internship report on measures to improve sales activities in topocean vietnam

ABSTRACT This report is my result of my internship during four months in Topocean Consolidation Service Vietnam Co., Ltd, the Topocean Group’s wholly own subsidiary in Vietnam, working i

UNIVERSITY OF NICE – SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS

IAE School of Business Administration

THANG LONG UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN NGOC BICH, class AMI9A,

Under the guidance of Academic Supervisor

Assoc Prof Dr LE THAI PHONG

And

Company Supervisor

G.M PHAM HOANG ANH THU

Hanoi, September 2019

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly, it’s my great attitude to Professor Le Thai Phong has going with me during the internship and help me to understand about my task and guide me how to complete my task in the internship company as well as how to complete my report

Secondly, I would like to say so much of thankful to my General Manager Ms Pham Hoang Anh Thu has given me the big opportunities during the internship in the company, Topocean Vietnam I was actually joined not only in the company’s daily works from the daily tasks, but also the Topocean’s Group Project assigned to Topocean Vietnam, then I have a great chance to complete my tasks and learn much more knowledge and experience

Thirdly, It’s also my thankful to all my lectures in Thang Long University and Nice Sophia Antipolis Institute, as well as my classmates, my family that helped me to complete the course with so useful knowledge and skills

ABSTRACT

This report is my result of my internship during four months in Topocean Consolidation Service (Vietnam) Co., Ltd, the Topocean Group’s wholly own subsidiary in Vietnam, working in the international forwarding and logistics industry, mainly operating in the trans-pacific trade lane The internship is on the high growing time of the logistics industry in Vietnam and area, as well as in the company, so I have a great chance to practice my knowledge, collecting and analyzing the data as well as form up the plan to complete my task under the instruction my company supervisor is Ms Pham Hoang Anh Thu, the general director of the company

The report brought me the overview of an international origination and its internal operation, especially The Topocean Vietnam branches I know about the company’s services, the company’s industry, the company’s customers and the operating process of the sales, operation and customer service divisions

The report also sump up all the tasks I have done during my internship It’s my shortcomings, my achievements as well as my recommendation for the company for better sales activities of the company It’s my best experience so far for my current job as well as my career

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER 1 - COMPANY BACKGROUND 2

1.1 Company’s general background information 2

1.2 Company ‘s sectors 4

1.3 Company’s products and services 5

1.4 Targeting customers of Topocean 6

1.5 Financial performance of Topocean 6

CHAPPTER 2 - COMPANY STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION 8

2.1 Topocean’s branches and network 8

2.2 Topocean’s organization 10

2.2.1 The board of managers and president 11

2.2.2 The Traditional Divisions 11

2.2.3 Business Development, Pricing Center, IT & Data Management and Global Account divisions 12

2.3 My intern’s position within the company 12

CHAPTER 3 - THE MISSION – ASSIGNED TASK AND GOAL 14

3.1 The tasks assigned to my position: Joining on Sales Team and Customer Service Team to find a way to increase the efficiency of sales activities 14

3.1.1 Marketing research and analysis 14

3.1.2 Working as pricing center for Vietnam 14

3.1.3 Keeping customer’s satisfaction 14

3.1.4 Coordinating with other divisions to maximize teamwork force 15

3.1.5 Sales support and improve sales revenue 15

3.2 The link between subject matter and my mission 15

3.3 The goals to reach 16

3.4 My contribution to the company 17

3.5 The theoretical knowledge acquired during the academic year in Master AMI that I can put into practice during the internship 18

CHAPTER 4 - DEVELOPMENT 21

4.1 The macro environment analysis –PEST frame work 21

4.1.1 Political and legal environment 21

4.3 Internal environment analysis 29

4.4 Measures to improve sales activities – Ansoff matrix 30

5.1 Achievements of the Internship 33

5.2 Shortcomings of the Internship 34

5.3 Suggestion for the company 34

INTRODUCTION

International freight forwarding and logistics service is an industry that going with international transportation, have an important role on the development of international trading and global economic growth In Vietnam, logistics and freight forwarding is still a new industry but have a dramatic increase for these years and have a high percentage on the GDP However, the logistics cost in Vietnam still be high, and the main contribution on the logistics is mainly from the global logistics and freight forwarding companies

So to understand Vietnam logistics industry as well as an international logistics company is playing in Vietnam, I joined my internship term in the Topocean Consolidation Service Vietnam Co., LTD to explore the practice and knowledge of the logistics industry as well as the market player Topocean Consolidation Service Vietnam Co., Ltd is a branch of The Topocean Group, an US worldwide freight forwarding and logistics corporation, has presented in Vietnam for over 20 years The current strongest market of the company is the cargo transportation from Asia countries to USA, especially from China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thai Lan The Topocean Vietnam have a strong growth over the years and continuous expanding their products and service in Vietnam, with high importance on the contribution of the Group So to exploring the market development of the company as well as the industry, I choose the internship topic as “Measures to improve sales activities in Topocean Vietnam”, then I can have a chance to learn and practice myself on a very professional and dynamic working environment in Topocean Vietnam

This report summarizes all my tasks during the internship term The task is mainly focus on the sales activities, comprising the market information, the market position of Topocean Vietnam and the efficiency of the sales and customer service divisions of the company With the limit time of internship, the market information analysis and company’s activities analysis will be concentrated on the routing from Vietnam to USA for the recent two years, with using the materials from the company as well as some reliable articles, newspapers, press releases, website, and data base of the World Bank and The World Trade Organization (WTO), under the approach based on theoretical frame works such as PEST, Porter’s Five Forces Model and Ansoff Matrix The report cannot void the shortages to become a sufficient analysis, but I hope that it can contribute some ideas to improve sales activities in practical

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CHAPTER 1 - COMPANY BACKGROUND

1.1 Company’s general background information

The Topocean Group is a global logistics provider founded in 1990 in Los Angeles, CA, USA The company is one of the top freight forwarder in the trans-pacific trade lane For the last 29 years, Topocean has grown with over 38 offices in more than 15 countries The head quarter is based on Los Angeles, CA, USA and the branches boarding in USA, Asia and Europe

The first mission of the company is providing All-in-One Solution for the entire of supply chain The second is providing a transparent and user-friendly end-to-end transportation pipeline And the third is providing Cost effective and cost definite service All of these missions is to focus on the global strategy that bring the satisfaction to customer

With nearly 30 year- experience, Topocean now can provide a supply chain from first miles to last mile to customer based on the facilities warehouse of 5 million square feet worldwide and 350,000 square feet in Los Angeles

Topocean provide a total solution to customer covering ocean freight, air freight, customs brokerage, warehousing, trucking and data management to big customers Their strong business is the professional in ocean freight and delivery to destination point in USA, with cost effective and customer’s satisfaction

In 2018, Topocean Group is the seventh largest Non-Vessel Operation Common Carrier (NVOCC) of the trans-pacific trade lanes by teus

Table 1.1 Topocean Ranking 2018

7 TOPOCEAN CONSOLIDATION SERVICE (LOS ANGELES) INC 129,807.36 11.89%

Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/LkOu0Vyxf0MsMORLE7LLBA

Now as the trends of the global market, freight forwarder is becoming an old fashion of the industry, Topocean is changing themselves by utilizing the technology for their innovation by providing more and more digital service, and a digital solution to customer It’s based on the big data concept and then can bring to customer the best cost efficiency

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1.2 Company ‘s sectors

The company sector is international logistics and freight forwarding

As the original meaning of the freight forwarding, a freight forwarder will bring their knowledge and experience on the shipping industry to provide to customers, the importer and exporter, the total solution of cargo transportation to minimize the cost and maximize the benefit to customer It is done through integrating information on the freight market between various steam ship lines, truckers and rail operators as well as the complex regulation of different countries to push the cargo lines go smoothly from countries to countries, from the manufacture to the end buyer Under that base of concept, Topocean now is covering various main service sectors as follows:

- International Ocean freight Topocean have a close relationship with the leading ocean

steamship lines of the world such as Maersk, MSC, CMA-APL, Cosco-OOCL, Evergreen, Hapag Lloy, etc in global container transportation This is the most traditional power of Topocean with many excellent experience employees in this sector

- International Air freight To providing more services, solution for customer, Topocean

starting the international airfreight sector from 2012

- Warehousing With more than five million square feet of warehouse in China and USA,

Topocean become a reliable provider to serve for the e-commerce industry, as well as all other customers need a warehouse solution

- Trucking Starting in USA, trucking service is widely provided to all customer in all origin

countries as well as destination customer

- Customs brokerage It’s the consultant service for the regulation in any countries, especially

in USA, it’s the simple service from Topocean for customer to clear customs at though a modern system integrated with US customs homeport

- Data management As the key point to develop in this industry nowadays, data management

is become more and more essential for any freight forwarding company to become follow the market trends to maximize the efficiency of internal management and external value increased to customer

So based on technology solution, Topocean integrates the different services above to handle a large part of supply chain

1.3 Company’s products and services

Starting up as an international freight forwarder, now Topocean has become more than a large NVOCC Asia –US trading bring the opportunities for Topocean to develop logistics capacities So the service ranges of the company are expanding widely The typical of product and service as follows:

Ocean freight & air freight service - NVOCC

- LCL, FCL and air freight service

- Buyer consolidation and pre-distribution

TopLand Logistics:

- Warehousing

- De-consolidation and distribution - Cross-dock, trans-load, pick & pack - E-commerce (US and China) - Just in time service

- Pier pass

Data Management

- TITAN – Topcean Integrated Trans Asia Network, provide a platform for internal user of data updating and management, but also can launching selected data for global customer to be automatically daily update

- WBI – Web Booking Interface are web based tools used by customer to access their order management and booking database It’s a web based on-line booking application

- TOPOL – Topocean Purchase Order Locator is a web enabled purchase order management systems Through the Topocean’s homepage linkage, customer can easy to manage all their Purchase orders (POs) with the accuracy and timely of actual cargo flow on the way from the origin points to their destination points

- The integration of TITAN, WBI and TOPOL allow customer an online solution to their cargo flows based on the Order through point to point in a visible way then can help to customer well controlled and organize their business

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1.4 Targeting customers of Topocean

Topocean is providing wide range of logistics and aiming to a total logistics service solution to customers, from multiple transportation, warehousing, customs solution and data management Targeting customers of the company are the ones who need a third party logistics (3PL) provider or a total supply chain management provider of their material and products from port to port, or port to door

1.5 Financial performance of Topocean

Table 1.2: Income Statement 2018 INCOME STATEMENT

1 Revenue from sales of goods and

services provision 15 111,897,585,945 85,009,153,647

2 Deductions - -

3 Net revenue from sales of goods

and service provision (10-01-02) 111,897,585,945 85,009,153,647

4 Cost of goods sold and service

provision 16 99,425,650,810 75,153,319,438

5 Gross profit from sales of goods and

service provision (20-10-11) 12,471,935,135 9,855,834,209

6 Financial incomes 17 11,862,528 14,004,029 7 Financial expenses 18 2,042,476 5,600,000 8 In which: interest expenses - - 9 General and administrative expenses 19 5,549,396,856 4,984,594,810

10 Net operating profit

(30=20+(21-20)-(24+25) 6,932,358,331 4,879,643,428

11 Other incomes 20 10,346,013 1,600,631 12 Other expenses 21 298,640 17,011

13 Other profit (40=31-32) 10,047,373 1,583,620 14 Net profit before tax (50=30+40) 6,942,405,704 4,881,227,048

15 Current corporate income tax

expense 22 1,390,750,115 976,466,676 16 Deferred corporate income tax

expense - -

17 Net profit after tax (60=50-51-52) 5,551,655,589 3,904,760,372

Source: Topocean’s financial report 2018

The income statement is showing the increase on revenue as well as the net profit of Topocean Vietnam The revenue increase VND 26,888,432,298 ($1,144,188), from VND 85,009,153,647 ($ 3,617,140) to VND 111,897,585,945 ($4,761,599), equal to 32% The net profit after tax increase VND 1,646,895,217 ($70,080) from VND 3,904,760,372 ($166,160) to VND 5,551,655,589 ($236,240), equal to 42% from 2017 to 2018 The increase over 30% on revenue while the average market is 15-16% (according to reports by VLA and World Bank) is proof of the potential Vietnam – US transportation market and the efficient of business operation of Topocean Vietnam For the Vietnam market, when President Trump applied duty on the cargo importing from China, the cargo exporting from Vietnam to USA has increased dramatically Many US buyers seeking for Vietnam suppliers to replace for the China suppliers Many multinational companies that have their own factories in both Vietnam and China have tried to adjust their production lines to have their Vietnam factories to exporting to US and their China factories will export to other market than US Therefore, it becomes a big chance for Topocean Vietnam, a forwarder – NVOCC that mainly focus on the Trans-pacific trade lanes to increase the volume, revenue and profit margin

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CHAPPTER 2 - COMPANY STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION

2.1 Topocean’s branches and network

Chart 2.1: Topocean’s worldwide network and branches

Kaohsiung

SOUTHEAST ASIA

SINGAPORE PHILIPPINE

THAILAND VIETNAM MALAYSIA

INDONESIA

LAS VEGAS SAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK

Kuantan

Port Klang

Shanghai

Taipei Zhongshan

Tianjin Shenzhen

Ningbo Nan jin Guangzhou Fuzhou

Qingdao

CHINA & TAIWAN

SAMMER – ITALY AQUA GULF - CARIBBEAN

IVK - UAE TATSUMI - JAPAN CARDINAL - UK

TOPLOGISTICS - KOREA UNITRANS - AFRICA

MTS - TURKEY

MANITOULIN

CALGARY TORONTO MONTREAL

TOPOCEAN LOS ANGELES - USA

FREIGHT MART INT’L

MELBOURNE FREMENTLE

MANUPORT

CHILE BRAZIL FRANCE GERMANY

Topocean Group has its own branches in USA, China main ports and Southeast Asia countries In USA, Los Angeles office is the head quarter and will control all the main activities of the Group and the USA nationwide There is the full function, divisions locating here with over 200 staffs, and the most importance person on board of managers The other office in New York, Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco are the handling cargo importing the area around these offices, so mostly just sales or customer service and operation teams are represented here

In Asia, Topocean Hong Kong is the regional main office It’s all so full managing divisions in Hong Kong office, combination with Los Angeles office, this second head quarter will control all of the activities of the group

In China, the main office is Shang Hai office It’s the third big and importance office of Topocean Group with full of divisions and function Shanghai office will control all the activities from China mainland, and take part in a part of the global managing office together with Los Angeles and Hong Kong office

In Southeast Asia, Topocean presents in most of countries The Malaysia with the higher education, international languages and more trading interacted with USA, so become the leader in Southeast Asia Topocean Malaysia as the center of the areas will have the responsibility of coordinating Southeast Asia countries for all the sales and operation project to ensure well trained group’s policy to all the offices in the area

Topocean Vietnam, presented in Vietnam for more than 12 years already, is one of the best operation organized and exporting volume in the Southeast Asia With the main office in Ho Chi Minh and one representative office in Hanoi, these two office will handle cargo from all ports of Vietnam, containing all the international sea ports Hai Phong, Ho Chi Minh, Vung Tau, Da Nang, Quy Nhon, Cai Lan as well as international airports as Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat

In the rest of other countries, Topocean use its agency network for its word wide service at destination The main agents are Manuport, Nee-levat, Cardinal, Nee-levat in Europe, Freight Mart international’s in Australia and Manitoulin in Canada

The first and biggest Topocean’s agency network is Manuport This is also a global forwarder that present in some Euro countries as well as South America Manuport have strongpoints on cargo specialists They develop special cargo project such as heavy cargo, out of gauze cargo, tank cargo or bulk cargo Cooperating with Topocean, Manuport will help Topocean consign their cargo to

10 can also help Manuport to complete their local knowledge and experience in working with China, Southeast Asia and USA countries

In the Europe, Topocean also works with Cardinal for cargo consign to the United Kingdom and Nee-levat for the cargo need more destination service in Europe mainland through Netherland, especially cargo via Rotterdam port

In Australia, Freight Mart International as the first local forwarder with wide range of warehousing service and closed relationship with most of Australian carriers Cooperating with Freight Mart International helps Topocean to complete its last miles’ worldwide service in Australia

2.2 Topocean’s organization

Chart 2.2: Topoocean’s organization

Source: Author’s compilation, 2019

PRESSIDENT & BOARD OF MANAGERS

IT & DATA MANAGEMENT

•Data management

•System improvement

ACCOUNTING & ADMINISTRATIO

•Request collection

CUSTOMER SERVICE

•Customer’s satisfaction•Internal

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

•Market research •Strategy & plan

SALES CENTER

•Enhance sales forces, market share, revenue

GLOBAL ACCOUNT

•Follow up global customers•Improve global

•Trucking, Docs, Customs •Legislation

consultance

2.2.1 The board of managers and president

The top managers are in Los Angeles office Some of them are in Hong Kong office and

Shanghai These board of managers together with Topocean’s president (Mr Robert Wang) will decide for the Group’s strategy in each period The board of managers control directly eight global divisions the groups that are worldwide operating, that containing four traditional divisions that representing in all Topocean’s branches, are the Operation, Sales Center, Customer Service and Accounting & Administration and another new four divisions that present some main office of the group only, are Business Development, Pricing Center, IT & Data Management and Global Account

2.2.2 The Traditional Divisions 2.2.2.a Operation Division

The Operation division is the biggest division in each office There are contain the documentation team, trucking team and customs clearance team As the traditional of an international freight forwarding, documentation work such as issuing Bill of Lading, monitor and controlling cargo is always requiring much more staff than other divisions It’s also the same situation for the customs declaration team, especially in the southeast Asia countries when customs procedure still heavily relay on manual process The difference practice of handling cargo in each local area is the core importance to help the company to handle smoothly any local matters Combining the experience and knowledge of each local office, each operation manager in each country will take a function as legislation consultant This is a very important function for the other divisions and the whole of group

2.2.2.b Sales Division

The USA Sales will be the sales center of the whole group, that manage and centralize all sales activities in all office branches But the efficiency of sales activities in each office are strongly different The USA sales team and China sales team are the most active and enthusiasm, then their outcome are the best at all They accounted for the highest number of customer and revenue contributed to the group In other Southeast Asia, except the Malaysia, most of salesman are lack of experience, knowledge and skills then sales activities are also limited than US and China Sales Team

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2.2.2.c Customer Service Division

The Customer Service division is working as the linkage division between different office, divisions and connection the company with any customer to seeking the customer’s satisfaction

2.2.2.d Accounting and Administration

The Accounting and Administration is of course representing in all countries to follow up the credit term, payment and cash flows in each country It also the reporting for the loss and profit of each shipment, activities and projects as well as the outcome of performance of each office

2.2.3 Business Development, Pricing Center, IT & Data Management and Global Account divisions

These are presented in the three head office in Los Angles, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Port klang In other countries, Business Development and Pricing Center can be combined with Sales Center or Customer Service Division IT & Data Management and Global account can be combined with Operation and Customer service division

Following as the trends of the market, that technology is applying more and more in the freight forwarding industry, so the traditional divisions might become smaller and smaller while the new four divisions will be enhancing day by day Manual process will be replaced by automatic process in all division IT & Data Management team are the core team in the process of innovation of the group

2.3 My intern’s position within the company

My intern’s position is in Topocean Vietnam – Hochiminh head office, at Customer Service Division During my intern period, my duty is focus on sales support activities, that is how to make the sales activities become more efficient

There are two people on the Board of managers that will make decision for all the matters of the Topocean Vietnam

The organization of Topocean Vietnam is much more simple than the group with the Data management are done through the Operation Team, the Pricing Center are done through the Customer Service Team The Business Development task will be done through directly by Customer Service Team, Sales Center and Board of Managers The Global Account control are done through both Operation Team and Customer Service Team

Chart 2.3: Topocean Vietnam’s organization

Source: Author’s compilation, 2019

The board of managers will directly control most of activities in all divisions to ensure all the staff will be well independent handling their task With total 30 persons in both Hanoi and Hochiminh offices, Topocean Vietnam is the much more simple organization than other countries and become one of the best efficient operating team

Board of managers (2)

Customer Service (3)

Supporting Customers, and coordinating other

- Marketing research & sales supports

- Rate dealing & Building relationship

with suppliers (carriers)

Sales Divisions (5)

- Increase Sales revenues, lifting quantity, new target

- Develop market shares

Data & Operation Team (15)

Handling document, data systems

-Customs & legislation

-Trucking management

Admin (1), Accountant (3) and IT

(1) Team

HR

-Payment, invoicing

-IT supports

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CHAPTER 3 - THE MISSION – ASSIGNED TASK AND GOAL

During the practice time in Topocean Vietnam I was assigned at the Customer Service Department and Sales Team The duty of this division is market researching and analysis, improving customer’s satisfaction, doing sales support and building the relationship with the supplier then make the solution for sales activities to be improved

3.1 The tasks assigned to my position: Joining on Sales Team and Customer Service Team to find a way to increase the efficiency of sales activities

3.1.1 Marketing research and analysis

- Collecting market information and determine the trends of the marking in the coming time - Identify company’s market position and market share

- Reporting to management and sharing market information to other teams

3.1.2 Working as pricing center for Vietnam

- Daily coordinating with oversea pricing center to keep global contract rate updated for Vietnam

- Rate dealing with local suppliers to update to sales team or managers upon request - Working with the main suppliers that are shipping lines, local trucking companies and the ocean shipping lines, local trucking companies and customs broker agencies It’s daily communication with them for rate request, negotiation by email, phone, other media devices and/or face to face meeting These activities are very important to the company to get the best rate and best support from the supplier, as well as get the market information update as the quickest way

3.1.3 Keeping customer’s satisfaction

If the Vietnam Sales Team will take care all the Vietnam customers, who can decide to use the freight and pay all the freight in Viet Nam, so the customer service team will be in charge of nomination customers It’s the Vietnam exporters that sell cargo under Vietnam port FOB/FCA / EX-work term or or the importers that buy cargo under the Vietnam CIF/CPT/DDP/DDU terms So while the global sales team reach to the freight decided parties, it’s very necessary for customer service team to continuously follow up with the local nominated customer to seek for their convenient and satisfaction within the company’s service

I also joined in sales team to visit customer and listen to their directly feedback to find a way to satisfy them

3.1.4 Coordinating with other divisions to maximize teamwork force

- Sharing daily rate update, market information to other divisions then all member of the company can well understand status of the market, company and have a reasonable response on their daily handling with customers

- Sharing customer’s feedback to the team to find the best way to satisfy customer and reach to company’s goal of profit for long term

- Coordination with other teams to get status of each customers, supplier before communication

3.1.5 Sales support and improve sales revenue

- Keep sales team to be updated latest rate upon request

- Keep sales team for rate quotation to customer upon they are outside

- Keep sales team to be update for market information and customer’s status / attitude, if any

3.2 The link between subject matter and my mission

My subject matter is improving sales activities Sales activities in Vietnam is efficient through the outcome of the activities of Vietnam sales team and Global sales team

Vietnam Sales Team mostly focus on local customers But the market shares of main international freight (ocean freight and air freight) are small for Vietnam salesman because it is normally decided by foreign traders There are limited Vietnam customers that can decide the freight to pay in Vietnam The first reason that Vietnam traders are smaller than their partners, then freight negotiation power is weaker than their own foreigner partners so they cannot get the better freight than their partners The second that most of the big customer for international freight are come from the export processing contracts or companies, so all the freights are also nominated by a mother company in oversea for both importing materials and exporting product And the third reason that the custom practice of buying under CIF term and selling under FOB terms, so the freight is often decided by the foreigners

The global sales team with their own global customers, who are the decider of international freight in most of international companies For example, Walmart as a big USA customer will order cargo from various factory in over the world So if global sales team can work successfully with Walmart, so they can win the freight contract for various origin countries

16 Sales outcome will reflect through the sales revenue of the company in the whole of Vietnam It’s the actual number of container or air tonnage proceeds by Topocean Vietnam It will be done by the effective of both Vietnam Sales Team and Global Sales Team But due to most of the main freight rely on the global sales team, so the sales activities in Vietnam are not limited on the Vietnam sales team, it strongly relies on the activities of the global sales support, it’s all the activities of the customer service team in Vietnam

3.3 The goals to reach

Table 3.1: Individual action plan

company

Studying about the group Understanding the procedure and activities of each division within the company Deep insight study for the sales and customer service divisions

Jun 10th

2

international logistics and freight

forwarding market

Collect information about the international freight forwarding market in the world as well determine the trends of the industry

Understand the economic situation of Vietnam Use PEST, five force Porter’s business model to analysis the potential and obstacle of the Vietnam market

Reporting and consulting with board of managers before sharing to the other teams

Jun 20th

3 Joining the pricing task

Keep daily working with pricing center & suppliers for daily update marketing information and other local rate request for sales team

Understanding the rate market position within the internship period

Jul 01st

4

Building

relationship with suppliers

Keep daily communicating with supplier to get daily market information updated

Set up face to face meeting to build up the close relationship with suppliers, then can always get the support from rate and service from the suppliers

Jul 10th

Writing meeting recap to management

5

customer’s satisfaction

Visiting nominated customer upon new shipment or new project to determine customer’s demand Coordinating with other divisions to make solutions to ensure customer’s satisfaction

Aug 05th

6

Cooperate with other divisions for internal support each other, especially sales team

Sharing market news within the teams, especially sales team and operation team

Collecting the information from operation team for any problem, analysis for the reasons and sharing the outcome Find out customers demand and market trends to find a way to increase sales revenues

Aug 25th

7

Continuously studying for the whole internship job to make deep inside of the task

Continuously practice each specific task assigned above to complete knowledge and skills during the internship term Make supplement for the internship report upon the new knowledge, skill or solution can be updated till end of the term

Sep 20th

3.4 My contribution to the company

My contribution to the company that I had studied about market situation and trends, then after referring to my supervisor, I shared my understanding to the teams, helped them to understand the industry trends then they could have better knowledge and spirit to improve their internal daily work then find a better way to understand and satisfy customer, as well as help the managers on the ideas for the innovation actions on sales activities

For example, I realized that the international freight forwarder is faster and faster diversification than before Firstly, utilizing technology application, freight market is become more transparency, easier to understand and touch to all users If it took hours or even days to get a transportation quotation from point to point before via email, phone call for any shippers, so now Maersk and Hapag Lloyd, the two leading global container ships, have offered a very convenient online freight quotation function on their website It’s fast, easy, flexible 24/7 So I did access this online function to get the ocean freight from point to points for sales team as well as customer I also share this

18 with the sales team, online checking rate with Maersk and Hapag Lloyd become easier than before to compare with the company’s current contract rate and update to customer in very quick time However, the issue that some direct customers can also assess the freight quotation like this So to maintain the advantages of a freight forwarder, the sales team and customer service team need to keep closer relationship with the shipping lines, especially for the cargo peak season, once the space capacity is limited by high increase demand of transportation, the quotation still so easy to get but the direct shipper will not be able to get space on the vessel at all the time, we can always control the forecast and space availability Therefore, our consultant service will be always essential for the customers

Secondly, all of the carriers using block chain technology to the customers so easy to follow up the movement of each container or cargo packages The e-commerce increased so customer also very easy to order any item online with door delivery under a click on their PC or a touch on their mobile, with not much care about transportation consulting service as before So these facts of the freight markets make a freight forwarding company become so old fashion with manual process every day, and it is also a thread for the whole of the freight forwarding industry In Topocean Vietnam, I can realize the automatic process is step by step applying with some divisions such as at accounting team for planning of issuing e-invoice for next few month, at operation team for daily strictly data control of each shipment It can say that Topocean Vietnam in on the time of changing from manual process to automatic process So following up the global trends of forwarding for automatic system, Topocean is also under its innovation By understand this feature of the market and the company position, sharing with the team to more understand about the company’s trend, then the sales team, customer service team and I can be more confident to introduce Topocean’s modern service to customer, suppliers, then it helps Topocean to improve its position in the market

3.5 The theoretical knowledge acquired during the academic year in Master AMI that I can put into practice during the internship

This internship is a so good chance for me to connect the knowledge acquired from the AMI course with the actual practice It helps me to complete my skills and education for my career All the subjects are so useful to me, but typical impress me that are the following subjects:

- Fundamental Accountings