Have developments in communications technology made life easier for businesspeople?

Of course, the widespread adoption of e-mail, the Internet, the mobile phone and text messaging has made it far easier for businesspeople to share information and get in touch with each other - in theory, at least.

In practice, the very fact that communication is now so much easier brings a new set of problems. For example, it is often extremely hard to make contact with certain businesspeople, because they are so much in demand that they use technology to screen their phone calls and to filter out unsolicited e-mail.

According to some estimates, fewer than 30% of business phone calls get through to the right person at the first attempt.

So does this mean that business communication is far more competitive than it used to be?

Absolutely. Perhaps there was a time when it was enough for businesspeople to be clear, precise and to the point, but there are now so many competing messages in the business world that businesspeople need to try harder than ever to ensure that their message stands out from the crowd.

It's not enough to tell customers that your products are the best value and the best quality; you need to find ways of engaging their attention, exciting their imagination and commanding their loyalty.

That's one of the reasons that top global brands have become so widely recognised and highly valued over recent years and why they struggle so hard to maintain that position - it was recently reported that some companies are now looking into ways of projecting their logos onto the surface of the moon!..