LESSON 5

THE ROLE OF PRESENTATION APPLICATIONS IN

GROWING BUSINESS
Being able to effectively communicate with one another could be considered as one of the most
important skills in life and business. It is the no. 1 most in demand soft skill according to LinkedIn research
published on Virtual Speech website. If you have good communication skills, it will be very easy for you to
transfer information to another. It will be easy for you to let people understand what you want to discuss.
Though the ability to effectively communicate
is a human soft skill, it does not mean we
cannot use modern tools and equipment to
complement that ability.
Nowadays, particularly in business, there
are various tools and software that assist us
to deliver messages and information more
effectively. These tools include physical things
like microphones, visual aids, and modules
among others, while software includes
presentation applications like Microsoft
PowerPoint, Prezi, and Google Slides.
Today’s businesses prefer presentations using software that creates slides with different animations and
effects. By using this software, a presenter could easily catch the interest of his or her audience and would be
able to emphasize important points in the presentation which is not possible by using manual visual aids or
handouts.

Benefits and Importance of Slide Presentations in Business

There are various benefits to using slide presentations according to Medium.com and Chron.com. We
summarized here some of the benefits and importance enumerated in their websites.
● Visual impact – As previously discussed, using a presentation could help improve audience focus. By
using a slide presentation, you can use images, sound, and other multimedia which will surely catch
interest. But keep in mind that catching the audience’s interest is one thing and maintaining their interest
is another. The focus of every presentation is to deliver the message and this will only be effective if
you can maintain the audience’s interest
throughout the presentation.
● Sharing – You can even publish your
presentation to a website, thus, enabling
those who missed your presentation to
view it online. Using effects and animations
will help you drive your audience’s focus to
a certain part of your presentation even
though you are not doing the presentation
live which will not be possible with plain
handouts.

UNIT I INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD 1

● Saves time – Nowadays, there are professionals you can hire to create a presentation for you. You just
have to tell them the contents and what do you want and expect from the presentation. If you are
the one personally preparing your presentation, it will also be a time saver versus making a manual
presentation. Also, adding edits and modifications will be easy in the future.
● Collaborate ideas – Like other software applications used in business, a presentation can be used
by team members to collaborate ideas. A team member can use it to deliver messages, while other
team members can use comments or review features to give suggestions. Team members can even
simultaneously work on the same presentation if the team is using an online slide presentation maker,
thus, also saving time.
To summarize, the key role of presentation applications in business is that they help us to not just
effectively but also efficiently deliver information and messages. We should use presentation applications
to assist us in delivering information and not to replace us since there will never be any substitute to
humans’ ability to effectively deliver a message.

Questions for Discussion

1. What do you think are the other benefits of slide presentations as compared with manual presentations?
2. In your personal experience, how slide presentation was able to help you in one of your school activities?
3. This article has cited various benefits and importance of slide presentation. In your own opinion, do you
see some disadvantages of using slide presentation that we need to be aware of?

Bibliography
Bell, K. (n.d.). What are the benefits of Powerpoint. Retrieved July 26, 2021, from https://smallbusiness.chron.
com/benefits-powerpoint-55958.html.
The Marketing Mane. (2020). Five key benefits of a business PowerPoint Presentation. Retrieved July 26,
2021, from https://medium.com/@marketingmanegoa/five-key-benefits-of-a-business-powerpoint-
presentation-b05a6365a211.

2 EMPOWERMENT TECHNOLOGIES