ASSIGNMENT No. 1
Q.1 What are 7 C¢s of effective communication? Discuss with examples?
Communicating effectively is the key to successful leadership. Yet, according to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace report, only 13% of employees strongly agree the leadership of their organization communicates effectively with the rest of the organization. The result is poorly engaged employees, decreasing productivity, and increasing employee turnover.
Whether communicating in presentations, via email, on virtual communication channels, or face-to-face, leaders who communicate well lead more effectively. The 7 Cs of communication help leaders convey important messages that are understood easily, improving engagement and productivity.
Clarity: Simplicity & Organization
Clarity is best achieved through short, simple and fluent sentences and paragraphs. Each paragraph should describe only one idea, and paragraphs should be organized from »the big picture« at the beginning to greater detail towards the end. The last sentence in a paragraph should indicate the information in the next paragraph. Appropriate idea flow ensures that the readers are exposed to right information at the right time, especially if they are not from your immediate scientific field.
Clarity is interconnected with the principle of completeness and concreteness.
Conciseness: Get to the Point
Conciseness means forming your message with minimum number of words possible without invalidating the other 6 C’s. Avoid wordiness, repetition, and filler words or phrases, such as »in short«, »as stated before«, »due to the fact that«, »this is the first study«, etc. This is particularly important in project proposals or research papers with strict word limits. Concise message is also more appealing and comprehensible, and will save time both to you and your audience.
Conciseness is interconnected with the principles of concreteness and consideration.
Concreteness: Specifics Instead of Generalizations
Concrete message is like a factsheet put to words. For example, it is much better to say »In the review of the period from 2010 to 2015, A & B (2016) found that 75 % of publications from the research area of X reported on the phenomenon of Y« than »The phenomenon of Y has become increasingly recognized in the recent years«. Avoid also vague words and words with multiple meanings, such as »in the future«, »several«, »quickly«, etc. Concreteness diminishes the need to guess the meaning and the possibility of misinterpretation.
Concreteness is interconnected with the principles of clarity, conciseness and consideration
Completeness: No Necessary Information is missing
A complete message should convey all facts required by the audience. In interdisciplinary research, for example, your reviewers might be from another scientific field. It is therefore wise to include more general information than you normally would if you wrote a paper within your narrow expertise. On the other hand, there is no possibility for corrections or follow-up in the revision process of project proposals. You thus need to ensure that reviewers have all the facts at hand if you wish that your project is convincing.
Completeness is interconnected with the principles of clarity and courtesy.
Correctness: Facts & Proofreading
Correctness refers to both factual and linguistic accuracy. All the information you provide needs to stem from valid, reliable, and credible sources that can be located. This is the reason why Wikipedia is not accepted as an information source for scientific publications. Correctness is fundamental in research paper discussions, where your claims need to be supported with facts and figures from your results. Finally, you should always check your writing for typing, spelling, and grammatical errors. If English is not your mother tongue, it is wise to consult professional language editing services.
Correctness is interconnected with the principle of consideration.
Courtesy: Stepping Into Audience’s Shoes
Courteous message is written from the viewpoint of the audience. If you prepare a seminar about your latest discovery, you will need to provide background information for your students, but you can skip those and get right to the details for your coworkers. Messages for general public should always highlight the societal benefits of your research. Courtesy requires some thinking about what the audience knows or doesn’t know and forming the message accordingly. However, it is also a way of showing respect.
Courtesy is interconnected with the principle of completeness.
Consideration: Scientists are People, Too
Just because scientists are able to deal with complex ideas and tons of information, it doesn’t mean that they are able to deal with a flood of unformatted text. Whatever document you are preparing, be considerate and use visual design to make the main messages stand out. Figures, paragraphs, headings, bulleted lists, and highlights are tools you can use to make your paper, poster, or project proposal more appealing and comprehensible. Consideration also entails good language. Visually or linguistically, your message shouldn’t look as if it was prepared in a hurry.
Communication is a critical skill that leaders must use constantly. When you communicate effectively, your team operates more effectively, and you will gain greater respect from them.
Prior to sharing any message with individuals or teams, ensure that the message meets the 7 Cs of business communication. You’ll find that your communication takes on greater meaning, becomes more persuasive and influential, and generates more positive responses when you follow these communication guidelines.
Q.2. Discuss in detail the barrier of communication with examples
Barriers to Effective Communication
Communicating can be more of a challenge than you think, when you realize the many things that can stand in the way of effective communication. These include filtering, selective perception, information overload, emotional disconnects, lack of source familiarity or credibility, workplace gossip, semantics, gender differences, differences in meaning between sender and receiver, and biased language. Let’s examine each of these barriers.
Filtering
Filtering is the distortion or withholding of information to manage a person’s reactions. Some examples of filtering include a manager who keeps her division’s poor sales figures from her boss, the vice president, fearing that the bad news will make him angry. The old saying, “Don’t shoot the messenger!” illustrates the tendency of receivers (in this case, the vice president) to vent their negative response to unwanted messages on the sender. A gatekeeper (the vice president’s assistant, perhaps) who doesn’t pass along a complete message is also filtering. The vice president may delete the e-mail announcing the quarter’s sales figures before reading it, blocking the message before it arrives. As you can see, filtering prevents members of an organization from getting a complete picture of the way things are. To maximize your chances of sending and receiving effective communications, it’s helpful to deliver a message in multiple ways and to seek information from multiple sources. In this way, the effect of any one person’s filtering the message will be diminished.
Since people tend to filter bad news more during upward communication, it is also helpful to remember that those below you in an organization may be wary of sharing bad news. One way to defuse the tendency to filter is to reward employees who clearly convey information upward, regardless of whether the news is good and bad.
Once again, filtering can lead to miscommunications in business. Each sender translates the message into his or her own words, creating his or her own version of what was said.
Selective Perception
Selective perception refers to filtering what we see and hear to suit our own needs. This process is often unconscious. Small things can command our attention when we’re visiting a new place—a new city or a new company. Over time, however, we begin to make assumptions about the way things are on the basis of our past experience. Often, much of this process is unconscious. “We simply are bombarded with too much stimuli every day to pay equal attention to everything so we pick and choose according to our own needs.” Selective perception is a time-saver, a necessary tool in a complex culture. But it can also lead to mistakes.
Think back to the earlier example conversation between Bill, who was asked to order more toner cartridges, and his boss. Since Bill found his boss’s to-do list to be unreasonably demanding, he assumed the request could wait. (How else could he do everything else on the list?) The boss, assuming that Bill had heard the urgency in her request, assumed that Bill would place the order before returning to the other tasks on her list.
Both members of this organization were using selective perception to evaluate the communication. Bill’s perception was that the task of ordering could wait. The boss’s perception was that her time frame was clear, though unstated. When two selective perceptions collide, a misunderstanding occurs.
Information Overload
Information overload can be defined as “occurring when the information processing demands on an individual’s time to perform interactions and internal calculations exceed the supply or capacity of time available for such processing.” Messages reach us in countless ways every day. Some are societal—advertisements that we may hear or see in the course of our day. Others are professional—e-mails, and memos, voice mails, and conversations from our colleagues. Others are personal—messages and conversations from our loved ones and friends.
Add these together and it’s easy to see how we may be receiving more information than we can take in. This state of imbalance is known as information overload. Experts note that information overload is “A symptom of the high-tech age, which is too much information for one human being to absorb in an expanding world of people and technology. It comes from all sources including TV, newspapers, and magazines as well as wanted and unwanted regular mail, e-mail and faxes. It has been exacerbated enormously because of the formidable number of results obtained from Web search engines.” Other research shows that working in such fragmented fashion has a significant negative effect on efficiency, creativity, and mental acuity. Going back to our example of Bill. Let’s say he’s in his cubicle on the phone with a supplier. While he’s talking, he hears the chime of e-mail alerting him to an important message from his boss. He’s scanning through it quickly, while still on the phone, when a coworker pokes his head around the cubicle corner to remind Bill that he’s late for a staff meeting. The supplier on the other end of the phone line has just given Bill a choice among the products and delivery dates he requested. Bill realizes he missed hearing the first two options, but he doesn’t have time to ask the supplier to repeat them all or to try reconnecting to place the order at a later time. He chooses the third option—at least he heard that one, he reasons, and it seemed fair.
Emotional disconnects
Emotional disconnects happen when the sender or the receiver is upset, whether about the subject at hand or about some unrelated incident that may have happened earlier. An effective communication requires a sender and a receiver who are open to speaking and listening to one another, despite possible differences in opinion or personality. One or both parties may have to put their emotions aside to achieve the goal of communicating clearly. A receiver who is emotionally upset tends to ignore or distort what the sender is saying. A sender who is emotionally upset may be unable to present ideas or feelings effectively.
Lack of Source Credibility
Lack of source familiarity or credibility can derail communications, especially when humor is involved. Have you ever told a joke that fell flat? You and the receiver lacked the common context that could have made it funny. (Or yes, it could have just been a lousy joke.) Sarcasm and irony are subtle, and potentially hurtful, commodities in business. It’s best to keep these types of communications out of the workplace as their benefits are limited, and their potential dangers are great. Lack of familiarity with the sender can lead to misinterpreting humor, especially in less-rich information channels like e-mail. For example, an e-mail from Jill that ends with, Similarly, if the sender lacks credibility or is untrustworthy, the message will not get through. Receivers may be suspicious of the sender’s motivations (“Why am I being told this?”). Likewise, if the sender has communicated erroneous information in the past, or has created false emergencies, his current message may be filtered.
Workplace gossip
Workplace gossip, also known as the grapevine, is a lifeline for many employees seeking information about their company. Employees trust their peers as a source of messages, but the grapevine’s informal structure can be a barrier to effective communication from the managerial point of view. Its grassroots structure gives it greater credibility in the minds of employees than information delivered through official channels, even when that information is false.Some downsides of the office grapevine are that gossip offers politically minded insiders a powerful tool for disseminating communication (and self-promoting miscommunications) within an organization. In addition, the grapevine lacks a specific sender, which can create a sense of distrust among employees—who is at the root of the gossip network? When the news is volatile, suspicions may arise as to the person or persons behind the message. Managers who understand the grapevine’s power can use it to send and receive messages of their own. They also decrease the grapevine’s power by sending official messages quickly and accurately, should big news arise.
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning in communication. Words can mean different things to different people, or they might not mean anything to another person. For example, companies often have their own acronyms and buzzwords (called business jargon) that are clear to them but impenetrable to outsiders. For example, at IBM, GBS is focusing on BPTS, using expertise acquired from the PwC purchase (which had to be sold to avoid conflicts of interest in light of SOX) to fend other BPO providers and inroads by the Bangalore tiger. Does this make sense to you? If not, here’s the translation: IBM’s Global Business Services (GBS) division is focusing on offering companies
- 3. Describe the types of communication in detail with examples.
When referencing communication types, people are usually speaking about interpersonal communication, as opposed to intrapersonal communication. The difference is simple. Interpersonal communication is communication that occurs between people or between groups, whereas intrapersonal communication is communication that occurs within one’s own mind.
One common form of interpersonal communication is that which occurs between a small group of people. Group members are usually face-to-face and participate in dialogue with one another, which can either be directed, planned, or spontaneous. Having open interpersonal communication with others helps to break down barriers and increase understanding. It is important for intercultural communication, workplace communication, and for personal relationships as well.
Types of Communication
The five types of communication you need to know about are verbal communication, nonverbal communication, written communication, visual communication, and listening.
1. Verbal Communication
Verbal communication encompasses all communication using spoken words, or unspoken words as in the case with sign language. It is important to understand how to effectively communicate your ideas verbally in order to avoid misunderstandings and maximize interest while you speak. Make sure to use the right type of language, speak clearly, know your audience, respond in the best way, and use an appropriate tone when speaking.
2. Nonverbal Communication
What is actually being said is only half the battle — the rest lies in what isn’t being said. This means your tone, facial expressions, body language, hand movements, and eye contact. When you make yourself aware of what the rest of you is doing as you speak, you can make corrections and eventually use all the right nonverbal cues to convey your point.
3. Written Communication
Written communication is a form of verbal communication, but it is so different than spoken verbal communication that this form gets its own separate type. Written communication can take the form of anything you write or type such as letters, emails, notes, texts, billboards, even a message written in the sky! With written communication, it is important you know your audience, your purpose, and maintain consistency throughout your written message.
4. Visual Communication
Visual communication is one you may not have heard of, but it is one that complements the other types of communication well. Visual communication is delivering information, messages, and points by way of graphical representations, or visual aids.
Some commonly used examples are slide presentations, diagrams, physical models, drawings, and illustrations. When you use visual communication in addition to verbal, nonverbal, and written communication, you create a very effective way for your message to be heard and understood.
5. Listening
Listening is a surprisingly important part of communication and in order to be a great communicator, you must master the art of listening. Remember that listening doesn’t just mean hearing, or politely waiting for your turn to speak. When others are speaking, you should practice active listening, which means that you are engaging your mind while the person speaks, intently focusing on what they are saying.
Formal Communication vs Informal Communication
Another way that types of communication can be broken down into is in formal vs informal communication. There are times when one should be used over the other, such as when delivering a speech (formal), or when making brunch plans with a friend (informal).
In formal communication, where conversation partners are part of a group, organization, or society, there are three types of communication:
- Vertical: Information flows freely up and down the organizational structure. For example, your boss’s boss speaks to you, you speak to your boss, and you speak to the employees under you.
- Horizontal: This is where information or communication flows across a structure. For example, you and your coworkers speak together back and forth.
- Diagonal: Finally, there is diagonal formal communication where all levels communicate with one another in any direction.
Online Communication
Communicating over the internet comes with special considerations. When you combine anonymity with a wide reach, messages can get muddled. Just think about how communication works on social media platforms.
With the University of the People, however, we make it a point to deliver the most effective online communication possible — we are 100% online, after all. Through their discussion boards and peer assessments, students communicate thoughts and ideas wherever and whenever they want.
One of the most poorly covered, but very important aspects of communication is emotional awareness. Emotional awareness is the ability to understand others’ feelings as well as your own, and take note of how that may be affecting a current situation. It is imperative that you have high emotional awareness in order to be an effective communicator. Here are some ways to improve your emotional awareness in communication:
- Use Empathy:Empathetic people are able to understand others’ emotions. Once you have that down, you can start to relate to them during your conversation.
- Consider Your Own Emotions:Your own feelings may be getting in the way of either delivering or receiving the message clearly. Check how you are feeling and be aware of how that may influence your communication ability.
- Think of Others’ Emotions:Remember the ways your own mood and emotions affect your ability to communicate and apply that to others. Take time to consider that someone’s mood or previous experience may be affecting their actions.
- Build Trust:You can build trust by having open and honest conversations, as well as matching your nonverbal cues such as tone, facial expressions, and body language to your verbal ones.
- Recognize and Correct Misunderstandings:Misunderstandings are the barrier to great communication. The more quickly to discover and correct them, the more calm everyone will be, and the quicker you’ll get on the right track.
Communicating in Difficult Situations
One of the hardest parts of communication is when you need to deliver some not-so-great information. It’s important to choose the best type of communication in that case, whether it is in person, written, formal or informal — only you know the message and who you need to deliver it to.When you communicate in difficult situations, it can be overwhelming or emotional for both the sender and receiver of the message. Try to remember emotional awareness in difficult situations and you will do fine
- 4. What is business letter? Describe its standard and optional part in detail.
A business letter is a professional, formal letter that is sent by one company to another. These letters can be used for professional correspondence between business clients, employees, stakeholders as well as individuals.
Whether you need to tell a potential client about your product, collaborate with another company, convince someone to attend your event, or give a thank you note – a well-written business letter can stand out.
Types of Business Letters
1. Cover Letters
First up, a cover letter is a one-page document that candidates submit along with their resumes. It takes the employer on a guided journey of their greatest career & life achievements.
No matter if you’re a student or an experienced professional, a cover letter is an important document to show your skills, experience, and why you’re fit for the position you are applying for.
Tips:
- Don’t try to fit your whole career in your cover letter. It should have a carefully curated collection of stories.
- Don’t state a skill that you don’t actually have. You’ll definitely regret it when you’re asked to use that skill in the interview.
- Keep it concise and to the point. The employer does not have time to sit down and read an entire memoir.
2. Business Invites
These letters are a formal way to reach out to a company or an individual and invite them to attend an event hosted by your company.
As business events tend to be formal, an invitation letter is most likely to be formal as well. But, if you are organizing a casual event, it should be reflected in your invite and tone.
Tips:
- Write the letter in such a way that it builds anticipation about the event.
- Clearly mention the date, time, and venue.
- Set a friendly follow-up to remind them of the event.
3. Complaint Letter
This letter is a way to formally express your disappointment formally. You can report a bad experience, poor customer service, or let a company know that their products didn’t meet your expectations.
The key to this letter is that it shouldn’t sound like you are nagging, but also shouldn’t lose its importance if you want to be taken seriously.
Tips:
- Don’t get too emotional or over-the-top angry. Just state the facts.
- Be cordial and professional. Let them know the entire story and how’d you like them to rectify their mistakes.
4. Letter of Resignation
A letter of resignation is a document that notifies your employer that you’re leaving your job. Whether you work at a coffee shop or a big-shot company, it’s proper protocol to submit a letter of resignation before you leave.
Also, if you have an urge to send an incendiary letter of resignation, don’t give in! You might cross paths with these people again.
Tips:
- Keep it simple, stick to the facts, and don’t start complaining. Resignation letters are not the right place for complaints & critiques.
- Thank your boss and/or the company for the opportunities and describe some of the key things you learned on the job.
- If you’re in a high-profile position, consider your words super carefully because your letter would likely be made public.
5. Order Letters
Also known as “purchase orders”, these letters are used to order things or buy material. They act as a legal record, documenting the transaction between the buyer and seller.
These letters are generally written by one business to another business to make an order or to modify it.
Tips:
- Be concise and clear to avoid any misunderstanding or confusion.
- Include everything the seller would need to deliver the order and get the payment.
- Provide contact information for future conversations or follow-up.
Sender’s address. Optimally, you want to have a printed company letterhead. Letterhead, similar to having a company website, conveys that your business is legit. But even if the address is simply typed at the top, including your address plays a practical purpose, because you don’t want the recipient to have to look up your address in order to send a response.
Date. Whoever receives the letter needs to know when the letter was written. It’s best to use a standard U.S. format. (Here’s an example: September 20, 2018.)
Recipient’s address. Include the recipient’s address so that you have the information readily available for printing out the envelope. A full recipient address also helps ensure the letter doesn’t get lost in the office shuffle wherever you are sending it. The first line should be the name, including any honorifics such as Mr., Ms., Dr., etc. The second line is the recipient’s job title. Their company’s name goes on the third line. The remaining lines include street address, city, state, and ZIP code.
Salutation. A “To whom it may concern” or “Dear Sir or Madam” is a good way to ensure that your letter goes nowhere. Find out the name of the person who should receive the letter, even if you have to do some searching on Google or LinkedIn, or call the company.
Body. Time is money in the business world, so get down to business and quickly make your case or communicate your message. Stay professional, be clear and concise, and quickly convey the point of the letter.
Closing/signature. Stick with a more formal closing such as “Sincerely” or “Thank you.” You should only capitalize the first word of the closing. Remember to follow the closing with four lines of space in order to make room for your signature, which demonstrates your personal stamp of approval of the letter’s contents.
Enclosures. If there are additional items to enclose with the letter, it’s best to list them, so that the recipient remembers what was included with the letter. Include enclosures three lines below your signature or one line below the typist’s initials.
Essential Parts of a Business Letter
Out of all of the parts in a business letter, there are two things about how to write a business letter that can make or break a letter’s effectiveness: It needs to have the name of a human being in the recipient address and salutation, and the body of the letter needs to quickly get to the point and persuade the reader.
Use the first paragraph of the letter to quickly and clearly state the purpose of the letter. In the second paragraph, provide the empirical evidence or persuasion to back up the point made in the first paragraph. By the third or fourth paragraph, repeat the main point of the letter and then close with a call to action.
Optional Parts of a Business
There are a number of optional parts in a business letter that you might find helpful. They include:
Attention line. If the letter is going to a large company, an attention line can provide the bit of necessary emphasis you need so that the letter goes where it needs to go. Write “Attention:” and then the name of the recipient. The attention line should go two lines below the recipient address.
Subject or reference line. This part can focus the recipient on the letter’s actual purpose. Start with a “Subject:” or a “Re:” or write in all caps.
Now that we’ve covered the parts in a business letter, let’s look at how they’re put together. “Block style” is one of the most widely used formats. There are no indentations and everything is aligned to the left. If you’re questioning how formal a business letter should be, it’s probably best to play it safe and go with block format. Here is an example of a block business letter format.
- 5. Describe the challenges to the organization made by new technologies.
In order for companies today to remain relevant and competitive, they look to new trends in technology to see what can greatly benefit their business. Some may even want to be cutting edge and stay ahead of the curve by being the first adopters of new technology. Whether you’re a trendsetter or a band wagoner, adopting new technology will always present challenges.
Here are some of those challenges and what you can do to overcome them.
Adopting new technology for technology’s sake
A lot of new technology is useful, but is it useful for your company? Does it answer your needs? A shiny new toy looks great at the start, but as it loses its wow factor, you may eventually realize you just bought yourself a very expensive paperweight. Before buying new technology, do some research to know if it will actually be useful to your operations.
Proper implementation and incorporation of new technology
Taking advantage of everything that new technology has to offer is not enough. You must be able to integrate it into your existing processes to fully realize it’s potential. Otherwise, you may end up having to needlessly overhaul your whole system, which will take up more time and effort. Ideally, you should strive for the least disruption and need for training when incorporating new technology into your existing systems.
Not getting everyone on board the new technology
Some people are early adopters; they quickly embrace new technology and can’t wait to use it. Others are more resistant and prefer the comfort of the familiar. You will always have those two (and variations in between) in your staff. The former don’t need convincing, while the latter need to be won over. You can do this by involving them in the selection and planning process and showing them that the new technology will be beneficial for them. Allow them to express their concerns, and find a way to address them. Set clear expectations that all those who need to use the new technology must ultimately meet.
Inadequate staff training for the new technology
Even if a new technology claims to be “user-friendly,” employees still need to be trained. Not everyone can take to new technology so easily, so a little assistance is needed to make sure everyone’s on board. It also helps eliminate first-time users’ mistakes, some of which can be quite costly.
A common mistake is not taking training into consideration when budgeting for new technology. Training is an expense, and some company leaders are quick to scrimp on that after spending so much on new technology. But inadequate training can lead to costly mistakes later on. Always factor in employee training when considering new technology.
Monitoring your data and progress
Today’s new technology lets you monitor the data it collects, so you get a picture of how people are using it and whether it’s being used efficiently or not. Monitoring data not only gives you insight on your processes and systems, but it also helps you track your company’s progress. You can identify areas of success and points for improvement, and communicate them to your employees. Monitoring your data helps you measure your progress towards your goals.
Not anticipating the needs of the users
When considering new technology, it’s best not to replicate what’s already existing. Because then you’re merely following what others, especially your competitors, are already doing. To surge past your competitors, you should think more like a leader and invest in technologies that anticipate your customers’ needs and wants.
New technologies, new security vulnerabilities
New technologies go through a maturity cycle; the early phase can be rife with security vulnerabilities. Adopting new technologies may expose your company to new security threats, so it’s important to cultivate a culture of learning and of quick responsiveness. That way, your people learn to anticipate rather than just react to changes.
The challenges of regulations
Because they introduce new features and processes, new technologies can sometimes be at odds with existing regulatory bodies. It now falls on you to lead your industry to lobby for changes in the regulations.
Information security
Information security is a major issue for any business. Protecting sensitive intellectual property (IP) data, financial documents, and customer information is vital for keeping the business healthy and competitive.
According to data from IBM, the average cost of a data breach in the U.S. is $8.64 million—making the U.S. the most expensive country for data breaches.
The issue is that cyber security can be an incredibly difficult issue to deal with. Because:
- Different businesses have different information security requirements they need to follow;
- Malicious actors are constantly creating new cyber threats and attack strategies; and
- Qualified IT professionals specializing in cyber security are both costly and difficult to find.
Digital Transformation
Digital transformation, or the integration of technology into virtually every aspect of a business, isn’t often a goal for businesses per se. Instead, the proliferation of technology in business operations often leads to an incidental kind of digital transformation—one with a haphazard nature that leads to an inconsistent experience for users of the organization’s applications.
Taking a more mindful approach to digital transformation that considers how each piece of technology is integrated into the whole of the business’ operations (from mobile apps to data collection tools), can be crucial for ensuring a smooth transition. This is where an IT advisory service can help.
The Cloud
The “Cloud” is sometimes treated as a nebulous and poorly-defined cure all for a business’ ills. While cloud-based services, like platform-as-a-service (PaaS), software-as-a-service (SaaS), disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS), and the like can be fast and cost-efficient methods for a business to solve specific challenges, not all cloud solutions are created equally.
It’s important for a business to have a clear strategy for adopting cloud solutions—including how they plan to deal with their legacy systems that may not be compatible with cloud-based technologies. Having a dedicated partner who can provide custom cloud solutions can be incredibly helpful for overcoming the challenge of integrating the cloud with the business’ operations.
Compliance
Every business has to deal with a variety of compliance requirements. The challenge is that the specific requirements a business needs to meet can vary depending on a variety of factors such as:
- Company size
- Industry vertical
- Specific business model
- Area of operation
- Customers served
For example, companies servicing customers from the European Union (EU) have to follow the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), businesses processing customer payment card data have to follow the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and healthcare businesses have to meet the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (HIPAA’s) requirements.