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This paper discusses the global business communication trends considering the insight details of texting in the workplace, e-mail etiquette, paperless companies, content-based smart companies and use of computer management systems. Research indicates that over 2.5 million people use texting in the United States; 83% of Australian employees use the Internet for communication; 80% of Londoners use online ticketing as opposed to paper while organizing their journey. The paperless office is a central trend in business management, unlike in the past decades where business management centred on paper work. Since 2000, the use of paper has been on the decline and is further diminishing. According to Microsoft, computer software cannot entirely replace the paper use. The ever changing business communication trends aim at providing satisfying services to customers by improving the communication efficiency.
Introduction and Objective
This paper focuses on aspects of business communication trends like texting in the workplace, e-mail etiquette, and paperless companies. Majority of business entities tends to adapt new technologies and keep modern standards of running their business nowadays. Small businesses look at a fax machine as optional due to the increasing demand for scanning documents and sending as e-mail attachments. Another new trend is the interoffice mail of modern corporations. Individual postage becomes unnecessary, and mail shot replaces a physical address on any package. The changing communication business trends relate to the business-client relationship (Narula, 2006).
Literature Review
Over centuries, business communication trends have evolved and still changing at fast speeds. Professional relaying of messages is essential in the life and production of an organization. Business communication is vital in day to day activities at work. It is easy to observe business trends, since types of messages change with time. Business communication trends may be written, verbal or non-verbal.
Texting in the work place is a written communication trend which is becoming extremely popular nowadays. According to a media research corporation Nielsen Wire, the daily messages sent by text in the United States are over 2.5 billion; hence Americans use phones in texting rather than calling. Approximately an average American teenager can send over 3,300 text messages every month (Weinberg, 2009).
E-mail etiquette is an emerging business communication trend. For a few years, e-mail has been popular, and many still use it now in business communications. At the moment, e-mail is acceptable as an efficient means of business communication. Some people can overlook the Internet technology, although it is necessary in passing a professional image when communicating management matters. Therefore, there is a need for some etiquette when writing a professional mail. Many people understand the need to follow rules while communicating via business mail.
The technology is rapidly expanding, and innovations are taking place to overcome future complexities of business communications. The traditional offices are full of paper-based filing systems, including folders, filing cabinets, microfiche systems, drawing cabinets, shelves, and folders. All these need considerable space and equipment. However, paperless office provides an employee an opportunity to manage all information in a digital form. In this system, paper use is reduced considerably. The proponents of the system believe that the paperless office boosts productivity, makes documentation easier, saves space, increases security, helps to keep the environment clean, and saves money.
Paperless office has evolved over time. It started with video popularization in 1964, and then in 1975, Business Week article predicted emerging of the paperless office. The idea rests on the fact that office automation reduces the paperwork in routine tasks like bookkeeping and records-keeping. The paperless office became prominent when computer use came into being (Cox, 1995). The improvement of printers and photocopiers improved the speed of producing documents in bulk, thus doubling the paper use by the year 2000. Since then, the documents production increased with a pronounced electronic communication. Since 2000, the use of paper has been decreasing, an attribution of generational shift, where the young rarely print out documents and prefer reading them on an interactive display screen.
The paper use was eliminated using online systems like replacing index cards with databases, faxes with email, and reference books with the Internet connection. The paper elimination was processed through automation of paper-based processes, which rely on applications, forms, and surveys to obtain and share data. This leads to secure processing and sharing of documents electronically without printing. The main difficulty in paperless office is business communication with other individuals and businesses, a part from the internal business environment.
The smart companies are now strategic aims about the communication content. They have learned their lessons from unplanned rollouts hence find it necessary to think before implementing. The content strategy comprises of substance, structure, processes, and workflow. Most of the content strategy centre on the online content, approaches, and methods.
A recent trend in business communication is the use of computer management systems. The executive management teams find it beneficial to use an enhanced communication with their partners and agents.
The Data Analysis and Results
In 2007, an international survey established that 83% of employees in Australia use the Internet and e-mail at work as they believe it to make them more productive. A survey by Kelly Services, a global recruitment agency, found out that most of the workforce use online communication. Those of age 25-54, both men and women, were intensive users of the Internet. The survey established that the online technology transforms business operations. Some 35% of workers stated that they received high levels e-mails, which were either unnecessary or time wasting. The widespread use of the online technology now demands proper etiquette when using it in order to optimize its benefits (Koukam, 2012).
A free texting app, plus carried out a survey, which revealed that 11% of college students and fresh graduates find it easy to use a text at work and that it is in order to quit a job by using a text message. This research supports the fact that texting continues to change the workplace. It is like the popular trend of companies incorporating social media policies. In fact, companies will soon build some procedures and policies of texting to avoid liabilities and incorporate proper texting etiquette in the workplace. Managers indeed allow their employees to text when sick.
Automation is eventually displacing paper from most of the activities. Over 80% of London journeys, for instance, take place without a paper ticket. However, most companies including Microsoft believe that the paper cannot be eliminated absolutely. Another study established that Islington council saved up to £200,000 yearly when they switched to the e-invoicing. They even believe that the figure will grow.
These communication trends make companies seek effective ways of communicating and convey messages to customers in a timely manner. This increases productivity and sales. The bottom-line is that the executive management perceives the changing communication trends to increase the company’s profits. This ensures customer satisfaction, ensuring regular and repeat customers, who increase sales and productivity. The Internet use and e-mail communication in business are now central. Most of the businesses are reducing the use of paper in preference to emerging technologies like computers, mobile phones, and iPads.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Communication is the foundation of any business. Effective communication plays a vital role in management, employee-client relationships, and the company’s operations in the community in its struggle to grow a business and diversify. All these are impossible without effective communication systems. Hence, anyone who does business should understand the continual advancement in business communication. At the moment, the business communication trends concern emerging technologies, which are the main communication channels to most of the businesses. The change in the business trend, in the last ten years, is tremendous. It impacts the business landscape a lot. Therefore, the changing trend means, whatever is new now, will soon be an old trend.