In the current, business communication is a key element for all the organization to accomplish the objectives of the company in an effective and appropriate manner. Along with this, effective business communication also plays a significant role to make a strong relationship with the employees, customers and stakeholders of the company. Therefore, communication is one of the important essential elements of the organizational success. For this paper I will focus on a small company of about 20 employees in China which exports footwear and garments to foreign countries. I will identify their several various communication problems in the company. The main goal is to find their communication improvement opportunities for them and developing a comprehensive managerial communication improvement plan. Apart from this, different ways to reduce such issues will also be discussed. Additionally, situation analysis (SWOT) and implementation process of the company will also be presented in order to fully achieve the objective of this project.
Background and Problem Statement
Hongsheng Fashion Company is an organization that I worked as intern in China for around 3 months after my college graduation. It is a small-sized company that is specialized in trade and production of footwear, garments and textile apparel for export. It has about 20 employees and their customers are mainly from Europe and America and other countries and regions. Their products fall into many categories such as textile fabrics garments, leather etc. They have been cooperating with some international companies, such as Esprit, Vans, Tesco, JC Penny etc. They are committed to providing superior products and services for customers to gain rich experience and reputation. During operation, the company is facing several communication issues, one of issues is the cultural differences they are faced with its clients, and they also have different issues in respect to communication which affected the growth of the company. To some degrees, theses crises also reduced their productivity, profitability and revenues of the company.
Their major communication problems are as below:
Cultural difference with their clients: during negotiation with foreign companies, sometimes they have disagreement in price quote for the material supplies from their customers. For western negotiators, their responses are often indirect when they are not satisfactory. Because of misunderstanding and language barrier, the company did not clear what their purpose is. Meanwhile, for Chinese negotiators, it is difficult to say No directly in order to save face or avoid giving offense. So the negotiation has to go around several times to reach agreement or towards failure because of the gap in communication along with cultural difference between two parties, which also causes inefficiency for the company.
Lack of Personal Contact: most of time, the communication model of their company is based on virtual communication with their foreign customers because of time and distance issues. They use internet, computer and telephones as communication techniques. The company is unable to make personal contact with them. The face to face communication has decreased which can cause ineffective communication. People communicate via email as well as phone calls due to their poor communication skills.
Problem with Transparency: This is also communication problem existing that influence the environment of Hongsheng company in a negative manner. For instance, the manager cannot deliver the message from president in time to their subordinates. Sometimes, the aims and objectives are not clear to the employees, so they may not easily understand their roles and responsibilities to perform their jobs in an effective manner. So, the lack of clarity also generates the communication problem for the company as well as employees.
Lack of Trust: The employees of the company tend to be not to share their information with each other due to lack of trust with each other. For instance, the people who are responsible for sales do not get along well with people who are doing designs. The employees are unable to work in a team. This problem also reduces the productivity of the company and also creates communication problems between the management and workers.
Lack of Opinions: during my internship, I find that the employees of Hongsheng are not willing to provide their feedbacks as well as views on the regular basis. They like to keep to themselves rather than communicate openly with their managers. So, the company cannot improve their skills of the employees efficiently and this is also the reason of the communication problems between employees and their customers.