Importance of Communication in Tesco
Select an international business or company and write a formal business report on the organisation’s “Communication and E-Communication” strategies.
Tesco is one of the famous retail supermarkets. It is a multinational organisation having its headquartered in Hertfordshire, UK. In the terms of revenue, Tesco is placed in the second position in the world. Around 476,000 employees are working in Tesco for serving the customers effectively. Therefore, from the figure, we can understand the importance of communication in Tesco. Tesco gives emphasis towards the communication due to its importance. The importance they recognise is to make the employees and the investors updated and to address information from the customers visiting the stores daily. The three objectives of the communication that has been identified by the Tesco are to understand the job in a better way, serving the customers in an effective way, remain updated and informed. Apart from that, e-communication is also focused in Tesco where the use of social networking sites, internet forums, blogging are mainly done due to the demand and increased use of the internet across the world.
Figure 1: Tesco Communication Structure
The success of an organisation is dependable on effective communication. If we considered non-electronic communication then the methods like a letter, oral communication, memos, notice, drafts, presentations, press releases are generally used in the organisation to aware the employees, investors, the general public, suppliers etc. Communication supports the clarification in the business process of organisations (Barnett and O’Rourke, 2006). Most significantly, Tesco uses several methods and practices to create a positive and supportive environment for all the stakeholders in the business.
Tesco applies several methods to communicate with each other. These methods include:
Face to face communication
This is done with the employees, suppliers and the customers are followed by Tesco to address the issues or collecting opinions from them. Discussions are mainly followed in the face-to-face communication where the managers used to seat with the issues.
Publications
Tesco uses a publication called “The one” to convey the message of the top management and the colleagues who used to share their experiences, success stories in this magazine that are issued each month. The issues have covered the areas of the level of competition, interesting business news, happenings etc. It can be collected from the offices or distribution centres.
Steer wheel
The Steer wheel concept assists Tesco to evaluate the performances and effectively manage the business. The colleagues in the business of Tesco are informed about the strategy by following the steer wheel concept. The steer wheel developed by the management of Tesco consists of five pillars that are as follows: (Our Tesco, 2016).
Methods of Communication in Tesco
Notice boards
They are used in the organisation for displaying up to date information in the areas for informing the employees about the training sessions, statutory information, and notices regarding the Health and Safety, current news of the company, club activities, and updates for the Union etc.
In this section, I would like to highlight the electronic mode of communication where the organisation like Tesco employs several methods to keep the flow of communication. Electronic communication in Tesco is also very significant where they like to use several methods. The methods include:
Social networking
This includes using the mediums like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube by sharing important updates for the customers who used to access the social networking sites (Peeroo and Jones, 2015). The colleagues or the employees of Tesco are responsible to maintain a positive communication flow via the internet or social media. The objective of Tesco regarding the electronic communication is too aware the people about their updates, which can be product information, pricing, or information about the new stores or promotional message etc. Respecting the people, restriction in speaking negatively is checked by the manager of Tesco. Offensive message or content sharing by any employee on behalf of Tesco is strictly restricted. Dismissal on this ground can happen if the allegations are true.
Extranet and Intranet
The extranet is used as a Tesco Information Exchange. The intranet is used to inform the employees internally by sharing important information. If the employees of Tesco used the internet for inappropriate use then the disciplinary action is being taken. Dismissal, penalties are there in the provision of Tesco.
Website
The company website is one of the important forms of the electronic section. The website of Tesco is useful for every group of people (Our Tesco, 2016). For students, the career section or annual reports for research is readily available. For the customers, they need to subscribe their email for receiving the newsletter periodically. Apart from that, the customers can also send their grievances or customer related services from the website. Therefore, we can observe several means of communication supporting the electronic way are used by Tesco. The electronic mode of communication serves the Tesco to pass or receive the information quickly and will save the operation cost as well. The printing cost can be minimised by using the electronic mode. The other objective can be to address more groups of people who are using the internet as well as smartphones. The reach can be maximised in this way and the company can manage all the stakeholders effectively.
Electronic Communication in Tesco
Emails
Emails are used to communicate with the stakeholders by using the internet with the devices like computers, smartphones or handheld devices.
SWOT analysis will help to assess the Tesco’s communication methods or practices in an effective way. It will help the management of the company to minimise the weakness and to give more emphasis to the opportunity. The SWOT analysis for Tesco can be done in the following way:
Strengths
Tesco follows both the electronic and non-electronic form of communication. The face-to-face communication in the form of discussion conducted by the manager is the effective form where the direct communication can take place. The electronic mode like email, social media, and websites will help the customers or other investors can share their concern without visiting the office of Tesco. Employees of Tesco remain motivated due to the updated information and preference was given to them by the management due to the effective forms of communication.
Weaknesses
The structure of the communication team is not established in Tesco. Blogs, which are written by the internet users, contains some negative feedbacks about Tesco but the responses from the concerned authority are not there which affect the purchase consideration of the customers. Integrating the communication function with the marketing team is not there. In this case, a gap is established in gathering the responses and responding the responses
Opportunities
Electronic mode of communication will save the operational cost of Tesco. For instance, printing cost can be reduced. Effective communication in an organisation like Tesco will explore several opportunities in the terms of productivity. The informed and updated employee will give their best performances and efforts. The customers will consider the purchase from Tesco due to the effective service and the investors will continue their investment due to the transparency maintained by the Tesco in the communication process. Tesco can maximise their reach to the target audience by the effective communication methods. (Fiske, 2012). Rumors can be stopped with the help of the communication. (Keyton, 2010; Bovée and Thill, 2012) .Feedback addressing system of Tesco will help to gather important data or information which can be the input of the strategy formulation for the management. Accordingly, the management can redesign the service or product based on the input they gathered.
Threats
Leaking the important information to the outside can bring a loss to the company. Excessive participation of the employees in the decision-making can create a complex situation for the management to consider. In the social media, accounts of Tesco can bring many rumours. For instance, if some users post an inappropriate review in the timeline and there is a possibility for the other users to be influenced.
SWOT Analysis of Tesco’s Communication Methods
By conducting SWOT analysis of the communication methods used by Tesco, the company can be in a position to address the several areas of the weakness and threats. The weakness and threats that are mentioned in the chart are needed to be studied for mitigating the risk and to overcome the weakness by implementing the positive steps like creating a corporate communication team, well-designed website for protecting the system from the hacking, addressing the feedbacks frequently to understand the current situation etc. Effective communication will bring smooth functioning of the business definitely.
The organisations who are the competitors of Tesco are needed to compare the practices of communication. To address the communication strategy used by Walmart and Lidl it is needed to address the several practices used by the organisation for the sake of communication. For instance, Walmart uses the electronic form more frequently than the non-electronic form while communicating with the employees. Walmart One is developed to speak with the employees working in Walmart. All the associates are connected with the management of Walmart through this Walmart 1. Passing the important information by the management or employee is done effectively with this practice. Internal communication is strengthened in this way, which ensures the privacy and transparency in the system. (Kass, 2012; Schneider, Barbera and Keyton, 2014). Annual General meeting for the shareholders is there and webcasting of the meetings are posted in the website of the Walmart.
Feedback system is very much effective in Walmart where the website is being designed to collect the feedback from the customers in the form of a several topics shred in the website (Walmart, 2016). The customer’s has to select the topic and have to write on it. The corporate communication team is there who will analyse and send the feedback to the respective department. For instance in Lidl, electronic communication is mainly focused where the application for the mobile based on both Android and IOS is there. Electronic newsletter is being sent to the customers after subscribing it to their website. Contact form for the suppliers or for the customers is being shared in the website. One needs to fill up the form and share it in their website (Lidl, 2016). For the sake of comparison we can observed several differences like the competitors of Tesco is mainly focused on the electronic communication to address the employees, customers and the investors.
Walmart and Lidl to communicate with the prospective participants are introducing the privacy in sending the information or maintaining a healthy working environment online customised communication system. Electronic communication will save the cost and speed up the information flow from one end to another. But if we look into the non-electronic communication of Tesco then we can observed the level of effectiveness where the employees or the management can directly communicate with each other which will ensure the transparency as well as minimisation of the misunderstandings. Therefore, a balance is required between the two modes of communication to maintain a smooth functioning in the organisation.
Comparison with Competitors: Walmart and Lidl
In this section, suggestions or recommendations are needed to highlight for improving the effectiveness of the communication in Tesco. The management of Tesco has to consider the following aspects while designing the effective communication strategies.
- All the strategies, information, input from the market, customers are required to be communicated to the concerned team or the department, which is responsible (Argenti, 2016). It will reduce the information overload of the other department or teams.
- Customer relationship management tools like the software can be used to gather several data from all the systems and transferred it to the central database (Treem, 2018). After that sorting the data and then passing the information to the respective department is done by the software. It will help the departments to focus on the issues pertaining to their department only.
- Online communication team must be there to focus on the customer’s responses, feedbacks, blogs posted in the name of Tesco and accordingly responses should be posted quickly to stop the rumours or false information (Pansari and Kumar, 2017).
- Periodic meetings must be conducted by the management to all the major stakeholders like employees, suppliers, and investors. Addressing their opinions are needed to formulate the strategy or to brief the participants about the misunderstandings (Rahim, 2010, Bell and Smith, 2011; Liddle, 2017; Georgiades, 2015). In this way, the involvement of all the participants can be possible.
- Escalation process is needed to be designed for the sake of internal communication where the employees can discuss some issues with the top management, which will help the management to address several situations in the company.
These are the ways, which the organisation like Tesco can adopt for the sake of effective communication. The strategies are integrated with all the participants of the business like employees, customers, suppliers, investors. Motivation and encouragement will be there for all the participants that can bring success in the terms of profitability and productivity.
Conclusion
In this report, we can address several areas in the communication pertinent to the organisation Tesco. Communication is the flow of information from one end to another. Sharing the information is one of the important activities in an organisation to accomplish a task. Communication is one of the important functions of the management of an organisation, which acts as a foundation for the planning. Communication supports the clarification in the business process of organisations. The communication objectives associated with the forms of communication like electronic and non-electronic mode are addressed in this report. The importance of the communication for overall development in the organisation is also discussed. The communication strategies used by the competitors of Tesco like Lidl, Walmart are also identified and compared with Tesco by drawing the significant differences. Lastly, suggestions are developed to improve the communication system in the organisation based on the certain justification that has been discussed in the report
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