2.0 Introduction
Communication is the act of conveying intended meanings from one entity or group to another through the use of mutually understood signs and semiotic rules. Communication is thus a process by which meaning is assigned and conveyed in an attempt to create shared understanding. Communication is also important within the business. Effective communication can help to foster a good working relationship between you and your staff, which can in turn improve morale and efficiency.
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This guide will explain the key aspects of both verbal and non-verbal communication, how to listen to and understand others, and how to make the best possible first impression on the people you encounter in and around your business. There are many types of communication that involve in daily life or even the company to run the business, which is intercultural communication and organization communication.
There are many types of communication that involve in daily life or even the company to run the business, which is intercultural communication and organization communication. Intercultural communication is how peopling from different countries and cultures act, communicate and perceive the world around them. Besides, organization communication is the study of communication within organizations. The flow of communication could be either formal or informal.
In this study, Spritzer Bhd is selected as the communication study basically by referring to the latest annual report 2016 released. Spritzer Bhd is the Malaysia’s best selling natural mineral water. Spritzer Bhd is also an investment holding company, which manufactures and distributes bottled and non-carbonated flavored water. It operates through the following segments, consists of Manufacturing, Trading, and Others. The Manufacturing segment produces natural mineral water, carbonated flavored water, distilled water, drinking water, non-carbonated flavored water, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) preforms, PET bottles, caps, and toothbrushes. The Trading segment sells bottled water and other consumer products. The Other segment focuses on investment and properties holding. The company was founded on May 26, 1993 and is headquartered in Taiping, Malaysia.
3.0 Company Backgrounds
Spritzer is one of the well-known tops branded company as Malaysia’s best selling natural mineral water. Back to the late 1980’s, Spritzer Group of Companies that consist of eight (8) subsidiaries, have been specialised in manufacturing and distribution of natural mineral water, sparkling natural mineral water, distilled drinking water, carbonated fruit flavoured drink, non-carbonated fruit flavoured drink, functional drink, toothbrushes, preforms and packaging bottles.
Although its sound so simple to operate, but the challenging part is to guarantee that nothing gets in nature’s way. The company had invested a great lengths to look after our vast 330-acre site of natural mineral water sources here at Taiping, Perak like watchful guardians, keeping the water sources pure and clean as well as assure from anything that could potentially pollute and damage the quality of the good water.
Manned by highly qualified professionals while armed with automated and latest bottling technology, you can be rest assured that every Spritzer product is exceptional of its class, which explains why Spritzer has garnered many awards throughout the years.
Below shows the approval and recognizable of the Spritzer Group that the company is one of the member of Asia Middle East Bottled Water Association (ABWA) and an international affiliate member of the American Beverages Association. Spritzer has received many certifications and awards since its incorporation in 1993.
• MS 1480:2007 HACCP certified by SGS
• ISO 9002 certification
• ISO 9001:2000 certification upgraded to ISO 9001:2008 by SIRIM
• IBWA / ABWA Annual Plant Inspection since 1996, by premier third party certifier named NSF, QUASI and JohnsonDiversey Consulting
• ABWA Certificate of Accomplishment
• ABWA Certificate of Excellence in Manufacturing
• Certificate of Authentication Halal by Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM) for Natural Mineral Water, Certificate of Authentication Halal by Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM) for Non-Carbonated Flavored Drinks
• Certificate of Authentication Halal by Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM) for Carbonated Natural Mineral Water
• Certificate of Malaysian Brand by SIRIM QAS International Sdn Bhd
In the cooperate of subsidiary company, Chuan Sin Sdn. Bhd., the bottler of Spritzer Mineral Water is the first company in Asia to have gained certification by NSF International, recognised by the US FDA, WHO, FAO and Health Canada, confirms that the company complies with international GMP standards in the processing of bottled water. While in the view of awards and recognition, Spritzer had obtained countless of awarded and recognition. All of the awarded and recognition are based on the successfully of the company to marketing the business worldwide.
Below are the list of Spritzer has received many awards since its incorporation in 1993.
• Asia Excellence Brand Award 2016 (3rd consecutive year)
• The Peoples’ Award – Putra Brand Awards 2017 Gold Recipient
• World Branding Awards 2017 – Brand of The Year (Water Category) for 3rd consecutive year
• Aqua Awards from The International Bottled Water Association
• Industry Excellence Award 2003 awarded by Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Malaysia.
• “Asia Pacific Bottled Water Company of the Year” by Frost ; Sullivan for 8th consecutive year
• “Number 1 Natural Mineral Water Brand in Peninsular Malaysia” by Nielsen
• Trusted Brands Platinum Award by Readers’ Digest for 16th consecutive year
• Largest Bottled Water Producer by The Malaysia Book of Records
• Best Brands of Mineral Water by The Brand Laureate for 4th consecutive years
• Superior Taste Awards by iTQi Brussels for 7th consecutive year.
4.0 Company Activities
According to the annual report of Spritzer Bhd 2016, several communication skills are found in the operation of the company. Spritzer Bhd known is as an investment holding company with manufactures and distributes bottle and non-carbonate flavor water. LHDN Malaysia, (2015) defined investment holding company as a company activities consist mainly in the holding investment and majority of its gross income other than gross income form source consisting of a business of holding of an investment is derived from the holding of those investment.
Communication skills playing important role in operation especially have an investment holding company such as Spritzer. Thus in annual reports of Spritzer Bhd 2016, there are several of communication skills that can be found on it such as organization communication and intercultural communication.
4.1 Organization Communication
Organization communication is important in an investment holding company. Organization communication can be defined as the sending and receiving of messages among interrelated individuals within a particular environment or setting to achieve individual and common goals. Besides that, CommGAP, (1974) defined organization communication as focuses on how individuals use communication to work out the tension between working within the constraints of pre-existing organizational structures and promoting change and creativity. Organization communication is divided into two, which are internal organization and external organization communication.
4.1.1 Internal Organization Communication
Example of internal organization can be found in Audit Committee report of Spritzer Bhd 2016. Audit committee report consists of 4 non-executive board members, which are chairman, non-independent non-executive director, and two members of independent non-executive directors. The chairmen in audit communities is responsible for the management, the development and effective performance of the Audit Committee and provide leadership to the Board of Directors for all aspects of the Audit Committee’s work. This known as downward organization communication where the order is conveyed from higher to lower rank and not involving external company.
4.1.2 External Organization Communication
External organization communication defined as transmission of information between a business and another person or entity in the company’s external environment. In the audit report of Spritzer Bhd 2016, Spritzer Bhd has engaged a related party, Yee Lee Edible Oils Sdn Bhd, to perform internal audit function for the Group. The outsourced internal auditors assisted by our internal audit staff have perform routine audit on all operating units within the Group, with emphasis on principal risk areas. From the statement above it shows external organization communication between Spritzer Bhd and Yee Lee Edible Oils Sdn Bhd were Spritzer cooperate with external party to perform of internal audit form their company.
4.2 Intercultural Activities
Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It is used to describe the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. Intercultural communication is sometimes used synonymously with cross-cultural communication. In this sense it seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate and perceive the world around them. Many people in intercultural business communication argue that culture determines how individuals encode messages, what medium they choose for transmitting them, and the way messages are interpreted.
Spritzer Bhd continue with their marketing and sales efforts so as to improve their sales of bottled water products in Guangzhou, China and in Malaysia. They will also continue with their efforts on market development and brand awareness activities in China. However, they do not expect their operations in China to generate positive results in financial year 2017. With their highly integrated and efficient manufacturing process, coupled with their strong brand equity and leading position in the Malaysian bottled water industry, the directors are cautiously optimistic that they will be able to generate satisfactory results in the financial year ending December 31, 2017. This shows that this company applies the intercultural communication within the organization.
Therefore, each company will analysed the conflict from both cultural perspectives and identified the basic of the conflict from both cultural viewpoints to solve the intercultural miscommunication and success the project.
4.3 Small Group Communication
Small group communication is defined as the interaction among three or more people who are connected through a common purpose, mutual influence and a shared identify. Small group are essentially communication units in academic, professional, civic and personal contexts.
In this study, especially in aspect of human resources team, Spritzer Berhad employees being a various level of expertise and diverse experiences to their work. To retain employees and boost up their ability to attract new talented, the company had crucial to develop a worldwide human resource policy that encourages continuous learning, strengthens leadership skills and promotes cooperation between colleagues, customer and as well as the community.
This group of communication developed one communication between the employee and other foundation to maintain its recruitment and retention strategy of ensuring the right people with the right locations, recruitment efforts were largely internally focused, as skilled employees were redeployed and reassigned to alternative projects and areas of the business.
Spritzer Berhad had developed one small group that is the employee engagement. The group maintains regular and open communication with its employees on important corporate developments and changes to policy through meeting between CEO and employees sessions, briefing from the management as well as newsletters and circulars.
This group is responsible in promoting cohesiveness and forge greater sense of belonging amongst employees. This group had accomplished the task in developing a motivated employee that always dream high in achieving and completing their mission and vision as well.
4.4 Human Communication
Human communication is the defined as the production and reception of spoken, written, signed or gestured information among human beings that involves the use of symbols as language received through the auditory, tactile, proprioceptive and visual systems and generated through voice and speech, manual sign and gesture that able to communicate among human that related to the vestibular, olfactory, and gustatory senses.
In this report, there are human communication analyzed that Spritzer Berhad have launched and promoted of its company product over varies of television advertisement, newspapers advertisement and other sources to attract customers world widely. Not only that, Spritzer Berhad had accomplished task in making contact with and communication among humans in order to develop their product in another level so that it can accepted at public. Hence, the communication between human and the company had created.
Other examples will be every employee is necessary to attend a meeting with leader and chairman in presenting new ideas and solution on how to mange well the systems and products. A related employee is required to arise their possible ideas in term of the productivity, as this is normally done by the marketing team of any consideration regarding to the issues arise. So by adapting this process, employee that will responsible from marketing team in created a presentation that included the sign, visual and symbol, which generated through voice and speech to the leader. Thus, the human communication is formed indirectly in this case.
5.0 Critique & Suggestion
5.1 Critique
Based on Spritzer Bhd. Annual report, there is several communication skill that involve in the report. First is effective communication. In an organization, effective communication is significant so as to perform basic functions of the management, such as planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Communication was helping us to perform our jobs and responsibilities. Communication serves as a foundation for planning. All the essential information must be communicated to the managers who in-turn must communicate the plans so as to implement them. Organizing also requires effective communication with others about their job task. Similarly leaders as managers must communicate effectively with their subordinates so as to achieve the team goals. Controlling is not possible without written and oral communication such as general meeting and minute meeting.
In business, communication effectiveness refers to formal and informal sharing of information in a meaningful and timely fashion between a subscriber or customer and a service provider with genuine empathy. The purpose of the communication effectiveness is to educate the customers and keep them informed about the service offerings. Thus, we can say, “effective communication is a building block of successful organizations”.
In this annual report it had state that the general meeting was done for the discussion. The meeting was held at some place with several people for discussion. They had a discussion face-to-face which is involve effective communication between the people as well as interpersonal communication which is there are interaction between more than 2 people in the group.
Organizational communication is a process by which activities of a society are collected and coordinated to reach the goals of both individuals and the collective group. There are several channels, which is face-to-face which is when there are general meeting also written communication, which is the annual report.
The importance of communication in an organization can be summarized as follows. Such as promotes motivation, a source of information, also plays a crucial role in altering individual’s attitudes, such as a well-informed individual will have better attitude than a less-informed individual. Communication also helps in socializing and assists in controlling process. It helps controlling organizational member’s behaviour in various ways also helps in controlling function of management.
5.2 Suggestion
Spritzer Bhd. was well known brand where it is the daily use product. Spritzer was not a brand for mineral water only it also has flavoured drinks such as Spritzer Tinge and Spritzer POP, which is also popular, and it is good.
In order to keep Spritzer brand was well known by all people and trusted by the customer, they should show that the Spritzer brand was had a good quality in produce it. Other than that, there should have been explained about the source of the water and the process to get the user trust.
In organization discussion there should have small group communication, which is, there are discussion among the managers in each department. The managers can discuss about the important thing and gather the important information’s that related to their work. Then, the manager in each department will spread the information to the workers in the department.
6.0 Conclusion
To be concluded, Spritzer was known as Malaysia’s best selling natural mineral water. Since the late 1980’s, Spritzer Group of Companies, which consist of eight subsidiaries, are specialised in manufacturing and distribution of natural mineral water, sparkling natural mineral water, distilled drinking water, carbonated fruit flavoured drink, non-carbonated fruit flavoured drink, functional drink, toothbrushes, preforms and packaging bottles. Spritzer Bhd and its subsidiary companies is committed to high standard of ethical and legal business conduct. The company also committed to present accurate and factual financial information to guide the Board of Directors of the Company, its shareholders, financial markets and other stakeholders in making any decisions. The Board of Directors and the Management must maintain a workplace that practices good corporate governance and upholds integrity in all its operational activities and business dealings. The company encourages its Board members, all levels of employees, contractors, suppliers, bankers, customers and business associates to report suspected or instances of wrongdoing in the conduct of its business, whether in matters of financial reporting or other malpractices, at the earliest opportunity and in an appropriate way. There is several communication skills that was found in this annual report which is organization communication and intercultural communication. Organization communication was defined as the sending and receiving of messages among interrelated individuals within a particular environment or setting to achieve individual and common goals and this communication was divided into two type that is internal communication and external communication. Internal communication is involved between the person inside the company while external communication is between this company and another related company.
7.0 References
Andrews, P. H., ; Baird, J. E. (2000). Communication for business and the professions. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
CommGAP. (1974). Organizational communication. The World Bank, (1984), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634528409384739
Juneja Prachi (2016). Importance of Communication in an Organization. Retrieved
from https://managementstudyguide.com/importance-of-communication.htm
Queensland Government. Communicating effectively for business. Retrieved 17 July 2017 from https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running- business/marketing-
sales/managing-relationships/communicating-effectively
LHDN Malaysia. (2015). Inland Revenue Board Of Malaysia, (10), 1–6. Retrieved from http://www.hasil.gov.my/pdf/pdfam/PR_1_2015.pdf
