. Chronological order - Describe what happened first, second, third. Organize your ideas so the reader can easily follow your argument or the point you are trying to get across. Or the solution you recommend. Question-Answer - State a question and then provide your answer. Problem-Solution -Define the problem, and then describe possible alternatives 4. Back it up: Have an opinion but back it up - support with data. There are a number of ways you can support your ideas, including explanations, examples, facts, personal experiences, stories, statistics, and quotations. It's best to use a combination of approaches to develop and support your ideas. 5. Separate main ideas: Each paragraph should have one main point or idea captured in a topic sentence. The topic sentence is normally the first sentence in the paragraph. 6. Use bullets or numbers: If you are listing or discussing a number of items, use bullets Join the Business Club to: Increase sales Gain new marketing ideas Make new friends Give back to your profession

7. Write complete sentences: A sentence is about someone doing something taking action. The someone may be a manager, employee, customer, etc. The "doing something- taking action" can il process such as thinking, evaluating, deciding or physical actions such as writing and talking. A good rule to practice is to have subjects closely followed by their verbs.

8. Use short sentences: Sentences should be a maximum of 12 to 15 words in length. According to American Press Institute, sentences with 15 or fewer words are understood 90% of the time. Sentences with eight or fewer words are understood 100% of the time. 9. Be precise and accurate: Use a comma to separate adjectives: That tall, distinguished, good-looking professor teaches history. Reduce communication breakdowns by being specific and precise. Define terms as needed. The reader may not understand certain acronyms and abbreviations. 10. Use commas appropriately: Use a comma to separate the elements in a series of three or more items: His favorite colors are red, white, and blue. Use a comma to set off introductory elements: After coffee and donuts, the meeting will begin. Words like "large,""small," "as soon as possible," "they," "people," "teamwork," and "customer focus" are vague and imprecise. The reader may interpret these words to mean something different. 11. Use the correct word: Here are several words that cause confusion. You're is a contraction for "you are" Your means possession, such as "your coat. It's is a contraction for "it is." Its indicates possession. Their means possession/ownership-"their house." There means location. 12. Avoid redundancies: It is a redundancy to use multiple words that mean or say the same thing. For example, consider the following: Redundant - My personal beliefs Beliefs are personal, so just state, My beliefs... Redundant - I decided to paint the machine gray in color. Gray is a color, so just state, I decided to paint the machine gray. 13. Numbers: When using numbers in the body of your paper, spell out numbers one through nine, such as "Three men decided" When using numbers 10 or above it's proper to write the number, such as "The report indicated 68 customers" 14. Have a conclusion: Would you really enjoy watching a movie or sporting event that had no conclusion? No. The conclusion ties your points together. The reader wants to know the final score - the bottom line message. 15. Edit your work: Read what you have written several times. On your first read, focus on organization and sentence structure. Shorten long sentences. Cross out unnecessary words and phrases. Reorganize material as needed. Read it again and make sure commas are used appropriately and that there is a punctuation mark at the end of every sentence. Read it a third time and focus on word choice. Are there certain words that are vague or unclear? Replace them with specific words. Read what you have written aloud to yourself or to a friend to see if he or she (and you) can understand it and improve it in any way. A significant part of good writing involves editing. Very few people can sit down and write a perfect paragraph on their first try. It requires multiple rewrites. Summary: You don't have to be a great writer to be successful manager/leader. However you must be able to clearly and succinctly explain your thoughts and ideas in writing. Strive to be simple, clear, and brief. Like any skill, "good writing" requires practice, feedback, and ongoing improvement. Q.3 How would you prepare yourself for an oral business presentation? Delivering a formal presentation can be either fairly stress-free or nerve wrecking. Your level of comfort can depend on the size of your audience, the critical spectators attending your

presentation, or the feedback that you may anticipate. Whatever you may find as a cause for concerns about speaking before a group, never let it be your knowledge about what you will speak. With thorough and effective research about your subject, you will discover that you are already halfway prepared to address your listeners. The following steps can complete your preparation. 1. Study your subject. You may have already been provided great information from which you could pull. But if there are other sources, such as the Internet or experts, use them to enhance your own insight. Doing so can also help you develop more confidence in your speech. 2. In the comfort of your own study lab (wherever that may be), anticipate all types of responding questions from people in your audience: challenging questions, critical questions, crazy questions, and simple questions (the ones which are so simple that you forgot to prepare an answer for). Equip yourself with facts and insight accordingly. For enlightenment on people's views, I have read several your message boards and even complaint sites to help me prepare for the unexpected you must be able to comprehend them in order to convey them to an audience. So, if you jot your notes down on index cards, write legibly. If your presentation is non-interactive, do not take that for granted. You can still be approached with questions after your speech or after the event where you gave it. 3. Organize the notes from which you will speak. Whether typed or handwritten, you must be able to comprehend them in order to convey them to an audience. So, if u jots your notes down on index cards, write legibly. 4. If you decide to speak with the aid of a Power Point presentation, bear in mind how you will insert information to be displayed. Dont expect an audience to read lengthy sentences or any paragraph - no matter how much time they are given. By all means, do not prepare yourself to read every word written on that Power Point. The audience does not need to see the back of your head. They don't need to hear your voice drift into a state of monotony, which is what can happen if you read word-for-word from your notes. 5. Practice your presentation in private and be willing to be your own biggest critic. Grab a tape recorder or any recording device to listen to your own speech. 6. As I expressed above, approach the podium with a solid knowledge base about every point your will discuss. 7. Please do not imagine your audience in their underwear. You need to focus. If eye contact with any of those listeners intimidates you, then look just past the last row of people to land your sight on either some empty seats or the wall. There are corners of walls and other inanimate objects where you can place your focus until you find yourself comfortable enough to make brief eye contact with a few friendly or neutral faces. 8. Remember that the last row of listeners needs to hear your voice. Unless you have a reliable microphone, be sure to project. 9. Do not overestimate your listeners' attention spans. Keep their interest. Give your tone some range (logical range, that is). And wherever your subject and the points from which you speak will allow, engage your audience with illustrations which they can relate to. 10. Please impose neither overly technical terminologies nor acronyms on your audience. While these expressions of intelligence seem effective, they actually reflect a lazy effort to communicate detailed and comprehensible information to 11. Remember that, at this point, there should be no reason to lose confidence. If you've studied your subject, grasped a clear understanding of it, and followed the tips above, you have the tools to

conquer any sharp sensation that you may feel in the pit of your gut going before any group. Q.4 You are a team manager having 15 members in your team. Two of your key team members are on 3-weeks leave. You have to call for a monthly team meeting within a week. How effectively you would plan and carry out this meeting? In a meeting, two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal setting. A meeting is a gathering of two or more people that has been convened for the purpose of achieving a common goal through verbal interaction, such as sharing information or reaching agreement. Meetings may occur face to face or virtually, as mediated by communications technology, such as a telephone conference call, a Skype conference call or a videoconference. Thus, a meeting may be distinguished from other gatherings, such as a chance encounter (not convened), a sports game or a concert (verbal interaction is incidental), a party or the company of friends (no common goal is to be achieved) and a demonstration (whose common goal is achieved mainly through the number of demonstrators present, not verbal interaction).Commercially, the term is used by meeting planners and other meeting professionals to denote an event booked at a hotel, convention center or any other venue dedicated to such gatherings. In this sense, the term meeting covers a lecture (one presentation), seminar (typically several presentations, small audience, one day), conference (mid-size, one or more days),congress (large, several days), exhibition or trade show (with manned stands being visited by passers-by), workshop (smaller, with active participants), training course, team-building session and kick-off event. Types of meetings 1. Investigative Meeting, generally when conducting a pre-interview, exit interview or a meeting among the investigator and representative 2. Work Meeting , which produces a product or intangible result such as a decision. 3. Staff meeting, typically between manager and those that report to the manager. 4. Team meeting, a meeting among colleagues working on various aspects of a team project 5. Ad-hoc meeting, a meeting called for a special purpose 6. Management meeting , a meeting among managers 7. Board meeting , a meeting of the Board of directors of an organization. 8. One-on-one meeting , between two individuals 9. Off-site meeting , also called "offsite retreat" and known as an Awayday meeting in the UK 10. Kickoff meeting, the first meeting with the project team and the client of the project to discuss the role of each team member 11. Pre-Bid Meeting, a meeting of various competitors and or contractors to visually inspect a jobsite for a future project. The meeting is normally hosted by the future customer or engineer who wrote the project specification to ensure all bidders are aware of the details and services expected of them. Attendance at the Pre-Bid Meeting may be mandatory. Failure to attend usually results in a rejected bid. If 2 key members are not there company use the alternates .on the behalf of that members company should give the work another person who has subordinates of that person ,either under that section who is expert will be chosen by company.

Q.5 Distinguish between circulars and notices along withformats. Notice: a message / informations bringing to all which will be put in common place. Circular A message / information bringing to certain group of people belonging to the information Like memos, circulars and notices are also written forms of communications within the organization. The difference between a circular and a notice is that circular are announcements that are distributed to small or selective groups of people with the organization ,whereas notices are meant for a larger group of people. example- if a manger wants to call a meeting of heads of departments he will pass around a circular only to the heads, requesting the to the heads, them to attend that meeting on the other hand, notice generally contain information or Announcements that are meant for all the employees of an Organization Example- A list of declared holidays for a calendar year is notice, since the information is relevant to all employee . A simple circular and notice are given below A circular

A notice is therefore a legal document that has to be put up on a official notice or bulletin board. Some time under special circumstance notice may also be sent to individual employees A notice

Q.6 You are a sales manager for a particular brand of mixerand blender. Frame a sample bad news letter telling acustomer about that her claim for the product replacement isrejected on the grounds that the product didnt have anydefect during the sale. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely-implemented strategy for managing a companys interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processesprincipally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service. Customer relationship management describes a company-wide business strategy including customer-interface departments as well as other departments. In evaluating technology, key factors include alignment with the companys business process strategy and goals, including the ability to deliver the right data to the right employees and sufficient ease of adoption and use. Be politest with the customer telling to him/her . Dear customer, When prior selling an mixer or blender we assure that there is no external or internal damages, and testing for its working have been conducted and verified and professionals for any acute things within. I am sales manager for a this brand of mixer and blender and we have to inform you that claim for the product replacement is rejected on the grounds that the product didnt have any defect during the sale. So I please oblige on behalf of the company that we cant help you within the grounds of company rules. Hope our products will assist you in future and thanks for being part of our products. Thanking you Rakesh Ghosh