VUSSC/Content/Entrepreneurship/Business Communication/Introduction

Introduction

An entrepreneur has to become skilled in the art of reading the situations he or she manages in business. Typically, any business will have people working for the company, outsiders, who are its customers, suppliers of products for resale, e.g. wholesalers, and those who fund the business. All these stakeholders, at one point or another, need to interact for a variety of reasons. For example, a customer might want to enquire from the salesperson about a certain product, or raise a complaint about poor delivery of service. That kind of interaction is known as communication.

Overview

In this unit we, therefore, define business communication, examine types of communication, explain how these take place, and suggest ways of improving communication in business. Since conducting business is unthinkable without effective communication, we examine what communication is by looking at the spoken word, its link with listening and written communication. We also discuss non-verbal communication as an important feature of the communication situation in business. One of the popular means of communication is the telephone. We single it out for discussion and relate it to business situations. The unit is concluded with guidelines about written communication, with encouragement that the entrepreneur should make it a point to learn basics of grammar in order to communicate efficiently.

Objectives

After working through this unit you should be able to: Define communication Explain the connection between communication and the aims of an enterprise Show how employees of an organisation use the spoken word to accomplish tasks Apply talking skills to the business environment Distinguish verbal from non-verbal communication and illustrate how these are interrelated Evaluate the importance of listening and speaking in effective communication Explain the advantages and disadvantages of using the telephone Discuss how written communication is best organised