Why are effective business communication skills vital to you

Why are effective business communication skills vital to your success in the workplace?

Solution

The workplace environment of the 21st century has become more competitive than ever. Having technical and systems knowledge is not the only skill that the human resource managers are looking for these days in the prospective candidates, but effective business communication skills have become an important factor too. No matter how smart or knowledgable the person is in his or her assigned task but if they are not able to communicate effectively within and outside the organisation, they are less likely to be successful in their corporate career. Businesses today have large number of diverse stakeholders. A typical product manager, for example, is required to coordinate with different departments of the organisation such as operations, technical, finance, marketing, legal, human resources, as well as with the outside vendors like advertising agencies, IT vendors, payment gateway providers, third party logistics partners and many others. If the person holding the product manager position is not well versed with business communication skills, he or she might not be able to effectively communicate the project requirements with different teams leading to the development of a distorted product. Take another example of a sales manager of a leading multi-national corporation whose job is to look for prospective customers for company’s products, generate sales leads, present or demonstrate the product and convert them into product sales. Now, even if a person has great knowledge about the product but if he or she is not able to communicate it convincingly to the audience in a persuasive manner, they might not actually purchase the product leading to a missed opportunity for the company and competitor’s gain.

Business communication skills primarily comprises of:

- Presentation skills

- Negotiation skills

- Business writing skills

- Selling skills

- Team work

- Cross-cultural communication

- Persuasive skills, etc.

All these skills are imperative for a person’s success in the workplace. In one of my previous assignments as a store manager of a fast food QSR (quick service restaurant), I was working in a fast and dynamic environment that required continuous interaction and coordination with both the customers as well as the employees. There were customers with diverse and customised needs and we had to serve them in a timely manner. It required me to effectively communicate the customer demands to the back-end staff and deliver their order under the promised time. Not only was I selling and negotiating products to the customers, I was also persuading my own sub-ordinates to customise meals for customers and delight them through effective team work.

Therefore, irrespective of the job role or position in the organisational hierarchy, every employee must possess good business communication skills in order to succeed in their assigned roles. Nowadays, more and more organisations are realising the need of effective business communication skills and are regularly conducting training programmes for their employees where they get to learn and sharpen their communication skills listed above. If the managers or people in the leadership positions in the organisation are not effective in their communication, they might find it difficult to motivate and guide their team members towards the organisational goals.