What is the Importance of Communication in Business
“I don’t like clear communication” said no one ever! Communication has always been a key to efficient collaboration and driving targeted-oriented missions in any business. Up until the last decade though, the communication for work or business was confined to face to face or email-based communication. While this created a lot of process latency, the chances of improper interpretation or miscommunication were fairly less. So although the importance of business communication was well-known and accepted, the conventional means of communication left little choice to scale it to something extraordinary.
Today, the proliferation of digital devices and a mighty number of communication channels has opened up several ways the workforce can connect, not only with each other but also with their customers and clients. While this initially seemed like an interesting opportunity to close the existing communication gaps, increasing the availability for the customers to extend support and drive overall productivity, it was not the case. It did help in achieving all of this but also ushered in a bunch of challenges for the business owners, leaders and managers.
To begin with, the influx of mobile devices into day-to-day lives has made the boundaries between work and personal fuzzy. So while employees are available all the time, checking emails on their phones and personal computers, the security of the data that is exchanged over personal devices still lies in jeopardy.
Moreover, with a large workforce telecommuting or ‘working from home’, all the work there is, gets done on employee-owned devices.
This has brought in the primary need to use a secure team communication app for business collaboration, which ensures that the communication and the resources exchanged during the communication are always secure and encrypted. The significance of business communication doesn’t end here. It is necessary to have a dedicated communication channel to ensure there’s no overlap in information exchange.
For example, if the employees connect to their team over personal chat apps or social media or Gmail or work email or everything, which is the one go-to source for them that can guarantee a quick response and can also hold strong as an official testimony? This is when businesses realize the need for one single dedicated channel for communication.
When we consider business as a whole, it is also important to not overlook a major chunk of the workforce that doesn’t fit into the conventional paradigms- the frontline workers. These employees can be contractors or full-time employees who work outside the traditional parameters of the office or have to be physically present to perform their jobs. From last-mile delivery folks to logistics drivers, these frontline workers drive business more than they get credit for. They not only represent your business but are also mostly the first point of contact for your customers.
The real challenge in driving the productivity and engagement of these employees is that they do not necessarily have a work email ID. And this is where the need and importance of business communication is more prominent than ever.
Effective communication is hence one of the pivotal elements for any business- however big or small.
