Business Communication

1. 1
North South University
SBE
Semester: Spring 2016
Course Code: BUS251, Section: 6
Group Project: Business Communication research of Bashundhara
Group
Group Name: Super Hornet
Faculty: Shafquat Rafiul Alam ( Sqt ) Date: 27-03-16
Marks obtained:
(This space is for faculty’s usage. Do not write here.)
GROUP DETAILS
Name ID
01. H.M. Sohan 1230356630
02. Sumaiya Binte Mostak 1310503630
03. Niaz Hassan 1220132030
04. Mustafizur Rahman 1320937030
05. Mushfique Hasan 1331242030
06. Md Saiful Islam 1321462030

2. 2
Letter of Transmittal
March 27th, 2016
Shafquat Rafiul Alam
Lecturer,
North South University
Subject: Submission of group project
Dear Sir:
Here is the group project on the BUS251 course that you asked us to prepare as a part of
requirement for our syllabus. In presenting this report, we have put our level best effort to
include all the relevant information and the explanation to make this report informative, vivid
and comprehensive.
It was an erudite and fascinating experience for us to prepare this report. We are overwhelmed
with gratitude for succoring us to evolve our report making skills. If further clarification
regarding this report is required, we will be available by any means.
Thank you for believing us and giving us this opportunity.
Sincerely,
H.M Sohan Sumaiya Binte Mostak Niaz Hassan
Mustafizur Rahman Mushfique Hasan Md Saiful Islam

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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 4
Company overview ......................................................................................................................... 5
Research Questions......................................................................................................................... 7
Research Methodology ................................................................................................................... 7
Hypothesis....................................................................................................................................... 8
Literature Review............................................................................................................................ 9
Interview ....................................................................................................................................... 11
Survey ........................................................................................................................................... 12
Research Findings......................................................................................................................... 18
Recommendation .......................................................................................................................... 19
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 20
Appendix....................................................................................................................................... 21

4. 4
Introduction
Communication is mainly the exchange of information between two or more parties. Through
communication, organizations exchange information with internal and external parties.
Communication also brings to compel in organizational activities and helps in attaining goals.
The success of a business depends on the efficacy of business communication. For this,
communication is regarded as the lifeblood of business.
Communication helps in preparing organizational plans and policies. Realistic plans and policies
require adequate and relevant information. The managers collect required information from
reliable sources through communication. Communication also helps in increasing the efficiency
of employees. With the help of communication, organizational objectives, plans, policies, rules,
directives and other complex matters explain to the employees that broaden their knowledge and
thus help them to be efficient. Effective communication helps the employees at all levels to be
conscious and attentive. It ensures timely accomplishment of jobs and easy achievement of
goals. Making timely decisions requires updated information. Through effective communication,
managers can collect information from different corners and can make the right decisions.
Communication plays a vital role in creating and maintaining good industrial relation.
As we are select Basundhara group for our topic to find out the communication process and their
problem in communicating with others. We want to find out their internal and external problem
in communication. It was little bit difficult for finding problems in an industry because no one
want to share their weakness as we are external people.

5. 5
Companyoverview
The Bashundhara Group has started operation as a real estate venture known as “Bashundhara”
under the aegis of the Group’s first concern – the East West Property Development (Pvt) Ltd in
1987. This project turned out to be a very successful one and had helped foster the growth of
trust and confidence of the urban people in “Bashundhara”.
Dhaka’s burgeoning population, coupled with a conspicuously slow growth of housing led to the
landmark success of Bashundhara. Driven by the ramifications of this success, Bashundhara
geared up to invest in new fields, including manufacturing and trading. More enterprises were
established in the early 1990s, covering diverse activities involving the production of cement,
paper and pulp, tissue paper, steel, LP Gas bottling and distribution, and a trading company,
among others.
The group experienced this tremendous growth in a span of less than 10 years. During this
period, additional schemes on land development and real estate were launched and those projects
focused more sharply on increasing responsiveness to client needs. The Group’s first publicly-
traded company, the Meghna Cement Mills Limited, is currently listed on the two Stock
Exchanges of Bangladesh. The Group now has over 20 major concerns located in different areas
of the country. The multi-faceted shopping mall and recreation center called the Bashundhara
City has added glamour to the growth of the group. The Bashundhara City Development Ltd is
one step ahead in the longstanding effort to strengthen links with the general people through the
unique offering of commercial operations and recreation facilities under single roof. East West
Media Group Ltd is the mass media enterprise of the Bashundhara Group that was established in
2009. It now owns Bangla dailies – “The Kaler Kantho” and “The Bangladesh Pratidin”, English

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newspaper the “Daily Sun” and bilingual online portal “banglanews24.com.” The media house is
also planning to launch a FM radio and a television channel soon. The Group has come a long
way in reaching its goals by complimenting to client needs, learning real-time lessons from past
projects, innovating and partnering its project implementation process. Through major
investment undertakings in all key sectors, Bashundhara has meaningfully contributed to the
country’s economic stability in financial and capital markets. Underlying all of the Group’s
activities are the common threads of change, flexibility, and fostering closer ties with the
Government, the City Corporation and Bashundhara clients. Most of its projects have been
success stories – this fact alone is enough to justify a sense of confidence in the Group’s future.

7. 7
ResearchQuestions
On our research of this proposal, we want to make sure these key questions are addressed
properly.
1. What are the major causes of miscommunication in the firm?
2. Does favoritism towards employee causes harm to overall productivity?
3. How the company recruits new employees?
4. Is there any discrimination regarding the communication process?
5. Is there any distortion on informal network?
ResearchMethodology
For our primary research we conducted a survey on a sample of 30 employees of Bashundhara
Group. We designed a questionnaire with different types of questions to collect information to
help our research. For our secondary research we used the resource of web-articles, blogs,
journals, databases, government statistics, academic websites, social media sites and media.

8. 8
Hypothesis
The most possible causes of miscommunication on the firm could be consisting of various
reasons, such misaligned vocabularies, messy thinking, false civility etc. Moreover favoritism
towards employees also cause an overall deficit of productivity, other employees might lose
motivation. Different firms have different ways of recruiting new recruits as employees, they can
face one or several interviews or aptitude tests. In business environment, there might be
discrimination in terms of communication, it could be intentional or unintentional. However it
will lead to lesser productivity and reduced employee satisfaction. Informal communication
networks do not follow any set of rules, definite liners or ways. So it can transmit any kind of
information to any person without any respect or fear. It may spread wrong or distorted news
which may sometimes prove harmful even to the employees. So, distortion is the one of most
considerable disadvantages of informal communication.

9. 9
LiteratureReview
Major causes of miscommunication in the firm
Power distance
It can be a reason in such a big corporation like Basundhara group. They strictly follow the
hierarchical order. So employees can’t really communicate with the management on a regular
basis.
Distance between different departments
The distance between different departments can be another reason of communication gap in
Basundhara group. What we felt that each department have their separate manager, office unit
everything so it’s not possible for each of them to communicate.
Employees are not well informed
Employees are not aware of the goals or future decisions taken by the ma management because
they feel it’s not needed to tell them.
Management and employees not in good terms
If the employees and management relationship is bad the communication will be bad too.

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Favoritism towards employee causes harm to overall productivity
Isn’t it obvious that favoritism towards employees will harm productivity? When you’re praising
one employee in front of the other. Easy going for one employee and tough for others it will
create chaos and dissatisfaction amongst them and effect productivity,
How the company recruits new employees?
Basundhara group follows the centralized recruitment form because the human resource
department does all the recruitment work. Job openings can be filled both internally and
externally however Basundhara group prefers in external sources. They hire employees by
interview advertisements mostly online based.

11. 11
Interview
We conducted a short interview of Mr X, who has been in this company for last five years. He
shared his experience with us and we were delighted to have him. We asked him, “Sir, please tell
us your experiences in your company as well as share the communication gaps if you have any.”
He answered:
“I am working for Basundhara group for 5 years. In last five years I got promoted 3 times based
on my working eligibility. First it was difficult to adjust with the organization and the working
environment. There were some communication gap between me and the people of the
organization. I faced it quite severe for some moment. It was difficult to communicate in
decision making meetings, the upper level manager were difficult to adapt with. In some cases,
the communication problem appeared acute because of cultural differences. It was not easy to
make a decision because of the cultural problems between me and the upper level managers. I
tried to overcome the communication problem. I studied many articles related to business
communication on the internet. I developed the communication skills using those tactics. And
now at this moment I am facing no problems. It’s better to be mentioned that if a problem has no
solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact - not to be solved, but to be coped with over time.”

12. 12
Survey
Demographics
Gender
Total 30 people, Male: 19, Female: 11
Age
Male
63%
Female
37%
Participants of Survey
Less than 18
18-25
26-45
Above 45
Age

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Question 1: How long have you been working?
Assumption: Most of the employees are working for more than 2 years
Question 2: Do you face any communication problem in your workplace?
Assumption: Although 60% of the employees rarely face communication problem, 27% of the
employees occasionally face problems.
Less
than 6
months
10%
1 year
27%
2-3 years
36%
More
than 3
years
27%
How long have you been working?
Rarely
60%
Occasionally
27%
Frequently
6%
Never
7%
Do you face any communication
problem in your workplace?

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Question 3: How satisfied are you with communications in your company?
Assumption: Around 63% employees are satisfied with the communications in the company.
However rest of them have at least some minor dissatisfaction.
Question 4: From which of the following sources do you now receive most of your information
about what is going on in the company?
23%
40%
17%
17%
3%
How satisfied are you with
communicationsin your
company?
Very Satisfied Satisfied Neutral Dissatisfied Very Dissatisfied
The
grapevine
20%
Bulletin board
10%
My supervisor
15% Company
leadership
6%
Group meetings
at our work
location
16%
Local company
publications
6%
Company
intranet
12%
Company e-
mail
13%
Voice-mail
announcements
2%

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Assumption: Most of the sources of communication are from Grapevine (Informal learning of
something informally and unofficially by means of gossip or rumor), Company Meetings &
Emails.
Question 5: How would you rate your manager's communication skills?
Assumption: Most of the responses were positive on their manager’s communication skills.
Question 6: What type of communication problem you are facing in your work life?
Excellent
34%
Very Good
27%
Good
23%
Fair
13%
Poor
3%
How would you rate your manager's
communicationskills?
Verbal
10%
Non-verbal
40%
Formal
3%
Informal
47%
What type of communication problem
you are facing in your work life?

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Assumption: Informal channel communication and Non-verbal communication are the most
common problems they are facing.
Question 7: Does it affect the overall outcome of the company?
Assumption: Around 73% employees think that Informal & Non-verbal Communication is
causing problems to the company.
Question 8: Do you think about being assertive while giving bad news?
Yes
73%
No
27%
Does it affectthe overalloutcome of the
company?
Yes
60%
No
40%
Do you think aboutbeing assertivewhilegiving
bad news?

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Assumption: Most of the employees are more assertive while giving bad news.
Question 9: While communicating with others what type of problem you usually face?
Assumption: Language is the most prominent barrier in effective communication.
Question 10: Does it help showing attitude and ego in business communication?
Assumption: It’s not recommended to show attitude and ego in business communication.
Geographical
3%
Gender
34%
Religion
10%
Language
53%
While communicating with others whattype
of problemyou usually face?
Yes
27%
No
73%
Does it help showing attitude and ego in business
communication?

18. 18
ResearchFindings
 Major causes of miscommunication are Informal Network Communication & Non-verbal
communication
 Favoritism towards employees causes harmful consequences in the company as there
would be reduction on overall employee satisfaction
 Grapevine (Rumors & Gossip) is responsible for most communication and it sometimes
create negative impact and confusion among co-workers and peers
 Cross-cultural language causes significant problems in effective communication. Due to
various language pitch and tonal differences it’s sometimes hard to catch up to
conversations
 Informal network distortion causes problems in lateral communication between different
departments and it is sometimes hard to cope up with regular Formal Network
communications

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Recommendation
 Standardized communication should be implemented among all the departments
 Information passed among employees should be mentioned if its official and vice versa
 Managers should be encouraged not to show favoritism towards any employees
 Cross-cultural language should be standardized and employees should be advised to
repeat verbal communication if the communication is causing problems

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Conclusion
In this research we learned that even one of the best organizations in Bangladesh is causing
communication problems among its employees due to basic communication errors covered in
this course. The course helped us gather information and recommendation for all kinds of
communication error. Last but not least: “Write as though you were addressing intelligent people
you understand and respect. Don’t patronize them, but don’t talk over their heads.” -Patricia
T.O’Conner (Words Fail Me)

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Appendix
Research Questionnaire
This questionnaire is designed for the purpose of doing a research on “Business Communication
research of Bashundhara Group”. This is purely an academic research and as a result, the
information in the questionnaire will only be used for academic purposes. I would appreciate
your honest answers to the questions. Thank you in advance for your cooperation for the
betterment of this analysis.
Hi there! Before we head to the survey, how about I know a little bit about you?
Gender: (a) Male Age: (a) Less than 18 (b) 18-25
(b) Female (c) 26-45 (d) Above 45
Designation: _________________________
Please tick the best answer unless otherwise stated.
1. How long have you been working?
(a) Less than 6 months (b) 1 year
(c) 2-3 years (d) More than 3 years
2. Do you face any communication problem in your workplace?
(a) Rarely (b) Occasionally
(c) Frequently (d) Never
3. How satisfied are you with communications in your company?
1 2 3 4 5
Very Satisfied Satisfied Neutral Dissatisfied Very Dissatisfied
4. From which of the following sources do you now receive most of your information about what
is going on in the company? Rank your TOP THREE information sources only.
(a) The grapevine
(b) Bulletin board
(c) My supervisor
(d) Company leadership
(e) Group meetings at our work location
(f) Local company publications

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(g) Company intranet
(h) Company e-mail
(i) Voice-mail announcements
5. How would you rate your manager's communication skills?
1 2 3 4 5
Excellent Very Good Good Fair Poor
6 .What type of communication problem you are facing in your work life?
(a) Verbal (b) Non-verbal
(c) Formal (d) Informal
7. Does it affect the overall outcome of the company?
(a) Yes (b) No
8. Do you think about being assertive while giving bad news?
(a) Yes (b) No
9. While communicating with others what type of problem you usually face?
(a) Geographical (b) Religion
(c) Gender (d) Language
10. Does it help showing attitude and ego in business communication?
(a) Yes (b) No