ESTABLISHMENT PLAN FOR INBOUND DEPARTMENT OF VOLUNTARY YOUTH COMPANY (VYC

THE UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS - MARKETING DEPARTMENT ESTABLISHMENT PLAN FOR INBOUND DEPARTMENT OF VOLUNTARY YOUTH COMPANY (VYC) Student: Ngô Lý Phượng Châu Class: IBC02 Term: 41 CLC Instructor: Prof Trương Thị Minh Lý 2019 I Acknowledgement The final outcome of this project required a lot of assistance and guidance from many people who deserve my greatest gratitude All that I have done is only thanks to such supervision and I am really privileged to receive all this kindness along the completion of my thesis All of them have inspired me to improve the quality of my establishment plan and I can not thank them enough I owe my deepest gratitude to our instructor, Mrs Minh Ly, who took keen interest on my thesis and guided me with valuable comments I am extremely thankful to her for providing such a great guidance, although she had busy schedule taking care of her work at University of Economics I am highly indebted to Mr Duy (Head of Marketing Department) for offering me such a great opportunity to conduct my internship at Voluntary Youth Company (VYC), providing me with necessary information and giving useful advices to complete my thesis duly I would not forget to remember Mr Minh Man (Leader of VYC's Product Team), Ms Bao Thy (Leader of VYC's Advertising Team), for their encouragement, and moreover their valuable suggestions all along the completion of my paper I am thankful to have all of our professors from International Business - Marketing department of University of Economics allowed and encouraged me to conduct this thesis in English I am fortunate enough to receive constant guidance and encouragement from all workmates at VYC, which helped me in successfully finishing this establishment plan I also would like to extend my sincere esteems to all who directly and indirectly help me write this graduate thesis I perceive as this opportunity as a big milestone in my career development Without all of their help, none of this would be indeed possible Sincerely, II Endorsement As an act of responsibility, I ensure that this thesis “Establishment plan for Inbound Department of Voluntary Youth Company (VYC)” has been written by me and has not received any previous academic credit at this or any other institution All data and documents in the thesis are honest All inheritance and references are cited and fully referenced III Executive Summary IV Table of Content I Acknowledgement II Endorsement III Executive Summary IV Table of Content V Abbreviations VI List of tables, list of figures Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Literature Review 1.3 Objectives 1.4 Methodology 1.5 Scope 1.6 Research structure Chapter 2: Company Overview 10 2.1 History of establishment and development 10 2.2 Vision, Mission and Values 10 2.3 Functions and Areas of Operation 11 2.4 Organisation Chart 11 2.5 Target Market and Customer Segmentation 11 Chapter 3: Analysis and Establishment Plan for Inbound Department of Voluntary Youth Company 13 3.1 Situation analysis 3.1.1 External drivers 13 13 3.1.1.1 The tourism industry of Vietnam 13 3.1.1.2 Economic factors 22 3.1.1.3 Social factors 24 3.1.1.4 Political and legal factors 25 3.1.1.5 Technology and Internet 25 3.1.1.6 EFE Matrix 26 3.1.2 Internal drivers 3.1.2.1 The company’s organization chart 27 27 3.1.2.2 Human Resources 28 3.1.2.3 Finance 30 3.1.2.4 Marketing 32 3.1.2.5 Tour packages business situation of VYC in 2013-2018 35 3.1.2.6 IFE Matrix and conclusion 36 3.1.2.7 Conclusion 36 3.2 Establishment plan for Inbound department 3.2.1 Long-term goals and organizational structure 36 36 3.2.1.1 Value system: Vision, Mission and Values 36 3.2.1.2 Rights and responsibilities 36 3.2.1.3 Organization model 37 3.2.1.4 Workflow chart to create a new tour 38 3.2.2 Strategy map and Balanced Scorecard 38 3.2.3 Timeline and budget 40 V Abbreviations VI List of tables, list of figures Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Rationale In recent years, Vietnamese economy has developed tremendously As a result of this development, the industry structure has changed, the contribution of agriculture reduced, while it of industry-construction and service sectors increased Tourism plays an important role in the growing contribution of the service industry and is predicted to continue this trend in the future Vietnam, with its beautiful sceneries, long history and unique cultures, has been attracting more and more tourists from all over the world The diverse terrain thanks to its specific condition give visitors a variety choice of destinations with different weather conditions From Son-doong, the longest cave ever known in the world, Hoi An ancient town, a UNESCO heritage, to Phu Quoc, top 100 most beautiful beaches in the planet, Vietnam has so much more to offer and shows a great tourist development potential Voluntary Youth Company (VYC) has been operating for almost 30 years, known as a reliable tour operator in Ho Chi Minh city, with many remarkable achievements Although a lot of new companies appear in the market, VYC has always maintained its competitiveness The massive amount of foreign tourist come to Vietnam in recent years has led many inbound tourist company to open, which changes the overall face of tourism industry To keep up with the market situation, the demand of establishing an Inbound department is now huge With the great resource of 75 young and passionate employees, healthy financial situation and long time experiences with outbound and domestic tourists, VYC is believed to maintain its great performance with inbound tourists For the above reasons, the research topic of the thesis is chosen as “The Establishment Plan for Inbound Department of Voluntary Youth Company" 1.2 Thesis Review Analyze the internal and external drivers that affect the business of VYC, which are the reasons of the establishment and foundations of the set-up plan Create a detail plan of how the Inbound department will be set up, with a value system, organization structure, workflow and timeline Propose a set of measurements for the plan’s outcome 1.3 Objectives Analyze the company's business environment by its internal and external drivers Through models, statistics and analysis, create a complete plan of Inbound department establishment plan for VYC, from which improves the company's competitiveness, increase its market share and revenue 1.4 Methodology Analysis and synthesis theory Scientific observation Analytical review of experience 1.5 Scope Voluntary Youth Joint-stock Company 1.6 Research structure This thesis includes three chapters: Chapter - Introduction: briefing the thesis rationale, methodology, objectives and thesis review Chapter - Company introduction: introduce the company’s background Chapter - Analysis and Establishment plan: analyze the company internal and external drivers, give a complete plan to set up the Inbound department Chapter 2: Company Overview 2.1 History of establishment and development Voluntary Youth Company Travel - VYC Travel is one of the first established travel agencies and services of Vietnam The company was founded in 1990 as the state-owned Voluntary Youth Company to take over the operation of Voluntary Youth Travel Center In 2007, following its IPO to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, the company legally changed its name to Voluntary Youth Joint Stock Company With its reputation and experiences, VYC Travel JSC has obtained some remarkable achievements It was recognised as a member of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) in 1993, American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) and Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) in 1994, a founder of Pacific Asia Travel Association - Vietnam Chapter The company is also a strategic partner of Turkish Airlines (TK) 5* as their top most excellent sales in 2017 and Japan Airlines (JL) 5* VYC’s headquarter is located in 178-180 Nguyen Cu Trinh street, Nguyen Cu Trinh ward, district 1, HCMC 2.2 Vision, Mission and Values 2.2.1 Mission VYC Travel aims for the leading position in Vietnamese tourism industry with a high sense of responsibility in all areas VYC Travel mission is: - To promote the beautiful image of Vietnam to the world - To help Vietnamese tourists explore different countries and cultures - Inspire happiness, create value and make a difference through their operation 9%, thanks to VYC's pricing advantage of their own Ravenala Boutique Resort in Mui Ne Sapa of Lao Cai also became a famous destination in recent years Chart The popularity of tourist destination on VYC inbound customers 3.1.2.6 IFE Matrix Table VYC's Internal Factors Evaluation Key internal factors Weight Weighed score Rating Strengths Employee morale is excellent 0.04 0.16 Long time experience with tour operation 0.06 0.18 Positive developing capital size (increase equity, reduce liabilities) 0.02 0.08 Good business operation history 0.02 0.04 Fanpage with 83,000 likes 0.05 0.05 Operating costs are reducing 0.04 0.08 Competitive products (unique tours) 0.03 0.09 Experiencing managers 0.04 0.16 0.1 0.4 Created many relationships with loyalty customers 37 10 Sales and income constantly increase 0.02 0.06 11 Positive financial ratio indicators 0.05 0.1 12 Quality products and services 0.15 0.6 13 Excellent sales team 0.09 0.36 Not having many offline marketing activities 0.04 0.04 Website ranking is not high 0.05 0.15 Tour price is higher than average market 0.07 0.28 Digital marketing campaigns are not really effective 0.03 0.06 High operating costs 0.02 0.02 Tour-creating process is still long 0.01 0.02 Brand awareness is not strong 0.07 0.14 Weaknesses Total 3.07 It can be seen from the IFE matrix that VYC is responding in an outstanding way to existing opportunities and threats in its industry In other words, the firm’s strategies effectively take advantage of existing opportunities and minimize the potential adverse effects of external threats The company is doing well enough to with their threats and opportunities to form and support a new Inbound department 3.1.2.7 Conclusion A brief about the internal and external factors have shown how VYC implemented their strategies to take advantage of opportunities and avoid threats these drivers created The new face of Vietnam economy give VYC a great chance to welcome many foreign tourists The beautiful sceneries, history, nature and culture has been attracting a growing amount of inbound visitors The government also supports by their relax policies for foreign tourists To take advantage of these one-of-a-lifetime opportunities, VYC is in the need of improving their inbound tour, in both terms of quality and quantity, to compete with other inbound tour operation business and introduce Vietnam's beautiful images to the world For the above reasons, an Inbound Department should be established to conduct inbound tours in a professional and effective way It is not an unreasonable idea, since VYC's resources have great advantages, with professional workforce, healthy financial situation and effective functions to support the new project 38 3.2 Establishment plan for Inbound department 3.2.1 Long-term goals and organizational structure 3.2.1.1 Value proposal: Vision, Mission and Values a) Vision Vision: To strengthen VYC's position as the most trusted and innovative tourism company in Vietnam, become our clients' best partners, provide quality, creative, competitive and socially responsible services for visitors from all over the world b) Mission Mission: a team that creates the most unique and genuine Vietnamese experience tour packages, promote Vietnam's beautiful images, provide services beyond expectations c) Values Vision: look beyond the horizon, always provide the best possible products Teamwork: Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is a progress, working together is success Doing every self's best to support the department's mission Being a supportive member in the big VYC family Responsibility and reliability: Contribute to the industry's sustainable development Commit to fulfil the needs of the staff, the interested parties Become a responsible partner of other departments and customers Authenticity: Make the tourists trip to Vietnam a unique authentic experience Appreciate local cultures and deliver Vietnam's beautiful images Respect: Encourage harmony and appreciation among staffs or clients, considering human diversity Innovation: Be creative, always seek for new destination, unique experiences Be enthusiastic about improving and creating the better tour packages and inbound services Morality: Only sell what the company believes to be good Legal: Maximize profit and customer experiences in harmony with legal restriction 3.2.1.2 Rights and responsibilities a) Rights Inbound department, as a independent individual, can: - Take part in making important decision of the company, as much as other departments - Be treated fairly with rewards and bonuses - Become a member of VYC’s working environment, ask and receive supports from one department with relevant work 39 - Have all connection to the company's database - Suggest firing non-effective staffs or recruiting new members for the department - Take part in company's meetings - Use the common facilities and resources of the company for necessary working purposes, such as meeting room, guests room, etc b) Responsibilities - Accomplish all assigned tasks, set goals, fully and on time - Cooperate and support other departments of the company for relevant tasks - Appreciate the ability of every individual and deliver the right tasks - Be loyal with all commitments made in the value systems - Maximize the company resources - Contribute to the company profit and images - Create the most unique and interesting inbound tour packages - Always curious and research for new markets and tourist routes 3.2.1.3 Organization model a) Function model The new Inbound department's function model is designed to maximize every function it have to conduct Inbound package developers include main functions: Research and Development, Tour operation and Translation Research and development is an important activity because customers from different cultures have different point of view about different things Vietnam has many new places to discover, and every place has many ways to explore Research and Development team should research target markets and its preferences, design tours to suit these market's taste in order to optimize the customer's experience They have to make plan in which market should be developed first, combine the ideas of tour guides and general management board to make the final program This 40 team should also discuss with marketing department and translation to give them the options in which part should be focus on in the advertising activities Tour guide is the face of the company and should be carefully recruited They need to constantly improve their knowledge, language and working style to represent for the company's image Every tourguide should work on just one region, so he/she can have a deep understanding knowledge about the culture, history of that region Tour guide should be well-prepared before every tour departs, not only about the tours' interiraries, but also the tourists' culture and their special requests (eating habit, allergic, etc) They team also needs to arrange welcome and see-off staff at the airport and contact the relevant partners Translation is a key party to transfer to messages to customers Translation team has to conduct customer support, take care of visitors before, in and after the tours They also plan and write articles about the upcoming tours, support Marketing and Visa team in their functions They have to regularly improve their languages and knowledge to meet the need of their work Every member of this team needs to be fluent in English and another popular languages like Chinese, Korean, French, Spanish, etc For the market that VYC does not regularly promote, HR can hire coordinators or outsource to minimize the cost b) Position chart The position chart is designed based on the function model The Inbound apartment has manager, vice-managers who are the head of R&D, Tour Guide and Translation teams They together make important decisions of the department and take part in company decision making Research and Development and Tour Guide Team have people for every market Translation team has customer services staff and content writers The number of staff for every position is indicated in the table below: Position Number Type 41 Department Manager Fulltime R&D Team leader Fulltime Tour Guide Team leader Fulltime Translation Team leader Fulltime Market Research and Planner Northern: Fulltime Central: Southern: Tour Guide Northern: 2+ Full/Parttime Central: 2+ Southern: 2+ Customer service Fulltime Content Writer Full/Parttime Total 21 3.2.1.4 Workflow chart to create a new tour a) Workflow chart 42 To create a new tour, the new Inbound department employees are supposed to follow these steps: Stage 1: Research and finalize tour R&D team will conduct researches to set up a competitive tourist routes with brief itineraries With general director, visa, airticket, marketing and sale department's ideas taken into account, R&D develop a detail tour plan R&D then discuss with Inbound department manager and Tour Guide team to finalize the tour plan Stage 2: Promotion Sales department: Get to know the tour's itineraries, choose the key attractions and make their sales plan Marketing department: Make marketing plan and assign tasks R&D: represent the tour key attractions, information about every destination for tour guide and translation team Stage 3: Receive Bookings Marketing department: implement their marketing plan with the support of translation team Sales department: approach customers and complete bookings Air ticket and Visa department: support customers in attain a Vietnam entry visa (if necessary), and book air tickets Stage 4: Tour operation Tour guide team: before the tour departure, tour guide are supposed to get to know every guest in the group preferences (their nationality, culture, language, eating habits) and improve their knowledge about the destinations Tour guide have to treat tourists professionally Stage 5: After-tour customer service Customer support staff from Translation department: call tourists to ask for their feedbacks from the tour, yearly call/email on their birthday for discount vouchers and other services just like Vietnamese tourists b) Advantages comparing to current process - Increase the quality of the tours thanks to having a separate R&D team just for inbound market - Improve customer satisfaction by getting to understand more about their background and interests - Reach more customers and create long-term relationship with a more professional customer service - Improve brand awareness by investing in languages and company's images - Shorter and more scientific process of tour making 43 - Improve the time of booking per tourist - Be able to support other departments more effectively thanks to its structure according to function - Increase the market share faster, take advantage of pioneers before more companies join the market - Use the company's resources more effectively - Take advantage of integration period before it passes - Increase VYC's competitiveness in the market 3.2.2 Strategy map and Balanced Scorecard a) Strategy map The strategy map below shows Inbound department's business strategies and how they can achieve them, briefly The long term goal is to create a sustainable value for VYC They can achieve it by increasing their revenues and earnings, decreasing operating costs and improve their service quality To grow revenues and earnings, the department aims to build customer loyalty and brand awareness; meet and exceed customer's expectations To improve tour quality, Inbound department is supposed to pay attention to details, offer superior value in their tour packages with the most optimum cost In internal process perspective, the department needs to take action in offering competitive packages, maintaining or increasing their booking process, constantly doing research, taking customer's opinion into account and optimize their governance To have the right resources to achieve all of the above targets, the department need to work on their staff training, improve their technology and develop and teamwork-based working environment 44 Chart Inbound department's Strategy map b) Balanced Scorecard 45 3.2.3 Timeline and budget Budget: VND151,200,000 (10% of retained earning made in 2018, suggested by VYC's General Director, Tran Van Truong) Chart Steps of conducting Inbound Department establishment plan of VYC VYC's Inbound Department establishment is conducted in stages: a) Stage Planning The person carries this task (the “planner"), which results in this paper, is responsible to set up a detail plan by analyzing the company's business environment, summarizing collected information and processing necessary datas The materials collected have to be complete, accurate; and is processed objectively The detail plan should be clear, detailed, and easy to follow Plan: Advise and Complete Once the original plan is completed, the planner is responsible to collect comments and ideas from the management board as well as representatives from every department From the collected ideas, the planner makes changes to the original plan and finalize it After getting agreed from the general manager, the plan is final and ready to conduct b) Stage 2: Conducting Task Assignment Tasks in the plan are assigned to suitable department and people according to rules: The person has experienced in the assigned field, the tasks and required results have to be clear, the time given is reasonable Recruiting Recruiting is an important step, since it decides whether the department meets its targets, or may result in extra costs for re-recruiting or training At the early time, the position descriptions must 46 be developed carefully The job descriptions should indicate clearly the rights, responsibilities and benefits the employee may receive After all position descriptions are finished, the assigned team develops a recruiting plan, on which indicates how to approach potential applicants Follow the plan, the team receives applicants, review and finalize a shortlist Selected applicants are interviewed to examine if they are suitable for the jobs to enter the final list Training and Evaluate after training Assigned departments presents their training plans, in which indicates what and when they train the new employees Getting approved, training is conducted At the end of the training sessions, the new employees are evaluated if they are able to conduct their work Selected one will be official staffs and re-recruiting is performed if necessary c) Stage 3: Finalizing 3-month trial operation The new Inbound department operates for months for trial according to the workflow in Chapter 3, section 3.2.1.4 and Strategy map in Chapter 3, section 3.2.2 of this paper Review Inbound department operation and Finalize Every quarter, VYC has their result reports, from which all inbound department activities can be evaluated The results are examined according to the Balanced Scorecard in Chapter 3, section 3.2.2 of this thesis The planner makes changes to the plan if necessary, Inbound department continue to operate as other existing departments of VYC Table VYC's Inbound department establishment plan (advised by Mr Duy, Head of Marketing department) Step Planning Tasks Research VYC's business environment Information synthesis and data processing In charge Timelin e Budget (million ) Ngo Ly Phuong Chau (Marketing department) 30 days 30 Completing detail plan Plan: Advise Inviting and Receive comments from and Complete relevant parties Adjusting and Completing final plan Tasks Assignment Assigning tasks for suitable department 15 days days Ngo Ly Phuong Chau (Marketing department) days Administration Human resources department days days 10 47 Recruiting Develop position description Develop a recruiting plan 40 days 30 days Review applicants and Finalize short list 15 days Interview days Select hire, finalize recruitment days Administration Human resources department days Conduct training Assigned departments 15 days Evaluate new employees, make final decisions Departments' head and Management Board days Inbound department 30 days * Departments' head and Management Board days 3-month trial Inbound department operate for operation months Review Inbound department operation 30 days Conduct recruitment Training Training plan new employees Evaluate after training staffs Administration Human resources department Evaluate Inbound department operating results in terms of effectiveness and attitudes Make changes to final plan if necessary Total 30 days 125 *Timeline is started since the company starts to implement the project *Days is counted as working days (not including weekends, holidays, etc) *People/Department in charge is the one that mainly conduct the tasks, other departments are responsible to support the ones in charge to complete their tasks *Costs and timeline are estimated by the planner; however, it can be changed according to the reality situation *Cost of 3-month trial operating of Inbound department is counted in operating cost, not in this project's cost 48 VII CONCLUSION 49 VIII Danh mục tài liệu tham khảo (REFERENCES) 50 IX APPENDICES 51 ... its great performance with inbound tourists For the above reasons, the research topic of the thesis is chosen as “The Establishment Plan for Inbound Department of Voluntary Youth Company" 1.2... of their help, none of this would be indeed possible Sincerely, II Endorsement As an act of responsibility, I ensure that this thesis ? ?Establishment plan for Inbound Department of Voluntary Youth. .. trend of continuing to so Chapter 3: Analysis and Establishment Plan for Inbound Department of Voluntary Youth Company 3.1 Situation analysis 3.1.1 External drivers 3.1.1.1 The tourism industry of