Communication Strategies

Intercultural communication is the process of exchanging both meaningful and non-meaningful information across people of different cultures and in a way this reduces misunderstanding and it enhances mutual respect (Bennett, 1998). In the modern world, we have a variety of cultures living with us so one must learn to cope. It is important for a person to be conversant with simple things like the greetings, knowing their types of food and the things that to them might appear inappropriate (Bennett, 1998). Although it is not necessary that you know this things into detail little knowledge of them may help you secure their respect and trust. When it comes to a firm or an organization, it becomes very important for an individual to know how to communicate with the people of a different culture other than which they hail from starting from the senior most to the junior most employees.

Internationally it has created a social pathway that allows people to exchange ideas and this helps in important issues such as in the international trade. In a global aspect, the uses are more or less the same as in the international and day-to-day uses in dealing with many people from different cultures (Bennett, 1998). There are two types of communication in the business world normally used and these are verbal and non-verbal communication. Failure to communicate in an appropriate manner leads to information breakdown, which in most cases is disastrous to a business because it may lead to people who are not satisfied for instance the customers, suppliers and even employees. Good communication is a very important base for a successful and profitable business because with poor communication you tend to loose your workers faith, trust and decrease their motivation meaning they will end up giving the client poor service. In the end, this leads to the business running losses instead of much required profits.

Strategies
Communication strategy is developing of a way of communicating to people you are targeting for example workers and customers trying to sell your idea to them and to create awareness of a certain issues (Bennett, 1998). Many firms now days are making sure that the management teams have the intercultural communication skills. The reason to this is that these days organizatons contain many people from many different cultures and when communicating to people you do it in an appropriate manner for instance avoiding some expressions that may be misinterpreted and you end up embarrassed and your intended message not passed. This leads to a communication breakdown and the workers may end up doing the direct opposite and the impact of this is unwanted losses. Workers like supervisors also need the intercultural communication skills to be able to communicate to the workers under them in a cool, respectful and polite but assertive way hence avoiding shouting that may seem confrontational to some of the workers (Bennett, 1998).

These lead to a motivated work force that gives good results and in the end the results are usually good profits. Employees in the same rank also need the intercultural communication know how for effective communication for instance using a language the other understands during telephone conversations and simple aspects like respect and avoiding racist remarks that one does not need training to have and this is to avoid a communication breakdown that is bad for business (Bennett, 1998). The most tricky and important part comes when communicating to consumers. When a firm wants to cater for a global, multicultural and international market the choice of language, expressions and symbols to promote or advertise your product becomes a very tricky piece of work. To communicate to people you must be careful not to sound racist, insulting, you must also show some respect for their cultures and at the same time be creative enough to market and sell your products. This calls for a lot of research and knowledge of the markets that you as a firm want to position yourselves to the many cultures internationally and the whole world at large.

Implications
Inter cultural communication has had both negative and positive implications in the business world. Generally, it has increased the budgets over the years for firms who want to cater for the many cultures in the world. This is because of the communication training given to some of the workers and costs of market research, which lead to some firms having to face the tough decision of having to close its operations of serving a wider market consisting of the many cultures both internationally and globally (Bennett, 1998). This means you must have the financial strength to undertake a business venture towards that direction.

To the firms involved and with the financial ability intercultural communication has helped them widen their market and increase profits and this has led to rise of very successful companies like the coca cola company. International communication has also made it possible to get increased cheap and skilled labor from the multicultural, international and global firms this leads to increased productivity and cheaper goods and services (Bennett, 1998). Intercultural communication has improved understanding between many nations and this has made countries come to agreements of reducing tariffs and taxes incurred by foreign investors hence leading to many firms being able to cater for a wider multicultural, international and global market and in addition offering cheaper goods and services to the consumers.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, intercultural communication is a very important aspect of business today although many people might view as just being a way of socializing without any benefits. If you deeply look at it, you will notice it is the basis if you want to make money in a different country apart from where you come from country and more especially among a different culture of people (Bennett, 1998). This is because communication is the key to business anywhere in the world. This is why many firms that have a plan of serving a multicultural society are investing in their employees training like the management teams to have multicultural communication skills.