Scenario:

You are a senior manager working for a traditional family-owned Hong Kong company manufacturing and selling a range of consumer products in its own stores. To illustrate your answer, you can use any organisation that you are familiar with, such as the Wing On Department Store. Sales of your products have been declining in the past year.

You believe that the reason for this is that, while the nature of the market has been changing in recent years, your company has not kept up with the changes to customer needs, taste and method of shopping. You also believe that your company should do a lot more communicating with its customers, and that the information that it could be gathering from this communication should improve its decision making as it relates to customer and product decisions.

Task 1 - Information and knowledge needs:

1. Identify the range of decisions to be taken as they relate to products and to customers in the above scenario.

2. Review information and knowledge needed to ensure effective decision taking in the above scenario.

3. Assess internal and external sources of information and understanding in the above scenario.

4. Make recommendations for improvement in the above scenario.

Task 2 - Networking and communications processes:

1. Identify relevant personnel such as customers, stakeholders and other experts.

2. Discuss how the organisation can make contact with those identified and discuss developing business relationships with them.

3. Discuss how the organisation can Involve those identified in decision making as appropriate.

4. Suggest strategies for improvement.

Task 3 - Communication processes:

1. Evaluate existing processes of communication in the organisation you chose in the above scenario and look for ways to ensure and to improve appropriateness.

2. Discuss how you would implement and justify improvements to ensure greater integration of systems of communication in the organisation.

3. On a personal level, identify weaknesses and develop a personal plan to improve your own communication skills.

Task 4 - Appropriate systems:

1. Evaluate the organisation you chose in the above scenario's existing approaches to the collection, formatting, storage, disseminating information and knowledge.

2. Implement and justify appropriate changes to improve the collection, formatting, storage, disseminating information and knowledge.

3. Implement a strategy to improve access to systems of information and knowledge to others as appropriate.