Business-to-Business Messages
Comm/470
September 5, 2011

Business-to-Business Messages Business-to-business (B2B) messages are sent and received by the organizations, companies and business firms. These messages can be sent for various different purposes including invitations to do business, initiating a new business together, for joint ventures, and other reasons. Communication is extremely important for businesses that work in the virtual environment. The communication process includes the environment where the message takes place, the sender, the message that is created, technology used to send the message, noise, the receiver of the message, and the feedback that is returned. This paper will be analyzing three business-to-business messages using the communication process. The analysis should also include a descriptive explanation of characteristics that would improve the messages, including whether the message and technology were appropriate given the environment and purpose. A business-to-business message will be written to ABC Company asking to create a working relationship with XYZ Company; and write an unfavorable reply message to ABC Company.
Analyzing Messages Businesses used different methods of communication when communicating with other businesses such as email, letters, memos, and proposals. The three messages that will be analyzed are going to be a business proposal, an invitation and recognition from other business. According to "Wisegeek" (2003-2011), “a business proposal is a written proposal presented from a vendor that is intended to elicit business from a prospective buyer” (What is a Business Proposal?). The following is an example of a proposal letter that was emailed to Mr. Lopez.
“Paul Garcia
Project Manager

Date: March 20, 2009

Kevin Lopez
Director,
Amazon Schools Pvt. Ltd.

Dear Mr. Lopez:

It will indeed be a pleasure to get associated with an educational institute like yours. We are pleased to present this proposal to your group of school. It would be great to have partnership with you and be part of learning process for young students. We are into Skills Development for last five years. Five schools have partnered with us in the last five years and the results have been quite encouraging and fruitful.

We develop the four basic communication skills in the students who have problems in learning a language. As per our telephonic discussion, you had informed us that your four schools have around 100 students who lack linguistic abilities. The Program "Developing Communication Skills for Success" is student friendly and interactive.

In the program, our team of trainers helps students to read and write about real life situations. Group activities motivate the students in speaking. Training, activities, assignments are the core areas through which our program works. We take up a batch of 20 students and work with them throughout the year.

With this letter, I'm enclosing the entire proposal, feedback of the schools that had partnered with us in last five years and the student wise analysis of pre training and post training development. This will help you in understanding our style of working and our illustrious results.

You can contact me on my phone or email address - paul.garcia@rediffmail.com for your queries about this proposal.

Yours truly,

Paul Garcia” (BSR, 2011).

The proposal letter that was emailed by Paul Garcia a project manager emailed Kevin Lopez offering their Developing Communication Skills for Success program to their school which currently have students lacking linguistic abilities. The message and technology used in this business proposal are appropriate given the environment and purpose. The project manager noticed that Amazon Schools Pvt. Ltd. are in need of a special program such as the one described and would be important for schools such as Amazon to take advantage of this and help out their students who are in need of such a program. The technology used in this message was appropriate using email as their main communication. The email was professional and informative in regards to the program by giving Amazon Schools Pvt. Ltd. feedback from other schools who are currently partnered with the program.
A business invitation letter is used to invite potential customers to attend your business related occasions. During this time businesses get the opportunity to plan a launch of a new product or service. In order for the business invitation letter or message to be effective a personal touch will help the reader feel welcomed to attend the event or occasion. Also make sure that the letter or message is brief, creative and show some incentive (lunch or prize drawing) to make it more inviting. The delivery format of the message or letter is also important; you can either deliver a printed invitation or email depending on the occasion. Business message #2 is in a format of an invitation.
From: ABC Company
Sent: Thu 4/21/2011 11:40 AM
To: XYZ Company
Cc:
Subject: Welcome! Dear ______, As per our telephonic conversation held yesterday, we are glad to invite you to join our new business firm to work together. We are hoping to receive your response regarding this as soon as possible. Thank you!

The invitation message shown above is in the format of an email. The invitation seems to be very short and down to the point showing no personal touch and non-inviting. Although they already had a verbal invitation it seems like this message was not thought out and was just put together at the last minute. The sender definitely did not take their time to be creative by adding a personal touch and showing some kind of incentive to get the receiver to attend this new business. One important aspect of this message was that the date of the occasion was never mentioned, making it more difficult for any business to be able to respond to the invitation.
Letter of recognition from a business recognizes specific businesses or employees’ contributions, achievement, service, merit, etc. It is important for businesses to take the time to recognize other businesses in their achievements as an organization to help them receive business from other organizations. As a business getting recognized by other businesses shows that the products or services are worth the time. The following message (business message #3) will be in the format of a recognition letter.
Dear :

On behalf of the North American Society for Computers and Learning in Secondary Education, we would like to recognize and thank you for your valuable assistance with our recent annual conference, which was held in Boston in May.

We greatly appreciate that you so generously contributed your time to assemble and organize the panel on Demystifying the Major Search Engines. We recognize that the panel's contribution was a key event at the conference, and it will figure prominently in the summary of proceedings that we will publish next month.

For your information, I have attached a few of the comments about your panel that we received from the survey of conference participants. We hope that you enjoyed your time at the conference, and we certainly look forward to your participation in next year's event.
Sincerely,
The format of this business letter of recognition shows professionalism and acknowledgement of the assistance and preparation of the annual conference. This letter was not sent through any type of technology communication. This letter was actually typed and mailed to the receiver. It not necessary to always email or fax letters to other businesses or parties. Depending on the reason of the letter if businesses choose to mail the actual letter than it’s alright to do so. Remember the reason of using any format of technology communication is to either have a faster response to certain situations or to be able to resolve certain situations on a timely manner. When sending letters of recognition it is always better to mail the letter and have an original signature; doing so shows that the sender is taking their time to acknowledge the business attributes and success. However, before sending any email or letter to another business make sure that it has been proof read and that any grammatical errors have been corrected. For example, when analyzing this message the transitional words “for your information” should not have been used. The flow of the letter would have been better if those transitional words would have been left out making it sound more professional. The following business-to-business message will be written to ABC Company asking to create a working relationship with XYZ Company; and XYZ Company will be writing an unfavorable reply message to ABC Company.
From: ABC Company
Sent: Thu 4/21/2011 11:40 AM
To: XYZ Company
Cc:
Subject: Business Proposal Dear XYZ Company: Our team enjoyed meeting with you last week and, as discussed, submit this proposed action plan for your review. We are excited about this opportunity to help improve productivity. Background
On [date], we met and discussed the recent turnover of employees in your region and your recent acquisition. We also discussed your growing concerns regarding your employee training and retention practices, which are impacting productivity. Improving productivity by improving employee training and increasing retention will help serve more clients and better fulfill the mission of the organization. Initial research shows you to have one employee with seven years and another with three years of service. You also recently "rehired" an employee who was previously with you for three years. You have two new employees in your region, and have not yet started seeking more employees. Your employee recruitment practices include a standard newspaper advertisement and personal interview. You offer a half-day training session for all employees. In that half-day training you also provide literature about your agency and an 8-page "code of conduct handbook." Goals/Objectives
Our goal will be to develop a plan and present you with a number of recommendations to improve employee satisfaction with training by 50% and your employee retention by 20% within the next year. This plan will be accomplished through the following steps: 1. An analysis of the current employee retention practices.
2. A survey of current employees about effectiveness of training, handbook, etc.
3. An evaluation of your one-half day training session and the training handbook.
4. A survey of employees to identify reasons for decreased participation. Procedures
Meeting these objectives will require an open line of communication with current employees. An email of introduction from you will be helpful in gaining their cooperation. The success of this project will be enhanced if you could identify a liaison within your organization to provide us with direction and answers to questions as needed. We will supply you with interim progress updates every two weeks. We invite you for a presentation of our findings at ___p.m. on [DATE – see calendar] at [LOCATION - classroom]. The written report will be submitted by [DATE – 2-3 weeks after the final project report due in class]. This project will provide you with support and guidance in reaching your goals for improving productivity. Please call me at XXX-XXXX with any comments and suggestions for this project. If this proposal meets with your approval, please authorize by signing below. Sincerely, Reply:
From: XYZ Company
Sent: Thu 4/21/2011 11:40 AM
To: ABC Company
Cc:
Subject: Business Proposal Dear ABC Company:

We really appreciate your business proposal to work together on improving productivity by improving employee training and increasing retention to better serve more clients and better fulfill the mission of the organization. After judging the pros and cons, we have finalized the proposal and prepared our response. We appreciate your proposal and feel that since your objectives are to work within the company that you continue to seek a position with a firm that would enable you to gain experience in this area. Unfortunately, our business does not afford you an opportunity to gain this experience. I am certain that you will find an organization which better suits your proposal and believe that your organization has a great deal to contribute. While we know this is disappointing news, we would like to retain your proposal in our files for future considerations. Please accept my best wishes for your future.

Sincerely,

In conclusion, communication is extremely important for businesses that work in the virtual environment. The communication process includes the environment where the message takes place, the sender, the message that is created, technology used to send the message, noise, the receiver of the message, and the feedback that is returned. Businesses used different methods of communication when communicating with other businesses such as email, letters, memos, and proposals. Throughout the paper three messages that were analyzed were a business proposal, an invitation letter and recognition letter from a business. A business-to-business message was also written to ABC Company asking to create a working relationship with XYZ Company; and write an unfavorable reply message to ABC Company.

References
BSR. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.bestsampleresume.com/letters/sample-proposal-letter.html wiseGEEK. (2003-2011). Retrieved from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-business-proposal.htm