English analysis group report. rajan edit

EFFECTIVE PUBLIC COMMUNICATION [FCOM 0102]

Ms. P.THIVILOJANA

ENGLISH 2 [ENGL0205]

MS. CASSANDRA WIJESURIA

July 2013 Intake

Group Members

Toh Yih Sheng 0315976Lee Ka Hoe 0315908Liew Hong Zhi 0315836Shaun Chung Tin Fung 0315806Dinuka Oshidhi Weerasinghe 0316164Tan Wee Keat 0315885Rajan Kulandaya 0317164

Table of Contents

Key Summary......................................................................2

Methodology.......................................................................3

Café and bakery in Malaysia...............................................4

Eté Café...............................................................................5

Shakespeare........................................................................9

Comparison and Contrast.................................................13

Recommendations............................................................14

Conclusion.........................................................................15

Similarities.........................................................................16

Differences........................................................................17

References........................................................................18

Appendix...........................................................................19

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Key SummaryOur assignment requires us to conduct a research on two businesses of the same type in

order to compare the differences and similarities between those two. Our group consists of 7 members: Tan Wee Keat, Lee Ka Hoe, Rajan Kulandaya, Dinuka, Shaun Chung, Toh Yih Sheng and Liew Hong Zhi. We had chosen two café shops as our research targets: Eté Café and Shakespeare. The Former is located in 25, Lorong Carnarvon, Georgetown, 10300 Penang and the latter is in Jalan SS 15/7, SS 15, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor.

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MethodologyThe first café shop that we did our interview with was during our Penang trip on May 16th 2014. The trip was planned by Mr. Joe, Ms. Cassandra and Ms. Lojana. The main objective of the trip was to bring the students who were involved in the same interviewing assignment to make contact and interview their targeted businesses in Penang.

Those who participated in the trip to Penang gathered in Taylor’s University Lakeside’s bus stop on 6am as the bus leaves the university at around 6.10am. Those who went to Penang from our group were: Tan Wee Keat, Liew Hong Zhi, Rajan Kulandaya and Shaun Chung.

As soon as we reached our hotel room, we immediately surfed the net to find possible businesses that we could make appointments with. We found a lot of businesses and contacted them but most of them either rejected our request or were too far away from our hotel. We understood that it was a Friday and they were probably very busy serving the customers. It was our fault because we did not give out any notice to them beforehand. Luckily for us, we found a small café shop located not more than 2kilometres away from our hotel. The café assistant accepted our request after getting the approval from the owner.

Before we headed to the café shop, called Eté Café, our group accompanied another group to their interview. Sadly, their interview did not go well as the owner was not in the store and the manager there was busy. We parted ways with the other group at the store and we took a taxi ride to the café shop. When we reach there, the assistant was waiting outside of the café shop; it was quite a small shop at first glance. The assistant asked us whether we were the ones who had called them earlier for an interview and we nodded our heads in approval.

We went into the shop and saw the owner who was chatting with a Japanese woman. We quickly greeted him and introduced ourselves. His name was Alex and he was bald, he did not tell us his age but from the look of his face he looked around the age of 30 to the mid 40’s. We began the interview as soon as we had set up our laptops with a list of questions which were later used in our interview. Alex was very friendly; he explained lots of things to us including coffee making. Rajan took a lot of pictures using his camera during the whole interview as we conversed with Alex in Mandarin. The whole interview took half an hour, we had all the information that we needed. We bought some desserts from the café before we left.

The second café shop was Shakespeare. We contacted that cafe shop on the 28th of May 2014. The one who picked up the phone was the manager of the shop, his name was Jimmy. Jimmy accepted our request right away and the interview was set the next day, which was on the 29th of May 2014, around 4pm. The next day, we arrived at the café shop right on time. This time the members from our group who went for the interview were Tan Wee Keat, Lee Ka Hoe and Shaun Chung. We bought some desserts from the café while waiting for Jimmy. At last, Jimmy

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was here, he looked like he was only about 27 years old. The whole interview took around 20 minutes only not as long as the one in Eté Café.

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Café and bakery in MalaysiaBack in the old days, middle aged people love to sit down in small quaint coffee shops,

The Infamous “Kopitiam”, to enjoy a cup of ‘Kopi’ with toast bread while reading a newspaper or chatting with friends. Some preferred just to enjoy the taste of coffee and ease their mind from a tiring day of labor. This past time is slowly dying in the now 21st century and can only be spotted in rural areas and in certain locations in Mainland Malaysia

Nowadays, young people can also be seen wondering in a café shop. They are mostly found in famous shops like The Coffee Bean and Starbucks and ones that make designer coffees. Some spend their time there conversing with one another and some can be found reading a book or newspapers. Most of cafés now also sells pastries and cakes because they want to branch out by venturing and generating new ideas and products. Their target customers now are mostly students as they like sweets and savory food products.

Our group decided to conduct a research and interview to identify how a café and bakery shop actually functions. We had chosen a smaller and a bigger shop in order to see the similarities and differences between the two.

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Eté Café The name of the shop owner was Alex, a Taiwanese that came to Malaysia some years

ago with his wife and children. The couple came to Malaysia because their children were studying here. He started his business 2 years ago and he named the shop Eté Café. Eté Café specialized in selling signature coffees and French desserts. The inside of the café was decorated with murals, drawings and pricings of the various savory items they sell. The space inside the café is quite small and it is not very crowded because there are only a few tables and chairs and a piano beside the entrance.

The café sells coffee and tea. The owner brews coffees using a syphon coffee maker, which produces coffee that is cleaner, crisper and smoother compared to other brewing systems. However the syphon coffee maker has a drawback; the process is too complex compared to other coffee makers. There are many varieties of coffee sold there. The coffees made by the owner are sugar free and milk free as well.

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The café also sells French desserts like cakes and macaroons. The owner claimed that he studied dessert making in Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, for two years. He reduces the sugar content of all the desserts, this skill was picked up during his time in Paris.

Alex told us that the locals always asked for a stronger taste in their cakes when they were eating them. Yet, he did not change the taste of the desserts; he had his own principle in dessert making. He wants the desserts he made to taste exactly like what he wanted. There were two Japanese customers who came to his shop on the day we visited, and seemed to know Alex very much. Alex also told us that foreigners often come to his shop.

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Alex claimed that there were not many western style café shops in Penang, only about five. For that reason, he does not worry so much about his competitors. Even though his competitors may threaten his business in terms of coffee, the cakes that he makes are a whole lot different from theirs. The only significant disadvantage his business has right now is the high pricing he imposes on the coffees he makes. To Alex, the pricings of the coffees are acceptable because it is almost the same as those sold in Starbucks and back in his homeland, Taiwan.

The café is small because Alex wanted to interact with his the customers as much as possible, this is due to his strong statement he stressed during the interview by saying he likes getting to know different people and making new friends. If the place is too big, he could not serve the customers well. Also, he said that the customers he interacted with could help him to advertise his shop to others. Alex told us a lot about businesses in Taiwan too. According to him, Taiwan is a lot smaller than Malaysia but the populations of both countries are very much the same. Hence, the competition is very great in Taiwan. If a shop reduces its products’ prices, all of the shop’s competitors will follow suit; if a shop increases the quality of its products, all of the shop’s competitors will increase the quality of their products too. Because of that, the customers will go to the shop with the best services. Alex said most of the shops’ in Malaysia do not have the kind of culture that focuses on good services.

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Alex said that his 2 year stay in Paris thought him a lot especially in terms of the food industry and eating. He claimed that food in Paris does not contain any chemical ingredients; the people in Paris use only the freshest and most natural ingredients. That isn’t all, they also use traditional methods of making food, instead of using machines that other businesses do in order to produce food in bulk.

We were informed that this café is only Alex’s side job. The shop is operational for only works 6 hours a day from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Eté Café also provides learning courses for those who are very interested in making French desserts and brewing coffee. The maximum number of students that Alex recruits is only four as his time is limited and he finds it convenient to be teaching a small group.

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ShakespeareMr. Ting was the founder of Shakespeare. The shop was founded in the year 2012.

Shakespeare sells 3 kinds of foods: hot foods, pastries and desserts. The shop also sells a variety coffee and chocolate flavored drinks too. The most popular items sold by the shop are the Japanese breakfast, chocolate macaroon, lesultau (chocolate crunch with coffee) and chocolate truffle.

The reason why Mr. Ting decided to open a café was that he had a sudden interest in opening one while he was studying abroad in Japan. He noticed that Japanese bakery stores had a huge difference compared to those in Malaysia. He wanted to bring the Japanese style of baking back to Malaysia because it will be special a to Malaysians. Because of that, he opened a café shop which focuses more on baking products.

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The interior of Shakespeare has a design similar to the coffeehouses in England: white and brick-like walls, wooden ceiling arches and furnished with western styled tables and chairs. That’s not all, there were also old western influenced drawings hanging on the walls. Mr. Ting wanted his customers to feel like they were in England whilst they were have their tea. The shop was named after William Shakespeare as he was an English man.

This café shop business was only Mr. Ting’s interest, not his main job or a family business. Not only that, Mr. Ting himself has zero knowledge about coffee brewing and pastry making. He chose SS15 as the place to open Shakespeare because there were many students from the nearby schools and colleges. Sometimes, there will also be families and nearby workers coming to have their breakfast in the shop. Mr. Ting wanted the customers to feel comfortable in his shop, to enjoy their time dining or drinking a cup of coffee. He wanted the customers to taste the wonderful Japanese style foods and beverages.

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One of the many challenges that Shakespeare was facing is the need to be more creative than other similar shops in SS15. The bakers of the shop often need to invent new kinds of bread and pastry to attract more customers. Not only that, there are limited car parking lots in SS15 as the place is always congested. The shop with the biggest threat to Shakespeare is the RT Pastry House, which is quite a famous franchise bakery store in Malaysia. Shakespeare also suffers from the over hiring of foreign workers as they could not communicate well with the locals. Customers would sometimes complain that the foreign workers do not understand what they ordered and gave them the wrong foods. Even though the shop faces lots of challenges, it however can still manage to earn a lot of money.

Mr. Ting hired 3 consultants from Japan to help him with his business. Most of the bakers were Chinese. Shakespeare was the sixth shop opened by Mr. Ting, the first shop was located in Kuala Lumpur named “Levain” and is a bakery. The manager, Jimmy, whom we interviewed, also manages another one of Mr. Ting’s shops. Jimmy wanted to further improve the service of the shop by having a good attitude towards the customers.

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The prices of the cakes are relatively cheaper as compared to other cake shops, only about RM35 for a whole cake. The prices of the products did not rise in the past 2 years and the service charge is free.

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Comparison and ContrastBoth shops shared lots of differences. Firstly, Eté Café was a whole lot smaller in terms

of the shops space and size as compared to Shakespeare. Because of that, Eté Café could achieve the objective of providing good services to the customers as the owner can interact directly with the customers more. On the other hand, Shakespeare was often complained by the customers about its poor services.

Furthermore, the targets of Eté Café were mostly old, loyal customers who love spending their time conversing with the owner as he was a very friendly man. In Shakespeare, their targets were mostly new customers because over a half of their customers were students from the nearby areas.

Eté Café only needed to hire one assistant hence reducing the cost needed to operate the shop. Contrary to Eté Café, Shakespeare needs to hire more workers to speed up the working process because the shop is much bigger. They need to earn more to pay the salaries of the workers but that did not seem to bother them as the customers kept on coming.

However, both shops still shared some similarities. Both shops were opened as an interest and both were just a side job of their respective owners. Not only that, the types of foods they sold were pretty much the same, for example: macaroons and cakes.

In addition, both owners opened their respective shops without thinking of earning a huge sum of money; they simply like to provide a comfortable environment for their customers.

In conclusion, both shops shared a fair amount of similarities and differences.

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RecommendationsEté Café should rent a larger place and make more advertisement to attract Eté Café.

The shop sells different coffees from around the globe so that customers visiting the shop are mostly foreigners and that these foreigners can taste coffees inspired by flavors from their own country.

Not only that, we recommend the Eté Café to make more varieties of pastries so that the customers could come during tea time to fully fill their stomachs. The owner of Eté Café should really extend the working time if he wanted to increase the profit of his shop. We feel that 6 working hours is not enough.

Shakespeare should try to buy more parking lots for their customers to park their car. They should stop hiring foreign workers because they cannot communicate well with the local customers. In addition, their workers should be trained to interact more with their customers so that they would want come back to Shakespeare again.

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ConclusionBased on our analysis, Shakespeare did a great job in terms of being commercially

successful. This is because the area where Shakespeare was located had a lot of people as there are many schools, colleges and working places nearby despite its flaws of having many competitors. People would eventually go and try the food of Shakespeare because of the relaxing environment and the unique pastries that they are selling. However, in terms of providing a homely environment, Eté Café has done a much better job. The frequent interaction between the owner, Alex, and his customers created some kind of relationship between them; that is how loyal customers were made. People would be willing to go to Eté Café again despite the high price of their coffees and teas just to have a friendly conversation with the owner. Overall, both shops had their own strong point but both still serve delicious foods and drinks to their customers.

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Similarities

Eté Café ShakespeareBoth shops were founded because of the interest of the owner

Relaxing environmentSells cakes, desserts and macaroons

Sells coffeeDo not focus on earning money

Founded in the year 2012No change in prices

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Differences

Eté Café ShakespeareSell breads No YesShop size Small Big

Presence of foreign workers No YesAmount of workers needed Few Many

Target customers Loyal customers New customersService provided Good Normal

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References

The Evolving Coffee Culture in Malaysia (Internet reference)

http://www.myworklife.my/lifestyle/live/dining/the-evolving-coffee-culture-in-malaysia/

What2See: best of Penang Food! (Internet reference)

http://www.what2seeonline.com/tag/ete-cafe/

Ken Hunts Food (Internet references)

http://www.kenhuntfood.com/2013/09/ete-cafe-lebuh-carnavon-georgetown.html

Drink a cup of French coffee (Newspaper article) (2012) Guang Ming Daily

Eté Café TV interview (Interview reference) (2013) Astro ben di quan

Alex (2014) Interview with Eté Café in Penang, 16th of May 2014.

Jimmy (2014) Interview with Shakespeare in Selangor, 29th of May 2014.

According to Alex (2014), “The art of coffee brewing is very hard to master”

According to Alex (2014), “I do not change the taste of my coffee to suit the taste of the locals”

According to Jimmy (2014), “We are trying to change the attitude of the workers towards the customers”

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Appendix

Interview with Alex, owner of Eté Café

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Different view of Eté Café

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A variety of coffees and syphon coffee filters

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Pricings.

The piano beside the entrance.

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A certificate proving Alex graduated from Le Cordon Bleu.

Outside view of Eté Café.

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Interview with Jimmy, the manager of Shakespeare

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Different views of Shakespeare.

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Paintings.

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Gift from Jimmy.

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