Book excerpt: This book Business Communication: Essential Strategies for Twenty-first Century Managers brings together application-based knowledge and necessary workforce competencies in the field of communication. The second edition utilizes well-researched content and application-based pedagogical tools to present to the readers a thorough analysis on how communication skills can become a strategic asset to build a successful managerial career. With the second edition, Teaching Resource Material in the form of a Companion Website is also being provided. This book must be read by students of MBA, practicing managers, executives, corporate trainers and professors. KEY FEATURES • Learning Objectives: They appear at the beginning of each chapter and enumerate the topics/concepts that the readers would gain an insight into after reading the chapter • Marginalia: These are spread across the body of each chapter to clarify and highlight the key points • Case Study 1: It sets the stage for the areas to be discussed in the concerned chapter • Case Study 2: It presents real-world scenarios and challenges to help students learn through the case analysis method • Tech World: It throws light on the latest advancements in communication technology and how real-time business houses are leveraging them to stay ahead of their competitors • Communication Snippet: It talks about real organizations/people at workplaces, their on-job communication challenges and their use of multiple communication channels to gain a competitive edge • Summary: It helps recapitulate the different topics discussed in the chapter • Review and Discussion Questions: These help readers assess their understanding of the different topics discussed in the chapter • Applying Ethics: These deal with situation-based ethical dilemmas faced by real managers in their professional lives • Simulation-based Exercise: It is a roleplay management game that helps readers simulate real managers or workplace situations, and thereby enables students to apply the theoretical concepts • Experiential Learning: It provides two caselets, each followed by an Individual Activity and a Team Activity, based on real-time business processes that help readers ‘feel’ or ‘experience’ the concepts and theories they learn in the concerned chapter to gain hands-on experience • References: These are given at the end of each chapter for the concepts and theories discussed in the chapter