E-mail as way of communication in business - Essay Example

? Introduction Email is a way of transferring digitised information from the source to one or more recipients using a web enabled device. It requires that the two parties have access to the internet to make the exchange complete; its servers receives information from the sender, directs it to the recipient and stores the content to be accessed at will thereafter. With improvements in computer technology, traditional forms of communications shifted from physical print outs for instance, memos to modern digitised forms which include internal email. This is used by businesses and organisations for communicating with its employees. This form of communication has brought with it some challenges which were only realised after corporations realised that there was minimal control over information exchanged among employees and the outside environment. Despite compliance standards set by corporations to guide employees on the right email content to use for internal communications, the number of emails exchanged in a day is so many that internal control mechanisms cannot effectively handle. In 2008, about 103 billion emails were sent in corporate companies the world over. These are some of the problems associated with internal mail (Holtz, 2004, p.31)1. Phones 4u: This is a large mobile phone retailer based in Britain, since its inception in 1987 by John Caudwell and his brother Brian, the store has grown leaps and bounds to boast of 550 outlets in the United Kingdom. This company operates in a tough business environment and transformed its internal processes over time, to cope with increasing consumer needs. Britain’s communications regulator (Ofcom) found Phones 4u liable of various malpractices ranging from lying to clients about their coverage, and delay in refund processing to those who purchase faulty phones. Due to such damaging allegations, the store did an internal check to determine the root cause of these inefficiencies and address them. Among the resolutions was rejection of internal email as a communication medium within and outside the company to monitor information flow to protect its brand from lurid accusations that were threatening its existence. Along with other changes effected for instance, provision of insurance packages for Smartphone buyers to reduce costs associated with customer returning damaged phones that are within the warranty period, it performance has rebounded with turnover growing 22% in 2010. Disadvantages of using internal email Liability: Unmonitored use of email can lead to consequences relating to violations of internal corporate rules and government regulations. Companies have internal intelligence and secrets that they may want to be kept private within its boundaries, they however, do not have the capacity to shield employees from knowing the same. Other modes of communication can be monitored to gauge its compliance; however, information contained in email is drafted by the sender, who decides on the context. The copy sent to the recipient can however be retrieved by investigators at the request of the authorities if it results in a civil lawsuit. The aims of corporate compliance is: to protect employees from unwanted behaviour, protecting company’s assets from misuse due to inefficiencies, minimise corporate risk and streamline operational processes to increase output. This secretive nature of email message exchange makes employees be tempted to use the medium to exchange private, but damaging information to other people for whatever gain. For instance, an employee might leak a product diversification plan by his company, the competitor who requested for the intelligence then wards off competition by introducing his own version of the same, with the same formula, to sabotage the originator (Smith & Mounter, 2008, p. 127)2. The government engages with corporate bodies on a daily basis, these businesses might hide some information from the government especially on matters relating to financial position. For instance, during expansions and business development, they lie about their gross profits to decrease tax levied in order to plough back profits realised to finance these projects. There have been cases of employees, after a disagreement with a company, releasing correct or biased financial statements to the authorities to undermine the management. Most systems set up to ensure compliance only monitor incoming and outgoing corporate communication messages but do not go into private ones which poses the greatest risks. Information overload: Employees create mailing lists for people they communicate to, internally and externally, since it can be tedious to send single mails to numerous recipients. For example, it is easier to multi-send an alert to shareholders on annual general meeting (AGM) than drafting every single email message. However, this has problems attached to it since these mailing lists group recipients as a batch, when they receive common email messages; they tend to ignore them and do not give it the weight it deserves. Loss of context: Emails are sent as disjointed information in most cases, usually shortened piece of writing. It is therefore difficult to place it in a specific situation especially when received as a spam. Social networking sites have topics of discussion, and users are then able to determine the context before giving their opinions on the same. This is however not possible for email messaging since the sender and receiver find challenges piecing together disjointed information (Papa, Daniels & Spiker, 2008, p. 71)3. Email fatigue: It is a common occurrence to ignore forwards and other junk mails from friends when busy at work. At the end of the day, you find that there are many unread emails in your inbox. Once these pile up, it is difficult to go through them one at a time and in many instances, the user selects all of them and deletes them at a go to free up inbox. This deletion might also remove a vital message hidden among the spam mails. Internal email is therefore a very ineffective communication medium because of message stereotyping. Benefits of the adopted policy Dropping internal emails places Phone 4u at a better place to look into other communication models available in the market. Increasing sophistication and levels of income has contributed to the rise in number of young consumers, especially for mobile devices and other technology products. Corporate clients do not want to use email anymore, they ask for Skype or MSN messenger, where they can get accurate information in real time. The former offers opportunity for the client to talk to the whole management team via video conferencing, it is therefore ideal for business communications, conducting interviews and conducting consumer surveys. MSN messenger is a pioneer in chat applications which allows users to exchange real time information to a single recipient or a chat group. Case organisation Atos: This is Europe’s largest information technology company that introduced a policy in 2009 banning use of emails among its employees. After an internal communications audit, the company realised that only 20 out of 200 messages sent in a day are useful, its staff also spend between 10 to 20 hours per week handling emails that are mostly private thereby reducing employee productivity. Company chief executive, Mr. Thierry Breton, admitted to never using internal emails in the recent past. He also realised that most of his colleagues and employees were spending much time on emails, rather than management and operational functions (Argenti, 2009, p. 11-19)4. The main reason for this change in internal communication was because of information storage challenges the company anticipated in the future. This is a big issue since statistics shows that data collected and stored by companies doubles every 17 months due to increasing catchment area. On the same note, information created over the past 10 years has surpassed data figures created since the beginning of life. Internal communication does not give resourceful data to a company, since it is basically used for casual exchanges among employees. Therefore, Atos’ intention to scrap the use of emails is because many corporations find it difficult collecting, processing and storing information because of expensive and limited server sizes. Latest trends show that organisations are outsourcing data storage to private companies which has huge cost implications on its revenues. It started an initiative called “Wellbeing at Work” which aims at increasing knowledgebase by involving its young employees in decision making process, to better their working conditions. Through this network, they realised that a significant number of young people, from college, have dropped emails for other platforms like social media because they are trendier and comparatively interactive. Atos has an average employee age of 35, and most of them are college students and fresh graduates, this group prefer instant messaging platforms to internal emails. The company however, does business in 42 countries and had a wide client base who they offer technology products, this is an implementation hurdle because it is difficult to overhaul systems in a company that operates in a number of countries that have unique business environments and regulatory framework. The company has adopted chart type collaborative networks to manage its internal and external communications in a seamless manner. The employees use social networks and instant messaging to share experiences and support one another. This new network meant to gradually replace traditional mails, gives management the power to constantly monitor information density and locate employees who spend most of their productive time blogging. Other internal communication media Social media: Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites makes communication among employees easier and controlled compared to internal emails, since communications are public for everyone to see on the shared platform. They have a chat window where prompt communication exchanges can be made and feedback received immediately. Email service providers for example Gmail, introduced a chat window on its interface to appeal to changing consumer preferences. Organisations are also creating their user accounts through communication departments, to engage their clients by informing them on new products, meeting, changes in prices and community social responsibility (CSR) activities. Facebook enables employees upload footages and pictures taken in the field, and tag their friends relevant to these posts (Castells, 1996, p.71)5. Twitter allows users to engage professionally and voice their opinions, however, it is infamous for promoting social activism which makes managers worried because employees use it to mobilise staff strikes. Despite these advantages, information relayed through social networks loses its personal feel since you are communicating to a mass audience, it also allows for exchange of private messages in the inbox which can only be accessed by the user. Lastly, these social networking sites take up most of employee productive time since they constantly peruse the site looking for interesting information and talking with their friends (Micek & Whitlock, 2008, p. 135)6. Yammer is a social networking site introduced in 2008 to facilitate internal organisational communications. It is used for private communications between employees and among pre-determined groups. It is a social network, not available to a mass audience, but restricted to a given number of members who have unrestricted access to the site. It started as a blogging service, restricted to limited number of users, to grow and become an established network. Some of its features include: Employees are able to share pictures, videos and other materials within a communication exchange by use of links. They are then able to copy these links to different locations for execution, visual images are powerful since they are easily memorised and recalled by users. Colleagues within an organisation are invited to an occasion and they can confirm their participation by using the check buttons available on the interface. Further information on the same is also downloaded using Microsoft Outlook. It establishes context for conversations by organising messages into topics to place the user in the right place thereby reducing access time and promoting efficiency. This also enables participants to maintain conversations. It also organises employees assigned to a specific task by forming a private group where they can exchange their contributions, information available in this group is shielded from other external users. The most important aspect is that it has a manager interface that allows them to track engagement density, this helps in controlling time taken by employees in the site that can be used for other operational duties. It also allows for continuous improvements on the site to tailor it to organisational style because they have different user functionality requirements (Haig, 2001, p. 129)7. Communote: This is a professional social network programmed in Twitter’s model, it enables employees within an organisation to update their status, and follow activities their friends are engaged in. It is an online service, delivered to specific organisations as a medium for internal communications. It is recognised for its information sharing abilities since users are able to tag on another on pictures and posts to invite their attention. Features of Communote include: Employees are able to share video, audio, pictures and texts materials for example, after attending a conference; employees can later share videos of various presentations to freshen their memories about the same. They then are able to present their views about the footages and pictures. It arranges posts in a threaded format; this makes it easy to follow through discussions since users reaction is positioned at the end. Discussions in an office can flow in this manner and arrive at a conclusive decision. It allows users to network professionally as it allows them to develop blogs and follow others in the same network. ‘Following’ gives them an opportunity to share breaking news, whether internal or externally sourced. It has a mobile access which enables employees access the network when out of office; they then keep up to date with happenings at their stations. It also has access controls which managers use to monitor traffic, this also helps in remote monitoring to make sure employees are productively involved in management functions and not spend most of their time in the site. It integrates other emailing services and Microsoft SharePoint which allows users to diversify network access routes, good filtering also helps in ensuring information passed meets ethical and professional requirements. Conclusion Despite the hurdles emails are facing, it still is a communication medium predominantly used by corporate bodies and other non profit organisations. In Atos’ case, the proposal by the chief executive to ban use of emails sparked widespread criticism from the media and industry analysts, with others predicting its failure before it is fully implemented. When these organisations apply for web hosting, they are given email slots, which are then assigned to individual employees and used for company exchanges; they stick to this platform since it makes transfer of documents and files easy. For example, when a manager requests for financial statements from the accounts department while away, the employees will just attach the document in an internal mail address then send it to the recipient who upon receipt, will print it directly and obtain a copy (Castells, 2007)8. Its downside however, outweighs its benefits in the modern corporate world where businesses put client and shareholder satisfaction at the centre of their strategy. This requires use of interactive forms of communication where their specific needs can be addressed; furthermore, information released to the external environment must be monitored to prevent transfer of brand damaging messages. Phones 4u managers are therefore right in its approach to reduce their dependence on internal mail which is gradually getting obsolete; however, it should be done in a phased approach so employees do not suffer shocks due to the change. Bibliography Holtz, S. (2004). Corporate conversations: a guide to crafting effective and appropriate internal communications. New York: AMACOM. Smith, L., & Mounter, P. (2008). Effective internal communication (2nd ed.). London: Kogan Page. Castells, M. (2007). Mobile communication and society: a global perspective : a project of the Annenberg Research Network on international communication. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Haig, M. (2001). E-mail essentials: How to make the most of e-communication.. London: Kogan Page. Argenti, P. A. (2009). Digital strategies for powerful corporate communications. New York: McGraw-Hill. Micek, D., & Whitlock, W. (2008). Twitter revolution: how social media and mobile marketing is changing the way we do business & market online. Las Vegas, NV: Xeno Press. Papa, M. J., Daniels, T. D., & Spiker, B. K. (2008). Organizational communication: perspectives and trends. Los Angeles: Sage Publications. Castells, M. (1996). The rise of the network society. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers. Read More