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 ID01.H.M. Sohan 123035663002.Sumaiya Binte Mostak 131050363003.Niaz Hassan 122013203004.Mustafizur Rahman 132093703005.Mushfique Hasan 133124203006.Md Saiful Islam 1321462030

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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

ContentsIntroduction......................................................................................................................................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

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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.

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Company overview

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.

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Research Questions

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?

Research Methodology

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.

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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.

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Literature Review

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.

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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.”

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Survey

Demographics

Male63%

Female37%

Participants of Survey

Gender

Total 30 people, Male: 19, Female: 11

Age

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18-25

26-45

Above 45

Age

Question 1: How long have you been working?

Less than 6 months10%

1 year27%

2-3 years37%

More than 3 years

27%

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?

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Rarely60%

Occa-sionally

27%

Frequently7%

Never7%

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.

Question 3: How satisfied are you with communications in your company?

23%

40%

17%

17%

3%

How satisfied are you with communications in your com-

pany?Very Satisfied Satisfied NeutralDissatisfied Very Dissatisfied

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?

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The grapevine20%

Bulletin board10%

My supervisor15%

Company leadership7%

Group meetings at our work location

16%

Local company publi-cations

7%

Company intranet12%

Company e-mail13%

Voice-mail announcements2%

Chart Title

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?

Excellent33%

Very Good27%

Good23%

Fair13%

Poor3%

How would you rate your manager's communication skills?

Assumption: Most of the responses were positive on their manager’s communication skills.

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Question 6: What type of communication problem you are facing in your work life?

Verbal10%

Non-verbal40%

Formal 3%

Informal 47%

What type of communication problem you are facing in your work life?

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?

Yes73%

No27%

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?

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Yes 60%

No40%

Do you think about being assertive while giving bad news?

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?

Geographical3%

Gender33%

Religion10%

Language 53%

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?

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Yes27%

No73%

Does it help showing attitude and ego in business communication?

Assumption: It’s not recommended to show attitude and ego in business communication.

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Research Findings

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 5Very 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(g) Company intranet(h) Company e-mail(i) Voice-mail announcements

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5. How would you rate your manager's communication skills?

1 2 3 4 5Excellent 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

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