EduKedar Project

Good presentation and speaking habits may be considered soft skills in the workplace or in any type of organization. Today in this article, we have shared what is business speech and how many types of business speeches are there.

Anybody can relate to all these types of business speech because these all are equally important in social life as well. So let’s start our topic with the basics of business speech.

► What is Business Speech?

Speech refers to that action when a person stands among a great number of people and starts delivering any kind of information or statement. It may be or may not be useful for the whole audience but most of the time it is valuable for them.

A speech that is delivered in the workplace or in any business organization for some specific purpose is known as Business Speech.

This is one of the forms of Business Communication and the audience has to sit quietly while the speech is being delivered. Most of the time audience knows very well that the speech must contain anything that will be beneficial for them.

► Types of Business Speech:

There are mainly three types of speech that are as follow;

• Informative Speech
• Persuasive Speech
• Special Occasion Speech

◉ Informative Speech

Informative business speech can be defined as speech that comprises the purpose to deliver useful information to the audience.

For Example – In any organization, an Executive Coach or Trainer speaking about the new trends in the market to his trainees. It can be hard to understand for few trainees, but the fact is that he is delivering something informative that is beneficial for them.

Informative Speech is further divided into four types;

• Speeches about Objects
• Speeches about Events
• Speeches about Processes
• Speeches about Concepts

The following are known kinds of informative speech.

✔ Speeches about Objects:

It can be about any object related to that particular organization where the speech is being delivered.

For Example – how various wildlife animals look, what is the smell of medicine, information about any product.

✔ Speeches about Events:

Those speeches that inform the audience about any events like historical incidents or about any situations are called speeches about the event.

For Example – New President’s speech about future goals after the oath-taking ceremony.

✔ Speeches about Processes:

The main purpose of this type of informative speech is to inform the audience about anything which is currently happening or about how to do any particular task or work.

For Example – a Yoga teacher explaining how to perform specific yoga poses.

✔ Speeches about Concepts:

Speeches about concepts are those speeches that inform the audience about any concept such as the peace of the world, freedom of rights, or love, fundamentals of any study topic.

For Example – a Science teacher explains Einstein’s theory of general relativity to his students in the class.

Must Read :Skills of HR Manager

◉ Persuasive Speech

Persuasive Speech refers to those speeches where the intention of the speech is to convince the audience to accept the particular opinion or fact and create influence on the audience to do anyhow.

In short, the speech which influences the listeners or audience to follow a certain idea is called a persuasive speech.

Persuasive speech is also an informative speech. because here speaker gives information in a lucrative manner to influence others.

For Example –  in any debate, every person is try to persuade others to follow their given point of view. It is a form of persuasive speech.

In another example, During the advertising and promotional functions of any business, the sales manager or speaker uses his persuasion skills to influence the audience. Here the main purpose of speech is to change the thinking, beliefs, or behaviors of the audience towards his product.

Persuasive speech can be divided into three types that are as follows:

• Factual Persuasive Speech
• Value Persuasive Speech
• Policy Persuasive Speech

✔ Factual Persuasive Speech:

The Factual Persuasive Speech is such a speech that contains facts and it is based on a concrete proof about the certainty of anything that had happened.

The main purpose of this factual persuasive speech is to persuade the listeners whether the certain thing happened or not, exists or doesn’t exist.

For Example – If a student is giving a speech about the first man, who landed on the surface of the Moon. Nobody in the class knows whether it did happen or not, yet it possesses concrete proof.

✔ Value Persuasive Speech:

A Value Persuasive Speech is such a speech that tells the listeners about anything, whether it is wrong or right. The purpose of this speech is to challenge the ethical or moral aspects of a certain issue.

For Example –  If someone is giving a speech about capital punishment, whether it is moral or immoral, right or wrong, done or prevented. this type of speech is a value persuasive speech.

✔ Policy Persuasive Speech:

The policy persuasive speech refers to that speech where the speaker is trying to persuade the audience to either following a policy or rejecting it. It is not limited to just a policy, but it can be about accepting or rejecting a rule or a candidate is also a policy persuasive speech.

For Example – Suppose If the President of a country is not satisfied with the present foreign policy and wants to change it. The president gives a speech to higher authorities for convincing them to change the current foreign policy and support the new policy then it is known as policy persuasive speech.

Must Read :Types of Communication

◉ Special Occasion Speech:

Special Occasion speech refers to that speech which is given on the special occasion like;  A speech of farewell allows someone to say good-bye to one part of his or her life as he or she is moving on to the next part of life. Maybe you’ve accepted a new job and are leaving your current job.

Special occasion business speech is something which anyone can face at some point in their lives.

For example –  If your company won an award of the year for excellence. And you are receiving that award on the behalf of your company. The speech given by you after getting the award can be considered as a special occasion business speech.

In another example, If you are getting retirement from your job and want to thank your subordinates, superiors, and top management at the farewell party.

Opportunities are created because of maintaining healthy communication with your subordinates and clients. It’s essential for building and maintaining relationships with customers. It helps to achieve organizational goals. Here in this article, we have shared the importance of communication for business, students, the workplace, and any organization. Students can write essays on communication with the help of points mentioned in this article.

► Need for Communication in business

• Communication is an important part of any Business organization.
• No business can grow in lack of Effective Communication.
• It is essential not only in business but in all types of organizations.
• Every activity in Business is impacted by communication.
• Effective communication is necessary for developing a trustworthy reputation.

► Importance of Communication in Workplace

The importance of communication skills in the workplace and organization is depicted below very precisely:

• It is the basis for decision-making and planning.
• Facilitates smooth operations.
• Facilitates coordination.
• Increases managerial efficiency.
• Promotes industrial peace.
• Facilitates control.
• Basis of leadership.
• Increases Motivation.
• Job satisfaction.
• Democratic management.
• Public relations.

Let’s discuss all these points in detail.

► Importance of Communication in our daily life:

These 11 points of importance of communication are not limited to the workplace only. Communication is equally important in our daily life and to maintain healthy relationships with family and friends.

◉ The basis for decision-making – Effective Communication helps the management in the decision-making process. In any organization, management takes input from all the managers while making any policy and planning. Hence, communication increases the effectiveness of the decisions taken by the management.

◉ Facilitates smooth operations – Communication helps to create teamwork and integration and its serves as cementing force. It makes ongoing operations smooth for the company.

◉ Facilitates Coordination – When management conducts regular meetings with their managers and other employees then such meetings encourage better integration among them. It brings cooperation and coordination to the organization.

◉ Increases managerial efficiency – Managers use communication to secure acceptance of their ideas and orders.

Must Read :5 Barriers in Communication

◉ Promotes industrial peace – Good Communication enables employees to express their grievances which reduces tensions and industrial unrest.

◉ Facilitates control – Requisite and timely Communication is necessary for the Managerial functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling to be carried out successfully.

◉ Basis of leadership – Good communication skill ensures effective leadership.

◉ Motivation – Communication plays a vital role in building up high morale in the organization.

◉ Job satisfaction – Effective communication creates mutual trust and confi­dence among subordinates, which also leads to job satisfaction.

◉ Democratic management – Good communication skills allow workers to partici­pate in management and the decision-making process. Hence it facilitates democratic management.

◉ Public relations – Effective communication facilitates a good image and reputation of the company.

► Communication Skills for Students

Effective communication is very much required for students also. The importance of communication for students can be understood by the fact that it makes a huge impact in personal interviews and group discussions.

• Correct Body Language
• Appropriate Medium
• Be Confident
• Respect Opinion of Other
• Good Listener
• Speak Less & Effective
• Quality of Being friendly to Others
• Presence of Mind

✔ Correct Body Language: It becomes essential to practice good body language like eye-to-eye contact, matching the tone while communicating with others, proper hand gestures.

✔ Using the correct medium: Make sure to ensure the right channel of communication. It is important to pick the right medium to increase the effectiveness of the conversation.

✔ Be Confident: Never become angry, aggressive even in the worst situations. Being confident doesn’t mean, not listening to others or cutting their views.

Must Read :Skills of HR Manager

✔ Respect Opinion of others: Always respect others and give regard to what they’re saying or what they have to say. Respecting others while acknowledging them, is an important aspect of communication.

✔ Listen with attention: when you disagree with someone else point of view, it is necessary to sympathize with their point of view instead of simply getting your message across to them in some conditions.

✔ Speak Less & Effective: Try to convey your message in as few words as possible. get straightway to the point without speaking excessively.

✔ Be friendly to Others: Good communication skills build strong friendships and relations. It also helps in making you confident enough to present yourself.

✔ Presence of Mind: It improves our presence of mind whenever we express our views, listen to what others are talking about, understand their point of view & also communicate what we are talking about.

► How to develop effective communication skills?

Here are the factors that improve communication skills in any person whether they are students or employees of any organization.

• Participate in group discussion
• Create a Safe Ambiance or Working Environment
• Active Listening
• Create Teamwork
• Allow Students to share Opinions
• Positive Feedback

◉ Participate in Group Discussion: It is essential to motivate them to initiate and engage in conversation. Most people may not want to talk to all. Lack of participation makes it difficult for them to show their feelings properly when upset or stressed.

◉ Create a Safe Ambiance: Create a supportive and safe environment where subordinates feel comfortable to open up and show their ideas and thoughts. this will help employees to improve effective communication skills.

◉ Active Listening: Show your subordinate that you care about what they feel and want to say by listening actively. Listen to hear employees not only respond and give an answer.

Must Read :Types of Communication

◉ Create Teamwork: This is true that Teamwork makes Dreamwork, doing group work and more team activities is an excellent way to take concentrate off competing with one another. It increases focus more on working together to achieve great results.

◉ Participative Leadership: Allowing employees to share their opinions in the meetings is also a vital way to improve effective communication in the organization.

◉ Positive Feedback: Positive feedback encourages employees to perform better in their work. Performance evaluation should be done frequently so that constructive feedback can be given from time to time.

Feedback helps to improve areas of weakness in an individual. Giving positive feedback is an essential part of promoting effective communication in the workplace.

Communication is a two-way process by which messages are transferred from one person (source) to another (receiver). Here in this article, we have shared types of communication based on mode, based on the flow of information, and based on relationship.

There are several different ways we can share messages or information with one another. For example, you might use verbal communication such as speech when sharing a presentation with a group. Jobseekers use written communication when applying for a job or sending an email.

We will give you a complete understanding of types of communication because most of the article on the internet only talks about the mode of communication. There is more classification of communication-based on other factors also. So let’s start our discussion!

► Types of Communication

There are many types of communication but to know it in an organized way we have classified communication based on three different circumstances.

• A) Based on Media/Method/Mode
• B) Based on Flow of Information
• C) Based on Organisational Relationship

► A) Types of Communication (Media or Methods)

On the basis of methods, Communication is mainly divided into two types that are as follows;

• Verbal Communication
• Non-Verbal Communication

◉ Verbal Communication

Verbal Communication is a written or a spoken message that uses words to exchange ideas and information. Words are selected in phrases, sentences, and paragraphs depending upon the results the verbal communication is trying to achieve.

• Verbal communication is one of the most efficient ways of communication.
• It is one of the most common types or methods of communication.
• It can be more effective with the support of both non-verbal and written communication.

Must Read :Importance of Communication

For example, people often use verbal communication when sharing a presentation with a group. It is often used during video conferences and phone calls, meetings, and one-on-one conversations.

There are four main types of Verbal communication methods that are listed below:

1. Written communication
2. Oral communication
3. Visual communication
4. Audio-visual communication

1. Written Communication: Written communication is the act of writing, printing, typing (texting) symbols like letters and numbers to convey information.

• It is helpful because it provides a record of information for reference.
• Emails and Message Chats are the modern forms of written communication in the workplace.

Examples of Written Communication include:
Books
pamphlets
blogs
letters
memos
Emails
Chats

2. Oral Communication: According to many research studies, 80% of communication by managers or executives of a company is in the Oral form. Communicating by speaking orally is one of the most efficient ways of communication.

Examples of Oral Communication include:
• Telephone/Mobile Phone Calls
• Voice Messages
• Intercom
• Face-to-face discussion
• Conferences and Meetings
• Audio-Visual Presentations
• Dictation
• Interview
• Conversation
• Grapevine
• Radio
• Speeches

3. Visual Communication: Visual communication is the act of using photographs, art, drawings, sketches, charts, and graphs to convey information.

• Visuals are often used with written or verbal communication or a combination of both.
• Many people have different learning styles, visual communication such as presentations might be more engaging for some to consume ideas and information.
• Visuals are important during presentations to provide helpful context alongside written and verbal communication.

Examples of Visual Communication include:
• Graphs
• Tables and charts
• Maps
• Prototypes
• Presentations
• Flipcharts
• Neon Hoardings
• Printed Pictures, T-shirts, and Posters
• Internet without multimedia

4. Audio-visual Communication: This combination is increasing especially in the field of the IT sector has brought about unprecedented changes in the communication systems.

Traditional modes of Audio-Visual (AV) such as TV programs, Movie theatre are now in an updated version like Web series, OTT (Over-the-top) media services.

Must Read :5 Barriers in Communication

Examples of Visual Communication include:
• Television/video/cable
• Cinema
• Internet with multimedia
• Presentation using visual aids or electronic presentation
• Video conferencing

◉ Nonverbal Types of Communication

It is body language and gestures to communicate

Nonverbal communication is an unspoken or unwritten message that uses body language, gestures, and facial expressions to convey information to others.

• Gestures and expressions can be used both intentionally and unintentionally.
• Nonverbal communication is helpful when understanding feelings of the other persons.
• For example, someone might smile unintentionally when he hears praise or good news.

Some other examples are listed below!

Examples of Non-verbal Communication includes;

• Facial expressions
• Gestures
• Movements
• Eye contact
• Nodding the head
• Physical appearance

◉ Other Medium of Communication in business

Different modern methods of communicating in a business are as below:

• Electronic Mail or E-mail system
• Instant messaging Applications
• Smartphones
• PDA
• Forums or Newsgroups
• Blogs & Websites
• Skype & Video Calling Apps
• Web conferencing

► B) Types of Communication (Flow of Information)

The flow of information (communication) in an organization depends on the size, structure, and hierarchy of the company.

• Smaller organizations, MSME with fewer levels of hierarchy and staff maybe having fewer communication problems.
• It is more complicated in larger organizations such as MNCs with many hierarchical levels.

However, a comprehensive company structure will help in clearly marking out the mode or channels of communication.

The communication flow of information is classified mainly into three categories;

• Horizontal Flow of Communication
• Vertical Flow of Communication (Downward/Upward Flow)
• Crosswise or Diagonal Flow of Communication

◉ Horizontal Flow:

The horizontal flow of communication takes place between people of the same status and level of hierarchy in the company.

Nowadays Horizontal organizational structures are very common and employees have their ranks that can manage to converse with less reserve and formality. There are many benefits of such openness.

Must Read :Skills of HR Manager

Organizational Policy decisions are no longer cover in mystery. Workers are encouraged to participate to ask questions and understand the compulsions of hard decisions.

This increases understanding and coordination. However, it is essential to continue to respect the authority of the management. One should use appropriate language and show good behavior.

◉ Vertical Flow:

The vertical flow of communication is further divided into two categories;

• Downward Flow
• Upward Flow

Downward Flow: It is a traditional way of communication method known as vertical structural Flow or Downward Flow. In this type of communication, every important decision is taken at the top. Information goes through different levels of hierarchy to the workers.

Downward flow has many disadvantages of such as follows;

• Firstly, it creates pressure on the employee by the authoritarian environment from the top.
• Secondly, most of the time message is distorted due to various barriers in the communication as it comes down through different levels.
• Thirdly, it is time taking process and leads to avoidable delays.

Upward Flow: Vertical Flow of Communication evolved with the passage of time and management did structural changes in their styles. This updated vertical flow of communication is known as Upward Flow.

In this method, workers got their respect in the industry, and their work began to be appreciated.

• They got empowerment and their participation also increased.
• After this, the workers feel involved in their organizations.
• As a result, there is a significant increase in the flow of upward communication.

◉ Diagonal Flow (Crosswise Flow):

Diagonal or Crosswise Communication is a process whereby the flow of information is between heads of the department (eg- Sales Manager, HR Manager) who work in different departments and are at different levels of the organization.

The diagonal flow of communication is a mixture of vertical and horizontal flow. It is also known as the Crosswise flow of communication.

In an organization, It has been seen many times that information is suitably distorted or filtered by superiors before it is allowed to reach the top management.

Must Read :Levels of Mamagement

This is the reason one has to enable people to talk to lower or higher ranks freely rather than wait indefinitely.

The diagonal flow of communication is based on cooperation, mutual respect, and goodwill between the parties concerned.

► C) based on Organisational Relationship

On the basis of organizational relationships, Communication may be divided into two types:

• Internal Communication (Informal Communication)
• External Communication (Formal Communication)

◉ Internal or Informal Communication

Internal Communication simply means when employees of the organization communicate with one another.

Internal communication is also known as informal communication because employees of an organization are familiar with each other and they work as a team and work towards common goals.

In internal communication, information shared by employees can be official or unofficial. They may communicate individual to individual, individual to the groups, and dept to the department, etc.

Generally, internal communication is in the oral form and most of the time tone is informal. People also communicate within the organization at a personal level.

Must Read :Management by Objectives (MBO)

Grapevine communication is casual and unofficial communication that is present in some measure everywhere. It usually occurs inside companies and it comes under internal communication.

All modes of non-verbal communication may be used in internal communication.

Examples of Internal/Informal Communication

Some of the examples of written communication that come under internal communication include Memo, Report, Office order, Staff Newsletter, Circulars, Email, Fax, Agenda, Notes on Agenda, Notice, Minutes of Meetings, Manuals, etc.

All other methods of oral communication stated earlier could be used in internal communication except Radio.

◉ External or Formal Communication

External Communication occurs when any person from the organization communicates with anyone outside the organization.

The point to be noted here is, these people may be clients or customers, suppliers or distributors, media, government officials, public, regulatory bodies, other companies, etc.

Modern business houses invest a lot of time, money, and plans on improving their public image since they know that they are dependent on external support.

External communication has been mainly formal in nature and largely documented that is why it is also known as Formal Communication.

Examples of External/Formal Communication

Business Letters and circulars, Manuals, Pricelists, Purchase Orders, Brochures, Customised reports, and service calls, Tender documents, Ads, Customer feedback forms are all external communication methods.

Some of the other modes of written communication that are largely used include Circulars, E-mail, Fax, Questionnaire, Advertisement, Press Release, Invitation, Leaflet, Handbills, Manuals, and Telegram, etc.

Other than intercom, teleconferencing, brainstorming sessions, and all other modes of oral communication stated earlier can be used in formal or external communication.

All modes of visual presentations and audio-visual communication too may be used in formal/external communication.

All modes of Non-verbal communication are also widely used in formal communication depending on the circumstances and protocol chosen for the purpose.