Cycle 2: Department analysis

1. CCV's MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT

The M&C department plays a key role in the commercial and organizational success of CCV. As a team, we aim to be the company’s engine that will deliver powerful communication and commercially successful marketing.

Number of members: Around 40 members, including full-time, external employees and interns

General objective: Make sure our target audience and stakeholders know our brand and ensure that leads keep coming in.

Specific: All our activities will center around 5 long-term objectives:

Strong brand: A share of voice that dominates and energizes the conversation in the payment industry.
Outstanding digital experience: An intelligent, active and constantly improving digital marketing infrastructure that enhances the experience of our customer.
Actionable data: Coherent, actionable and efficient marketing data, which informs decision-making and development.
Return on investment: World-class lead generation with a high return on marketing & PR investment.
Authentic engagement: Crisp, clear, and timely internal communication which drives engagement and supports change.

To be successful in this, we have organized the M&C department into 5 specialized but closely collaborating teams:

Proposition & Portfolio Marketing (9 members when completed):

Cultural background: Germany, Belgium, Netherlands
Developing and executing all marketing activities that support the commercial objectives of CCV – SME and XL customers: brand awareness campaigns, events as well as go-to-market activities.
Planning new marketing plan for new year at the end of the old year based on commercial goals: Awareness campaign - We are CCV and our products, Branding campaign - We are CCV and we do something in payment, or Conversion campaign - We are ‘the best’ and encourage customers to buy/ use our terminals/ financial service.
The portfolio will continue to develop and transform in 2023, increasing its focus on digital channels. The team will also be delivering marketing expertise in various multidisciplinary projects – for example, e-commerce, proposition development, and customer-facing communication.

Digital Marketing (9 members):

Cultural background: Germany, Belgium, Netherlands

Developing the infrastructure for digital marketing and communication, which includes the strategy and development of the digital channels: the CCV website, paid advertising landscape, marketing automation.
Developing the infrastructure for a powerful e-commerce engine, working together with sales, product, and process management teams of both SME and XL.
Consolidating marketing data and insights, which will become the basis for the development and fine-tuning of marketing and commercial activities.
Customer relationship management system: Customer satisfaction research, email marketing, newsletter, and campaigns.

Corporate Communication (5 members):

Cultural background: Netherlands
Developing and executing both external and internal communication of CCV.
The external communication portfolio: Media relations, corporate communication, and crisis communication.
Internal communication: a wide portfolio of responsibilities with the focus to coordinate, develop, improve and advise on the communication flow and engagement in the organization.
The team works very closely with many departments, HR, GRC CICT, and of course with the BoD, working or supporting on a variety of different initiatives.

CCV Studio (9 members):

Cultural background: Switzerlands, Indonesia, German, Netherlands.
All creative services and coordinating the social media activities of CCV.
Create consistency in the way CCV represents itself visually and helps with the development of materials for various departments: a new brand identity, the production of films and brochures, etc.

Branding & Corporate Social Responsibility (4 members):

Cultural background: Sweden, Romania, Dutch and Vietnam.
Work on the brand rollout roadmap, which includes key programs – such as the naming convention for products and services, visual identity, company-wide brand strategy, and building professional brand management for CCV.
Work on the CCV CSR strategy in close cooperation with various departments.
My position is Branding and CSR intern: What is my responsibility?

So far, I have been preparing the reports regarding the CSR which can level CCV up in the competition of being a sustainable company.
I also have come up with the mini campaigns approaching SDGs, which connects CCV to UN Global Compact - The World’s largest corporate sustainability initiative.
I learned about how important branding is to a company. Deep down into why I need to take actions for any branding-related tasks such as Merchandising inventory, etc.

Infographic:

Click here

2. REPORT COMPANY COMMUNICATION

• Introduction

Communication style: Based on my observation during 3 weeks, I realized that employees in CCV communicate in an informal, casual, comfortable and honest way. Since CCV is a Dutch company, almost all employees are Dutch speakers and they always talk with each other in Dutch in Arnhem office. It doesn’t mean CCV is not an international working environment since CCV Dutch employees are also very excellent English speakers and there are offices in Belgium and Germany with international employees. When I am in the conversation, they are willing to switch to English and let

me be involved in their story. Besides that, managers, employees and interns are also international, and working hybrid, based in the Netherlands and other EU nations. I feel I belong to this working environment and am enthusiastic to tell as well as express my opinion any time I would like. I have no difficulty communicating with other colleagues since their English is good and they make me feel that they are here to listen to me.

Communication tools: CCV’s main communication tools are Outlook (formal), Teams (both formal and informal, meetings), Miro (for key projects), Microsoft Planner (assigning tasks and tracking progress), and company-wide CCV Inside (Intranet).

Formal purposes (Outlook) include sending and receiving work-related important information, work requests to other members of the team or to other teams, etc. For example, informing team leaders, sending documents for review, asking information from members of all departments in all offices, etc. Teams is used as the platform for quick call, scheduled meetings, chatting to both ask/ update professional and personal aspects.

Meanwhile, Miro is preferred as a faster and formal way to communicate and is especially great for a remote/hybrid workplace like CCV as it keeps everyone updated with the company’s new events and on track with their team. We have a meeting every 2 weeks to show the progress in the Miro board.

So far, my manager has assigned tasks for me (and the whole team) in Microsoft Planner where I can see my task, detailed instructions and deadlines. The task is kept updated every week when we have meetings.

Regarding CCV Inside, it is the digital environment to connect with all CCV colleagues. This platform is initiated to facilitate internal communications with different groups, within which we have 'OneCCV' group where updates, news articles and upcoming events for everyone at CCV can be found. Next to that, it is possible to follow other (open) groups, for example: ‘CCV SME’ and ‘CCV XL’ to see their updates and information about new/ current campaigns.

• Analysis

1. High and Low Context Communication: explicitness and directness vs implicitness and indirectness of communication

CCV exactly belongs to the Low Context Communication style which means that messages are conveyed using explicit language and detailed explanations. The communicator provides all the necessary information to ensure that the message is easily understood by the recipient. In fact, CCV’s employees come from different countries all over the world, including individualistic societies and collective societies, so everyone is trying to communicate as clearly and concisely as possible.

My company coach, Anna, is a great example of a low-context communicator. Whenever she assigns tasks, she always makes it clear what needs to be done and the division of responsibilities. Since she is working totally remotely (from Switzerland), she always expresses her expectation in words and in a call with me. I can also comprehend her messages based solely on words/ texts/ comments in the documents, which are direct, detailed and understandable enough. Sometimes, she shows her (dis)satisfaction via non-verbal communication, especially facial expression when she tries to explain as much and detail as possible to me. That being said, I can totally get her advice and feedback without any confusion. Another example is my communication with other colleagues. Most of the time, when I ask them a question, they will answer me about what they know and make sure I understand them until the conversation ends, which happens both face-to-face and through text.

2. Fast and Slow Messages: fast versus slow speed in which messages are decoded

Messages are fast-decoded among CCV’s departments and employees. For example, the Marcom department has five sub departments (as stated in the infographic). We are working, sharing and updating with each other to complete a specific strategy. Tasks are divided in Microsoft Planner within the department with people who are responsible for each. By this way, we can know who to contact when we need help or further information. We also have sub channels in our department channel in Teams, in which we can post updates, comments to fast ask and answer. Personally, I work almost with my manager, so we can have a quick call whenever we want to ask, update and report anything. Fast message helps me save time to finalize my task since I first deeply understand what my manager expects from me, which is the leveraging step for my next one, researching the right source and completing the task with flying colors.

3. Fast and Slow Information Flow: compartmentalized controlled/planned information flow (slow) versus free (fast) information flow

Although messages and solutions are fast conveyed, CCV’s information flow tends to be compartmentalized, controlled/ planned. On my first day at work, I received the laptop without any accessories (mouse, headset, and extra keyboards), which needed to be approved by my manager (Anna - Brand Lead) before I could pick them up. However, my manager was having her vacation at that time, so the Head of the Marcom team approved for me. Moreover, I also have a task of managing two mailboxes that also require Anna’s approval.

In general, information within CCV can flow downward, from high-level managers to team leaders, then team leaders will share instructions or information with lower-level employees; or upward, such as I report my accomplishments directly, and only, to my company coach (Anna).

4. Action Chains: difference in steps required and sequence of steps needed to reach a goal

The action chain is established clearly and comprehensively in every CCV activity. For example, before I came to the office on my first day, I had received a document from Anna that explained everything I needed to do, such as who would greet me, what I should do next, along with a list of things to do for an intern. At that time, I felt how structured it is in a professional environment in general and in the way of working with such an organized manager in particular. As a result, I survived for the first 2 weeks successfully with my manager’s absence due to her holiday.

When it comes to task completion, I always receive a sequence of steps I need to follow to reach a goal. For example, when making a moodboard for a social media post, I got a list of actions I would take (go to social media -> collect ideas -> get inspiration), the example of my manager’s ways of collecting some inspiration to complete the moodboard, etc. However, I do not need to follow all these steps in order, I can act differently (imagine some ideas first -> collect later -> combine -> get inspiration) as long as the core steps are kept to finalize an entire moodboard in the end.

• Personal impact

Vietnam is one of the high-context culture nations in Asia where people tend to use an indirect style of speech (Gudykunst,1991). It is where I come from - a collectivist society. Therefore, it takes me more time to adapt to a low-context communication environment, even though I have put much effort for two years in the Netherlands. As I was taught when I was young, I tend to pay more attention to non-verbal expressions (facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice) in order to fully understand what he/she is trying to imply, and take social status/ ages into serious consideration as it defines how I will behave around them.

Therefore, I suppose that I’m the youngest intern in the Marcom department (even in the company), I always hesitate when I would like to say/ express something since I’m afraid that my actions will be considered “disrespectful”. Then it is a big challenge set by myself. I remember the first meeting with one manager and four other seniors to brainstorm a new name for a platform. I had a lot of ideas but my hesitation (since I think I’m young and others are more experienced than me) prevented me from showing my opinions, which I regretted later. Moreover, when other colleagues were talking happily and sharing their viewpoints in a straightforward way during lunch time, I did not know how to start to get involved in this conversation though I had something in my mind. While low-context people just choose to say what they think, I need time to find a way of how to start ‘interestingly’ as a high-context person. Unwantedly, I created a gap between me and others who are willing to include me in their conversation and ready to help me whenever I need a hand.

To cope with this situation, I think my strategy was Cultural Synergy based on Nunez's 5 approaches to dealing with other cultures. I value all cultures for making their unique contributions to making life and work more creative and dynamic (Nunez et al, 2017). I started by observing the communication style in the office: how my colleagues talk to each other, the type of languages that they use, the way feedback and tasks are given between manager and employees, how people show their disagreement respectfully, different topics that are usually discussed in a conversation, etc. I put effort into developing a new style of working to adapt and catch up with the workflow in the team. For example, when I have a meeting with my manager, I need to be well-prepared by reading notes before joining the meeting so I understand what Anna is talking about.

Specifically, I consider all communication and behavior styles of different cultures as equally professional (Nunez et al, 2017). When texting with other Dutch seniors and my manager, some of them always use icons/ emojis/ gifs to show their friendliness, which I also did. At first, I was afraid it is an informal way of communicating in such a formal and professional working environment. After 4 weeks, I have normalized this communication style. In contrast, there are some employees/ interns who seem so strict and direct in their text/ talking in person. As a funny and open-minded person, I feel a bit scared when communicating with them. But I appreciate them and their ways of behavior. I have found a new working method to adapt to this diversity: Focus on the working process and developing myself personally and professionally, embracing and learning from the difference. So far, I am fine with this approach to deal with cultural diversity at work. I will keep it as a principle for me in a professional situation.

I think I’m slowly but surely familiarizing myself with the team and the company's culture. I am aware of various cultural differences when working, formal talking about the working process and informal sharing with other colleagues during lunch time. I have tried to interpret the communication by asking myself questions why my colleagues talk like that and why I communicate differently from them. I even put myself in their shoes based on what I learn about their culture to understand them and appreciate all. While working on this analysis, I have asked my colleagues several questions about the company culture as well as communication style and what I can do to adapt better when we have lunch together.

• Conclusion

This assignment has pushed my sharp observation at work. I have also reminded myself to deal with cultural differences since I moved to the Netherlands. However, the assignment gave me detailed instructions of how to be aware and improve my intercultural communication by asking me questions and pushing me to step by step enjoying my international internship.

By doing this assignment, I could make use of my 4 first weeks to observe, understand and find a suitable way of communicating - which is the key of every success I suppose. I have got used to the Low Context communication style by asking direct questions,

raising my voice whenever I have the opinions, and having more courage to talk without any shyness. In addition, I also appreciate all cultural differences in CCV in general and in the Marcom department in particular. We are international, diverse, and have different communication styles; however, we are here, in CCV, to make use of all varieties to get to know and communicate well with each other!

3. INTERIM MATRIX

Cycle 3