Business Communication and Business System Comparison

Question: Discuss about the Business Communication and Business System Comparison. Answer: Introduction All the businesses of the world vary in their capacities. They are not created equal and neither are their working procedures similar. What may be a regular practice for one organization may be a unacceptable for the other. The size of an organization determines its functioning and way of work. There is a huge difference between a small and a large organization and in their business network and its complexity. In Australia, small and medium sized enterprise is any business that has less than 200 employees regardless of their revenues generated. In this research we have studied a large organization and its components and working and compared it to that of a comparatively small organization (Ingram, 2017). We have studied the way they conduct their business, studied their hierarchy and their organizational communication practices. This will give us an in-depth understanding of effective ways of communication in a small and large organization. The large organization, we have selected fo r the research is Apple Inc. which is an American multinational technology organization and the small business chosen to analyze is Snagajob which is a website for job search headquartered in America (Johnson Phan, 2012). We have studied the organizations and their global footprint, their business type, products and services provided by them, their organizational goals, mission, vision, their risk taking ability and their potential for further growth. Snagajob is a search engine for jobs having its headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. Founded on 17th October 1999 by Shawn Boyer, this organization has been included in the Fortune magazines great places to work list for last eight consecutive years. It has also been named in Deloittes Fast 500, a lust of the fastest growing technology, life sciences, media, telecommunication and clean technology companies in America (Deloitte, 2009). The founder of the organization Shawn Boyer has been the CEO of the organization since its inception in 1999 till 2013. In April 2013, Peter Harrison was made the CEO of Snagajob and has been serving as the same ever since. Shawn Boyer was awarded with the title of Americas small business person of the year in the year 2008 by the Small Business Administration for starting up with the organization and leading it to a national employment network. Snagajob is a privately held organization and it has raised over $141 million from the investors all over the world. The prominent investors include Adams Street Partners, CB capital, August capital, Baird Venture partners, Rho Acceleration etc. As of December 2016, Snagajob is employing about 380 people and has more than 75 million people registered on their website at over 3 hundred thousand locations all over the world (Snagajob Team, 2017). The mission of Snagajob is to put people in right-fit positions so that they can maximize their potential and live more fulfilling lives. And their vision is to create a world where anyone can get work or the workforce that they want, wherever and whenever they want. Currently operating from four different sites in Richmond, Washington DC, Charleston and Oakland, They have a strong workforce headed by Peter Harrison. The Chief Operating Officer is Jocelyn Mangan and the Finances operations are headed by Keith Haas. They have an assorted clientele that constitutes of organizational customers ranging from caf and restaurant retail services, automobile industry, real estate, healthcare, manufacturing plants to management consulting organizations. Their focus area is matching the candidates with employers within minutes by creating quality connections. They are able to carry this out by sourcing, hiring, training and scheduling the workforce for the right workplaces. Although based in Am erica, the organization has both individual and organizational customers from all over the world (Wiley, 2007). The Apple Inc. that was formerly known as Apple Computers was incorporated on 3rdJanuary 1977. It is a designing, manufacturing and marketing organization for mobile communication devices, media devices, computers and portable digital music players (Team, 2012). The major segments of the organization are divided into America, Europe, China, Japan and Rest of Asia Pacific. Along with the devices, the organization Apple Inc. also sells an array of software, services, accessories and third-party content and applications. The products of the organization include the iPhone, iPad, Mac computers, iPod, Apple watch and Apple TV. The organization Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in April 1976. They began their operations to develop and sell personal computers. Apple Inc. is the worlds largest information technology organization in terms of revenue and largest technology company in the world by total assets. It is the second largest mobile phone manufacturing or ganization in terms of the number of phones manufactures following only Samsung and in the year 2014, Apple Inc. became the only US organization to be valued at over 7 hundred billion Dollars (Lazonick Tulum, 2013). Apple Inc. is employing over 115,000 people working full time. Apple enjoys an extremely high brand loyalty and popularity among all age groups and all across the globe. Apples mobile phone range iPhone accounts for more than 60 percent of its total sales. The tablet computers iPad account for another 10 percent of their sales and the rest of their products like iMac desktop, iTunes store, iCloud, Apple watch and Apple TV account for the rest. Apple Inc. manufactures some of its products in Ireland and the US, but most of the manufacturing is outsourced to FoxConn that is a manufacturing industry operating in Asia. While the US accounts for 40% of sales of Apple Inc., the Europe and Greater China region of the organization each account for a quarter of the sales revenue . Apple Inc. has more than 500 Apple Retail Stores across the United States and 20 more nations. Outside of the United States, China and Canada are the largest retail store markets for the Apple Inc. They sell the products through their own retail stores and website. In addition to that, indirect sales channels are also used to sell the products like resellers, third-party retailers, telecom network carriers etc. The direct selling accounts for only about 25% of the totals sales and 75% of the product sales take place through their indirect channels. The comparison made The small and large businesses vary in terms of workforce, resources and ways of communication. All organizations work on the same principle of arranging people in a hierarchy and run processes for getting the work done in an organization. The organizational hierarchy charts may vary from one organization to the other, but the broad functioning remains the same. We cannot point out the differences and tell that which one is better than the other, but we can always study the dynamics and adapt the good things from each to make the functioning and organization in a firm even more efficient. Small organizations like Snagajob that have a fraction of employees as compared to gigantic firms like Apple Inc. varies in not just the job functions but also the culture and organizational structure. Bigger organizations are generally more bureaucratic, as compared to medium and small firms. They have more elaborate rules and procedures that are to be followed and the matrix of a small organizatio n is generally simpler and easier to navigate. In a small organization, people, although have designated tasks to do, but they get an exposure to a wider variety of functions and roles. In a large organization, the rules are more formal and well defined (Varttala, 2010). Also, the rules for a small business are more flexible and less stringent that generally leads to more work life balance for people working in small organizations like Snagajob. However, with innovation and creativity as its core values, Apple Inc. is more adaptive of flexible rules and gives its employees the benefits at par with those received at a small close knit organizational structure. Bigger companies tend to give its employees an opportunity to hone their skills and develop specialization in specific roles and fields (Jaitapker, 2013). They have more opportunities and a scope for much longer association with the employee by providing opportunities for growth and development with programs like job rotation, job enrichment etc. The businesses leverage the information technology and its application in firms functioning in different ways. This depends on their size and number of employees working for them. The bigger organizations depend upon the specialized skills of their members with the best of the lot leading the different functional divisions, however the small and medium businesses generally do not have this advantage. But regardless of the number of employees in the organization, communication is the basic need for all. The instructions and policies need to be communicated to the organization from the top to the lower level of the organization and the feedback, enquiries and grievances of the employees need to be communicated from the lower to the top level of the organization. This communication that takes place in any business organization is known as business communication. Without effective communication taking place in the businesses, it is impossible to get the work done in a systematic and plan ned manner (Sawayda, 2011). Communication also helps in avoiding conflicts, misunderstandings and problems within the organization. A good communication channel is must for a business to run smoothly and in an effective manner. Good communication channel also makes delegation of tasks and responsibilities effective, increase the productivity of the organization maintains harmony in the business and make the work place enjoyable. In order to have effective communication channels and have a good communication system in an organization, regardless of its size, it is important that the organization takes care of the following- There must be minimum distraction and ensure the communication is two-way. Organizational meetings that are infamous for being the biggest time wasters, must be short, having defined goals and agendas and planned well in advance. The organizations must also ensure that the feedbacks given in any form from the customers, suppliers, clients or the employees are taken seriously and action is taken in a timely manner whether it is rewarding or punitive (UTZ, 2012). Today, even small organizations are increasingly making use of technological advancements in the communication field. They are including technology to communicate with their stakeholders and this has brought about a revolution in the way business is being done. Business is carried out through internal telecom systems that helps in quick exchange of information in a reliable manner. This happens without any information exchange charges and the only cost that the organization has to bear is the installation cost, which is very small in comparison to the service provided by the system (Eko, 2012). The second revolutionary tool that has taken the business communication by a storm is the internet. The internet has revolutionized the way we communicate not just within the organization, but also without stakeholders and customers. It has provided us with the fastest, cheapest and most effective way of communicating. It helps in removing the time lag and the difference between the time zone of different countries has also become insignificant with the internet revolution. In Snagajob since the number of employees is limited, the communication is easier to do and manage. The important instructions are conveyed through emails and mobile phones within and across the departments. All the organizational heads report to the Chief executive officer of the organization and the board of directors practice collective decision making. Being an online community, the communication relies heavily on the internet and electronic media. They also have dedicated pages on various social networking websites to make them more approachable and customer friendly. Apple Inc. is a world leader amongst the organizations worldwide. Their organizational structure is said to be the key factor in the organizations success. The culture and organizational hierarchy of Apple Inc. is effectively developed and it is made to accelerate innovation and transparency. This is visible in their products and services as well. Apples organizational structure and communication channels hold the values of excellence, creativity, innovation and secrecy close to the core. They also believe in constantly modifying their practices and organizational structure to keep up with the changing times and employee expectations (Roberts, 2009). The pursuit of excellence, creativity and innovation makes apple the world leader that it is today. The secrecy and ability to surprise and take risks helps Apple Inc. in protecting the negatives of espionage and poaching. This also helps apple in building up on the curiosity of the public, thus increasing the popularity and word of mout h publicity. Apple promotes communication between the employees through the internal communicator application. All the employees working in Apple Inc. have an access to it and can communicate freely. This ensures a two-way communication between employees, board of directors and the top management. Apple believes that it is extremely important for the employees to voice their opinions, concerns and ideas. The team Apple Inc. has always been open to suggestions about the functioning of the organizations, products, services and their production methods. Random audits are conducted in the retail stores and supply chains to ensure the implementation of the best practices and communication of the concerns of the employees. Regular meetings are held with the stakeholders to obtain pertinent information regarding the brand (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 1998). Monthly newsletter that contain accomplishments of the employees and the organization and trends of the current practices are published and made available to the employees to have a stronger connect with them, but secrecy regarding the product development and production practices prevails all communication practices in Apple Inc. They have code names for products being developed and have total control over the information being exchanged over the internet and official phones. They keep a track on the social media platforms, blogs, communicators and messages to ensure absolute discretion in the information being communicated. They take the feedback very strongly and work is compared to and judged by not just the managers but also the peers to make sure only the top quality products hit the market and brand apple is able to maintain the huge mass following. The communication in the organization has been that of a closed nature. Honesty, respect, confidentiality and compliance are the four pillars of communication policies of Apple Inc. Based on these principles, Apple Inc has developed a communication system to exchange information with their stakeholders. This is well understood and emulated in their day to day working by all Apple employees ranging from the top management to the floor staff. But the success of apple stems from the innovative and remarkable products that are launched by them and the uniqueness of these will be lost without taking the necessary steps to safeguard the confidential informa tion against the leaks (Hamel, 2017). The type of business being carried out by Snagajob varies on various levels. The biggest difference between the two is the size of the organization. While Snagajob has just about 400 employees working for it, Apple Inc. has a work force of 115,000 dedicated Apple employees. Snagajob is a service provider and they provide employment services to the individuals and organizations. They provide with the information of available jobs for the individuals looking for one and make available talented workforce to the organizations looking for the same. It is an online portal which is a database of information providing employment services. Apple on the other hand, in addition to online services and applications like iTunes and iCloud, have the products as the prime focus of their business. Their signature product iPhone brings about 60% of the sales revenues of the organization. It is a very large organization spreading its facilities across the globe (OECD, 2009). Conclusion On studying the organizational culture and internal communication processes of both organizations, we came to know about the differences in operations and functions of an organization as small as Snagajob having a workforce of only about 400 people and that of Apple Inc. employing 115,000 people. Snagajob is a search engine for jobs, that is headquartered in America and has customers in the form of individuals looking for jobs and organizations looking to hire talented individuals. It is an organization that works over the internet and the customer base is spread across the world, but a majority of their customers are from the United States. They have four offices that are all located in different parts of the United States. Their internal communication process is simple and takes place through mails and messaging applications. The information is communicated from top down and bottom up very easily due to the limited number of employees in the firm. The communication structure of the organization is very transparent and not complex (Letourneau Letourneau, 2011). The communication in this forms will rely heavily on the internet being an online search engine. One only has to become a member of the website to have access to information like job openings and available candidates for the job. The grievances and complaints of the customers and employees must also be easily communicated to the top management due to the simple communication structure. On the other hand Apple Inc. is a gigantic organization with operations and production facilities all over the world. Their manufacturing is primarily outsourced to FoxConn that is located in Asia. They have their retail stores and corporate offices all over the world. Their communication process is complex and contains a lot of channels and layers to it. Their commitment to keep the information regarding the products and services a secret only adds to this complexity. Their internal business communication is closely mon itored by the IT teams and their officials. The people working at Apple Inc. are made to sign contracts that prohibit them from sharing any information related to the organization and its working out in public. They value innovation and creativity and promote thinking and ideas outside the box (Hooker, 2008). They pursue excellence in both product development and functioning of the organization. Thus the organizational policies and structure is not made public. They have their own ways of monitoring the competitors and stay one step ahead in the race with them and please their loyal customers at the same time. They publish annual reports for the stakeholders and newsletters for the employees to keep them in the loop about the required information. The motive is to share only what is required and keep a tab on what is being communicated. The internal and external policies at Apple Inc. are quite strict and they have zero tolerance for information security breach. References Deloitte, 2009. Deloittes 2009 Technology Fast 50: Annual ranking of the fastest growing technology companies in North America, Available at: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/us-tmt-2009-fast500-winners-020515.pdf Eko, L., 2012. 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