“The Impact of Poor Business Communication” Case Study 1: The promising chemist who buried his results
Bader, a research chemist for a major petroleum company, wrote a dense report about
some new chemical compounds he had synthesized in the laboratory from oil refining by
products. The bulk of the report consisted of tables listing their chemical and physical
properties, diagrams and molecular structure, formulas, computer analysis and toxicity
tests. Buried at the end of the report was a casual speculation that one of the compounds
might be particularly effective insecticide. Bader left the company as he was frustrated
for lack of support and recognition.
Seven years later, the oil company launched a major research program to find a effective
and environmentally safe insecticide. After few months of research, someone accidentally
uncovered Bader’s research report relating toxicity tests about insecticide. Few hours of
further testing confirmed that Bader’s chemical compound of insecticide was the safe,
economical and suitable insecticide they were looking for. Bader left the company
already as his research was not given due importance at that point of time.

Case Study 2: The unaccepted electric regulator proposal
Lulu Electric Company worked day and night to develop a new Power Regulator to
reduce power consumption in aluminum plants by 35%. They knew that although the
competition was fierce, their Power Regulator could be produced more cheaply, was
more reliable and worked more efficiently than the similar products of their competitors.
The owner was eager to capture the market, personally but somewhat hastily put together
123page proposal to three major aluminum manufacturers recommending that their
Power regulator be installed at all company plants.
She devoted first 87 pages of the proposal to the mathematical theory and engineering
design behind the new Power Regulator and the next 36 pages to the descriptions of the
new assembly line she planned to set up to produce the Power regulators quickly. Buried
in an appendix were the test results that compared her Power regulator’s performance
with the current models and poorly drawn graph showed the savings as a result of using
the new Power Regulator.
Lulu Electric Company did not get the contracts for supply of Power Regulator from any
organization despite having the best product. Six months later, Lulu Electric Company
filed for bankruptcy.

Case Study 3: The instruction manual that scared customers away
As one of the first to enter the field of office automation, Sagatec Software, Inc., had built
a reputation for designing high quality and user friendly database and accounting
programs for business and industry. When they decided to enter the word processing
market, their engineers designed an effective, versatile and powerful program that
Sagatec felt sure would outperform any competitor in their business.
To be sure that their new word processing program was accurately documented, Sagatec
asked the senior program designer to supervise writing the instruction manual. The result
was a thorough, accurate and precise description of every detail of the program’s
operation. When Sagatec began marketing its new word processor, cries for help flooded in from
office workers who were so confused by the massive manual that they could not even
find out how to get it started. Then several business journals reviewed the program and
judjed it “too complicated” and “difficult to learn.” After an impressive start, sales of the
new word processing program plummeted.
Sagatec eventually put out a new, clearly written training guide that led the new users
step by step through introductory exercises and told them how to find commands quickly.
But the rewrite cost Sagatec $350,000, a year’s lead in the market and its reputation for
producing easy to use business software.

You are required to examine each of the above three case studies and answer the
following:

A. Identify and describe communication errors such as poor task or audience
analysis, use of inappropriate language or style, poor organization or
formatting of information or other issues relating to writing structured
business report in each of the above case studies.

B. Discuss appropriate business communication concepts and theories in the
context of the above case studies separately.

C. Evaluate the use of current and recent technologies for effective
communication in the above case studies.

D. Present practical communication solutions in relation to the above case studies
as they apply to the local as well as the global context.