The Importance of Communication Skills for Business Professionals

516
THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR BUSINESS
PROFESSIONALS
Alina-Maria NISTORESCU
1
ABSTRACT
The paper presents the importance of acquiring, developing, improving communication
skills for any business professional in order to gain professional advancement and recognition.
The process of communication with its six elements is analyzed from the point of view of the
business environment. The focus shifts on the particularities of business communication and on
the skills required for several positions in the economic field: accountants and financial
analysts, marketers, advertisers, salesmen, HR specialists, PR specialists, customer relations
officers and managers. The article also gives a brief anticipation of the possible consequences
in case professionals have little or no communication skills.
KEY WORDS: communication process, communication skills, business environment,
economic professions
JEL: J24
1. INTRODUCTION
Communication is the process of passing information from one person(s) to
another person or group using one communication channel within spatial-temporal
coordinates. The majority view communication as a process, an ongoing event through
which people attempt to transmit thoughts, ideas, wishes, emotions or just try to
maintain a cordial social relationship. This is a valid definition in a general
communicational context, but in a business environment, communication contains a
number of specific features that must be learned and mastered by people who work in
this setting.
People begin acquiring communication skills very early in their lives and they
reach maturity possessing a sufficient set of skills that facilitate social and professional
interaction. However people who wish to have a successful career in the business field
must be aware of the fact the ability to communicate in everyday life is a mere
prerequisite for learning and developing excellent communication in a professional
environment. To function with maximum efficiency, any business professional must
know which these particularities are and which strategies apply in a particular business
context.
2. THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS AND THE BUSINESS
ENVIRONMENT
The elements of the communication process and the functions of language, as
presented by Jakobson (1960), are the same regardless of the field in which specific
communication exchanges take place . These elements have received various labels
1
Senior lecturer, “Dr ă gan” European University of Lugoj (Faculty of Economics), Romania

517
according to different theoreticians of the communication process
(Hérbert (2011))
, but
even if the labels differ, the six elements have remained the same: context, message,
sender, receiver, channel and code. The context may be formal or informal in business
interaction, the message is the item to be transferred but it cannot be understood outside
a given context, the sender may be a business unit (e.g. issuing an organizational
announcement) or an employee, the receiver may be an individual or a group inside or