BUSINESS
Jack Houston
UNIT 4
P1
Describe the types of information used in your organisation, choosing one from each of the following categories: verbal, written, on-screen, multimedia, web-based.
Describe where each of these pieces of information has come from.
Describe the purpose of each piece of information
There are different types of information used in businesses. Teachers from a school, for example, communicate using different ways such as, verbal, written, on screen, multimedia and web-based. There are various purposes and reasons why different ways of communications are used and when it’s seen most beneficial to use them.
Strategic management is the process by which organisations determine their purpose, objectives and desired levels of achievement. It would help a school decide on actions for achieving these objectives and also allows them to implement the actions, and then assess progress and results. In order to establish strategic direction, the school would require large amounts of information from both internal and external sources. Once this information is obtained a SWOT analysis is used, which is a tool used for auditing the organisation and its environment.
The sources that people use within a school could be information obtained from inside the business. There are different types of internal in c0formation, such as financial, personnel, marketing, purchasing manufacturing and administration.
As well as internal sources of information, a school could also use external sources to help them make the correct business decisions. Some examples of external sources of information would be government, trade groupings, commercially provided information, database and research. If a business uses external sources of information they must be sure of the reliability of the sources.
Face to face verbal communication is arguably the best way to communicate as there’d be less scope of misunderstanding and it allows for verbal and non-verbal messages. This could be through presentations, meetings, serving customers, teaching students or anything else that uses the method of verbally communicating with people. Teachers within a school would use verbal communication as it’s quicker and less formal and it’d be easier than other ways of communication. However with the constraints of time and budget it isn’t always possible or practical to meet in person especially with larger businesses which have a huge number of employees.
Verbal communication has many purposes, but its main function is spreading a message to one or more recipients. It includes everything from simple one-syllable sounds to complex discussions and relies on both language and emotion. Verbal communication can be used to inform, inquire, argue and discuss topics of all kinds. It is vital to teaching and learning, within a school for example, as well as forming bonds and building relationships with other people.
Writing is the use of physical symbols to represent words. This could include other forms of physical representation, such as diagrams, graphs and charts, in other words, all types of visual representation. We could not have reached our present state of economic, social and technological development without our ability to produce written information. In a school teachers and the staff would use written notes to pass messages to each other. Also the school’s newspaper would be used to present ideas or events to the whole school and the interested public. The purposes can be to confirm in writing what has been agreed upon verbally. For example, reports help communicate new information, analysis of data or research or recommendations for future decisions.
However information may be produced on-screen. This can be seen in multimedia TV and CD-ROMs that combine text, graphics, animation audio and video. This sort of information would be used when people would want to privately send information to each other and it’s also beneficial as it’s