Business Brief 'The world's youth prefer Coke to tea, trainers to sandals,' wrote one marketing specialist recently. This implies that tastes everywhere are becoming similar and homogeneous. But the watchword should still be 'Think global, act global'. Acting local means having local market knowledge: there are still wide variations in taste, customs, behaviour and expectations between consumers in different markets, even markets that from the outside look very similar, like those in Europe. It means, for example, recognising attachments to local brands, how business is done in each place, and so on. Of course, these are issues that a company with a global presence has to address. But even companies that seem as if they have been global forever had to start from a home base. For example, it took Marlboro 30 years and McDonalds 20 years to become truly global organisations. How to enter overseas markets in the first place? Philip Kotler enumartes the various methods:
INDIRECT EXPORT: Exporters use an intermediary such as an export agent to deal with buyers in the overseas market.
DIRECT EXPORT: Companies handle their own exports, for example, by setting up overseas sales offices.
LICENSING: Companies sell the rights to use a manufacturing process, trademark or patent for a fee or royalty. In services such as hotels, the company may negotiate a management contract with a local business to run the hostels on its behalf.
JOINT VENTURES: Two companies, for example an overseas firm and a local one, may work together to develop a particular market.
DIRECT INVESTMENT: The company buys a local firm, or sets up its own manufacturing subsidiaries.
Of course, these different arrangements involve different levels of commitment, investment and risk. Kotler talks about the internationalisation process, where firms move (hopefully) through these stages:
Stage 1: no regular export activities
Stage 2: export via independent representatives / agents
Stage 3: establishment of overseas sales subsidiaries
Stage 4: establishment of production facilities abroad
This process will help them to progress towards global thinking and local action as they expand internationally. At different stages, companies will have different levels of understanding of the markets where they are trying to develop. Each step in the process requires different l
- Could you slow down, please? - Could you speak up, please? - Could you speak a little louder, please?
2) You want someone to stop talking while you do something
- Could you hold on a minute, please?
3) You don't understand a word/expression the other person uses
- Sorry, what exactly does ________ mean? - Sorry, I don't know what _________ means?
4) You want to make sure of the spelling of something
- Could you spell that for me, please?
5) You want more information about a subject
- Could you give me a little more information, please? - Could you give me some more details, please? - Could you expand on that, please? (more formal)
6) The connection is not good and you can't continue the conversation
- Sorry, I can't hear you. Could you call me back, please? - Sorry, it's a bad line. I can't hear you.
7) You want to confirm some information
- Let's see if I've got this right - Let me check if I've got this right - Could I just confirm what you've told me?
Consider the following and post your opinion on your blog: 1) What have you heard on the grapevine recently? 2) When is it necessary to put someone in the picture? 3) In what situations is it good to get straight to the point? 4) Is there anything you can't make head nor tail of? 5) Who are you on the same wavelength as? Why? 6) Have you ever felt you were talking to a brick wall? 7) When have you been kept either in or out of the loop? How did you feel?
Within companies, communication falls into two main areas. There is communication of information and technical knowledge needed to do the job at hand. Here, paper-based communication is being replaced by the company intranet, with internal company websites only accessible by employees. Some very large companies are appointing knowledge officers to exploit the information in a company to the full and facilitate its communication to those who need it. (But in this age of increasingly accessible information, there will no doubt always be the information hoarders, employees and managers who find power and pleasure in keeping information for themselves, even if it would be useful to their colleagues.)
There is also what might be called 'celebration-exhortation'. The internal company magazine is the classiccommunication channel here. It may be produced in-house by a 'communications department' or out-of-house by journalists who specialize in this area. It may try to demonstrate how the company is putting its mission statement into action: the management may try to change employee behavior by exhortation and by praising the performance of particular departments and individuals.
Externally, advertising has been the most visible form of communication with customers. Usually this is designed to increase product sales, but there is also institutional advertising designed to improve perceptions of the company as a whole. Companies naturally like to be seen as human and environmentally aware. But the communication between companies and their customers is increasingly becoming two-way, with customer-service centers designed to gather information, not just complaints, from customers about all aspects of use of a company's products. Ideally, this information feeds back into product modification and new product design. Additionally some companies are now using social software and micro-blogging sites such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate with their customers. This is directly related to customer relationship management.
Equally, a company must communicate with its investors, and investor relations are becoming an important specialized area of public relations. Investors want to know how their money is being used and what their prospects are.
Then there is the wider public audience to attend to. Press conferences may be called to announce important events such as product launches. Press releases may be issued to communicate more routine information. There is also the specialized area of crisis management and damage control.
Whatever a company does, it has an image, so it should try to influence (some would say 'manipulate') the molding of this image. This is one reason why the communications industry, in all its forms, is a multibillion-dollar business.
Welcome to Grañena's Business Communication: Aug-Nov 2014 Blog. We are establishing this platform as a way of communication where you will be able to talk about the topics discussed in our class. At the end of the semester, your participation here will be considered as a 10% your grade (e-portfolio).
Please note that while this is an area where freedom of speech is imperative, you must always maintain an assertive approach when addressing others' ideas.
"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."