12 weeks is gone.

Teaching Enterprise Project (TEP) is completed.

EMRS - A (without report yet)

ELDC - A/Dist (Tentativel, but confident of attaining)

Well they stopped allowing DBI students for TEP Awards in recent years,

but as my supervisors say, "there are always exceptions"  So its my wish i get to go too!

Haha.

Tomorrow i start my attachment @ IBM. 

I asked for it, 

I got it.

I'm happy.

Don't bother about the pay,

Don't bother about the location,

Don't bother about the people going.

I'm excited.

Really excited.

& Jiayan is making me more excited now!

I'm gonna be replacing her and sharon in the Finance Department with some Xin yi person.

WOOHOO. FINANCE. (crosses fingers that i really dont do sai kang)

So i really can't wait for attachment to start tomorow!

woohoo.

 Anyway, to sum up everything for the last 12 weeks,

I'm gonna attach both my reports here the first being the one from

Events Management & Roadshows.

School of Business Management

Teaching Enterprise Project

 

 

Attachment:            Events Management & Road shows (EMRS)

Team:                                   2

Supervisor:             James Sim

Submitted by:          Loh Sheng Wei, Isaac (072301Q)

Last amended on:  3^rd April 2009

 

 

1.    Illustrate with a flow chart the Business Process in your training stopover and explain briefly which step in the business process was the most challenging

Having been in Events Management & Road shows (EMRS) for the last 6 weeks, I was part of the team that organized the Lifestyle road show, “Love Life, Live Life”. In events management, there are 15 steps in the Business Process which is crucial in the operational capability of the events. In the appendix (Fig 1.1), I have attached the flowchart/diagram as reference.

As a DBI student, I joined my team only at week 3, thus I was not able to take part in the initial stages of the Business Process. Despite asking them about how it was like to do a budget list or proposal, I did not have a chance to experience it for myself firsthand, thus I would not know the difficulty experienced. However, when I entered, my team was in the midst of planning the publicity and the finalizing of suppliers and I found that the publicity part was probably the most challenging part as it was during the school semestral holidays and there were very few people in school, thus human traffic would be low which would affect our sales proportionately. Because of this, it was crucial that we had really good publicity to draw the crowd in for the road show.

2.    Describe, specifically, your role in in the tasks/projects assigned.

Jeff Kester Marketing Pte Ltd.

When I entered EMRS, most of my teammates had already found their suppliers and thus they told me that, ‘you’re lucky that when you come in you can slack already’. Well, that statement didn’t go well with me. After repeated pleas that ‘Oh man, I really want to do something’, my team I/C, Hilary, gave me the task of calling up a potential supplier, Mr Jeffery Goh of “Jeff Kester Marketing Pte Ltd” to ask if he was interested in being one one of our suppliers for the event. 1 phone call and about 20 minutes later, I was ecstatic, being able to secure my first supplier!

Tropic Sun Pte Ltd.

However, “Jeff Kester” was an old supplier and I didn’t want to secure my supplier in this way. I wanted to be like the others and go out to seek suppliers. While scrolling through my Windows Messenger Contact List, I noticed an old school mate whose family owned 37 Degrees, an apparel company whose target market was youths. After voicing the idea out to my group, they gave me the go-ahead to source them as a supplier. 1^st Step was to contact my friend who then referred me to his mother which in turn referred me to her sales and marketing executive, “Miss Joanna Tan”. The 2^nd step was to go down to Vivo city to determine the type of products we wanted to bring in and the quantity for each product and of course, the prices. Finally, the 3^rd step was to finalize the trade margins, discounts and final pricing for the products before the black and white documentation.

Advertisement & Publicity (Banner)

A week before the road show, Celestine and I were tasked to be in-charge of the banner for publicity purposes. After a few brain storming sessions with others, as both of us were failures went it came to artistic stuff, we came up with an idea of abandoning the conventional banner methods and have life-sized figures as the ‘banners’ instead. By having the 2 figurines by the entrance just outside the shopping arcade, we wanted to create a “grand entrance” theme for the customers. (Fig 1.2) Going out to purchase art materials, drawing, painting and coloring both the figures had to be done in 2 days, Sunday and Monday, and it was a challenge to get it completed, but we still did it!

‘Sai Kang Warrior’ for ‘Love Life, Live Life’ Road Show

Well as the title speaks for itself, On the day of the road show, I had to do the jobs which many people shunned. I was busy pushing trolleys after trolleys of fixtures, furniture, stocks and whatsoever. There was an instance in which I piled up about 10 tables onto a trolley and I did not see the hump at the level 2 lift and all the tables fell! It was extremely embarrassing at that point of time but I was lucky that Hui Min and Sherman was there to help me recover from that incident! Despite my severe perspiration even before the event started, I enjoyed helping the others transport their stuff as I found it fun pushing the trolley!

Booth I/C for 37 Degrees

Soon came the setting up of the booth and also the task of being a booth I/C for 37 Degrees. This was the first time I had to work with members from other groups. This was a challenging task as I had to manage the manpower, stock and even the sales technique of the stall. On the first day, our target was $300 and we had $302.10 in sales which came from walk-in crowd which was generated from the free nestle drinks given out. On the second day, we reduced our sales target to $250 as we expected the crowd to be lesser. I also accompanied Sebastian for the mobile selling and we were extremely happy when we had almost $95 in just 30 minutes of mobile selling! Even the printing shop aunty and the bubble tea shop aunty bought things from us! We also rearranged the positioning of our SALE word and the products and the result… we had sales of $340, putting us in 2^nd place for the total sales! (Fig 1.3) This amazing result could not be possible without the help of my team, Banu, Pavi and Sebastian!

After-Action-Review Presentation

Tuan and I were selected to do a short presentation to the whole EMRS about our Road Show and it helped strengthened my confidence in the presentation aspects. I was proud to present that both stalls I was “involved with”, Jeff Kester (during the initial stages of my attachment in EMRS) and 37 Degrees, had combined sales of 28%, the majority! (Fig 1.5)

Provide GEMS Service (PGS) Assessment

Helping out for PGS was a unique experience that reminded me of a module I took, Customer Relationship Management (CRM). For one of my ICAS for CRM, I had to have patience with my teacher as she exhibited the characteristics of an unreasonable customer. For PGS, I was the unreasonable customer. I had to pretend to buy a phone with a budget of $500 for my mother. I had to ask the candidates many questions and I even had to pretend to fall down and hurt myself and demand some form of compensation. I also helped Wei Kian to push weird fixtures like the Starhub phone box with contained dummy phones into the testing rooms!

Stock Take

I also took part in the MSC annual stock take and helped to count the “Balls” (Speed balls, Singabola, GripBall, PostBall, SnapBall) From this stock take, I was instructed to be extremely careful with the counting as any mistake would result in a recount. Thus, Wei Kian and I were extremely careful in counting the stock. Being placed in the fixtures room, it was an interesting process as we initially thought we had to count things like hangers, poles and even the new rat traps!

The Sales Process PowerPoint Slides (PPT)

Perhaps the last task I would have in my 6 weeks here would be helping Mr Sim to do the PowerPoint slides for the sales process. Back as a student at the School of Information Technology (SIT), I would usually be in-charge of writing reports as I did not like to do PowerPoint slides, so when he tasked me to do a PowerPoint Presentation for him, I was initially hesitant as I was not sure if I could do a great job. I had many questions running through my head such as, would he like it? Would he feel that its ugly? Would he laugh at me? But with the help of Wei Kian, we managed to complete it in 2 days and I learnt many things through that 2 days. While doing that PPT, I also learnt from the slides, the sales process. When we gave it to him, hearing him say that we did a good job was really heart-warming. (Fig 1.4)

3.     3. Describe your personal Learning Experience and Achievements gained from this particular stopover with reference to the main Learning Objectives of TEP.

Entrepreneurial Development Mindset

EMRS thought me how to be resourceful and how to be innovative and think out of the box in businesses. It had thought me that the need for networking is very important in the business world. Knowing your product well would enable you to achieve higher sales as you could use the knowledge to sell that product to your customers. Because we took the first hour to understand our product well, we managed to be the 2^nd top in sales for both days! An enterprising spirit is also needed as I actually thought that I had to do the personal selling of the Ritz strudels and I ended up with $1075.80 in sales, only to know that DBI students did not have to do personal selling. Despite my determination to attain the most sales, I was initially disappointed as my friends were keen about purchasing the items. But being customer focused, I learnt how to adapt to changes quickly and quickly gave my orders to my fellow EMRS teammates who had not hit their sales target yet, and that ensured a win-win situation for both parties.

 

Business Process Mindset

I have learnt that it takes many things for a successful road show or event to take place. From the planning stage, the proposals, the budget lists, the sourcing of suppliers, the collection of stocks, the arrangement of logistics, the planning of sales techniques, the initiation of sales techniques, the counting of remaining stock and even the delivery of remaining stock, it has taught me how each and every one of the above mentioned plays a part; like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. I’ve also learnt that setting a sales target would spear the sales staff to greater heights as they try their best to hit the sales target.

Operational Skills

 I’ve learnt how to go met a supplier during ‘working hours’ and how to present myself appropriately. I’ve learnt how to do a stock count and the importance of being totally accurate when doing a stock count to ensure that a recount is not needed. Being flexible is also one of the operational skills I’ve learnt as we changed our sales tactics from just a booth to going out to do mobile selling on the 2^nd day. Finally, planning is of utmost importance as well as the quote would say, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Generic Lifelong Skills

To be honest, I have so many skills in this category that I have learnt. I’ve learnt how to sharpen my presentation skills, I’ve learnt that before you go out to meet a client, you have to have a professional outlook and image; wearing my lanyard out. Resourcefulness was also a skill I learnt as I had to seek ways and means to find a supplier. I learnt how to have effective communication between my teammates and how to get along well with them as teamwork is a crucial factor in life. Having a sense of responsibility is something that must be embedded in each and every one of us as it would make us bear the consequences of what we have done or what we have not done. Finally, I have learnt that passion is indeed an important lifelong skill because if you do not have passion in whatever you are doing, you would not put your heart and soul into it. And if you do no put your heart and soul into it, you would not give your best, and vice versar.

4.    4. Provide some suggestions on how to improve at least two (2) of the following in your stopover:

·         Business Process

I believe that with the creation of a generic database of previous suppliers for the previous road shows that would list down the general type of goods supplied and the sales figures, it would allow the future students in EMRS to have a better idea as to which supplier could be recalled back for future events to maximize sales. A whole database would allow students to cross reference with suppliers that belong to the same categories and compare and contrast them. 

·         Business Operations

To be honest, I found it weird that during the ‘Love Life, Live Life’ road show, there was only 1 Point-Of-Sale machine (POS). I couldn’t help but think what if the crowds suddenly shot up? As a booth I/C, I would want to ensure that my customers to have a smooth payment for their purchase. I believe that with the addition of 1 or more POS machines, it would definitely reduce the waiting time for customers, as most of the potential customers are students who had exhibited interest in a product but could not buy due to reasons such as ‘I got no time to queue up to pay, I got class’. In (Fig 1.7) I have attached my idea as to how to speed up the business operations and perhaps, secure sales from those potential customers whom we have lost, unintentionally.

·         Business Development

Although we are students, I believe that in each and every one of us posses the human thirst for excellence and knowledge. It is from the bottom of my heart that I say that despite the numerous skills and experience I’ve learnt during my short 6-weeks in EMRS, it wouldn’t beat going out to the real commercial world and trying for ourselves the real experience of managing an event. I propose that besides organizing events in school, why not let us step out of school and maybe partner with other organization in their events management. (Eg, Help the nearby community centers organize a garage sale for the residents nearby?)I believe that the experience of organizing an event like that out of school for others would be a challenging and exciting process for us student to partake.

I thank you sincerely, for your time taken to read this report.

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2nd report from,

E-Learning Development Centre. (ELDC)

School of Business Management

Teaching Enterprise Project

 

Attachment:            E-Learning Development Centre (ELDC)

Supervisors:            WOON Hin Keng / ANN Koh / FAUN Poh Wai

Submitted by:          Loh Sheng Wei, Isaac (072301Q)

Last amended on:  19^th May 2009

1.    Illustrate with a flow chart the Business Process in your training stopover and explain briefly which step in the business process was the most challenging

In the last 6 weeks that I have been in E-Learning Development Centre (ELDC), I was part of a team that handled various projects. The handling of these projects required me to invoke certain steps in the 15-Steps-Business-Process Model, which I have attached in the appendix (Fig 1.1), as a reference.

2 of the main projects that I handled required me to place special emphasis in 2, The Preparation of Documents and the Onsite mgmt & communications. As a student who had never learnt flash before, being in charge of the School of Business Management’s Graduation 2009 video was a little scary at first. Furthermore, attaining photos from the various lecturers were hard as they usually were too busy to accede to my requests. As the weeks went by and as my flash skills were sharpened, I had another project, the DHL project, and having to have to edit the flash file in front of the clients made me a little nervous. Because of the nature of my projects, it was crucial that I learnt to balance the 2 steps mentioned.

2.    Describe, specifically, your role in the tasks/projects assigned.

Self-Intro Group Project

Right after our week-long training session during the first week, we had to break into groups to work on our first project; the Self-Intro Group Project. Despite it being a individual project, I took on the role as the one who compiled all my group members work together and integrated It into one flash file. Furthermore, I had the role of designing and creating the “home” button (Fig 1.3) that would allow my teammates to use if they wanted to go back to our main page. After all the compiling of all the work, I also was in charge of creating the main page for our project. (Fig 1.2)

School of Business Management (SBM) 2009 Multimedia

This being my main project; took up most of my time at ELDC. It was through this project that I managed to acquire new techniques and traits that I did not have before. Before being allocated this project, I was initially excited and keen to be placed in this project, even speaking to Miss Ann and Mr. Faun about my interest in being placed in this project. On the 23^rd of April, I remember going down to meet Mr. Woon to get instructions about my project. For this project, I was required to partner Clarissa and assist Mr. Woon in editing and perfecting the School of Business Management (SBM) 2009 Multimedia. The gathering of resources was really tough as all the teachers were busy and we needed to attain better quality photographs from the receptive teachers. Miss Belinda Loh and Mr. Aloysius Tan were really helpful in this process and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.  (Fig 1.4)

Creating the Industrial Placement Project (IPP) segment of the multimedia really took out brain cells. After being repeatedly rejected, I spent sleepless nights to come up with scrolling credits which would pause and emphasize on certain companies. This was done by editing each company on Microsoft word and ‘printing screen’ each company’s name. (Fig 1.5) The final product was finally approved!  (Fig 1.6) The addition of the photos for the Overseas Student Exchange Program (OSEP), the Class of 2009 and the Marketing Service Centre (MSC) were needed and thus I had to come up with innovative ideas to display each photo. The editing of frames; be it deleting or adding, was extremely tedious as I had to ensure consistency while doing this.

The creation of the Poly-Foreign Specialized Institutes  (FSI); Stirling University segment also required brainstorming with my partner, Clarissa as we had to create it entirely from scratch. The editing of music needed to be delicately done as the music had to fade nicely and begin at certain selected points. To summarize this whole paragraph, I can say that from this project, it polished my level of understanding of flash to a very high level and I can safely say that I like flash now.

DHL Project

This was my secondary project. For this project, I assisted Mr. Faun and Miss Ann in editing the flash files to suit the client’s requirements. Before meeting the clients, I had to study the flash files that were already pre-completed to ensure that I had a good understanding of the codes and the layout of the flash program. I had first meeting with the DHL client on the 28^th of April at the International Business Resource Centre Meeting Room (IBRC). During the meeting from 2pm to 6pm, I had to assist Mr. Faun with the changing of buttons and images to a more 3D-looking-kind and also to create more “professional looking” buttons. I also assisted Miss Ann with the graphical design and editing of a male figurine. On the 18^th of May, I once again, had to accompany Mr. Faun and Miss Ann to the DHL office at Parkview square. This time we stayed there from 1pm to almost 7pm! I was once again, assisting in perfecting the flash files, be in creating the objects to look more 3D or redesigning a few layouts. Through my experience with the DHL clients, I have learnt a lot and throughout my 12 weeks of Teaching Enterprise Project (TEP), this is the first time I had to travel down to a client’s office to do work on the spot. From this project, I managed to learn lots of entrepreneurial and generic lifelong skills.

“Door Opener in the morning”

Having arriving at almost 8 every morning, I caught the attention of Mr Faun and he wondered why I was sitting outside the staff offices at block C level 4 so early in the morning. When he knew I arrived so early, he told me that the key to the lab was in the top drawer of the cupboard in the room opposite the ELDC room. After that, I took it as my responsibility to open the ELDC room every morning. 

New SBM email account briefing

Mr. Faun gave Clarissa and I the chance to hone our presentation skills by selecting us to assist him in briefing the Year 2 and 3 SBM students about the new email accounts. I had to determine the common lecture timings and had to brief whole lecture theatres about the new email accounts! (Fig 1.7) Kaye was a valuable asset in this as she assisted us some of the presentations. Through this experience, it allowed me to learn how to look presentable in front of others as well as it gave me a chance to know some lecturers like Mr. Winston Ho and Mr. Charlie Ng, 

Photographer for 2009’s foreign students welcome ceremony with SBM Director

When Mr. Faun approached me on the 30^th of April to assist him with some photo taking while he was giving them a briefing, I was skeptical. I wondered if I had the skills of a good photographer as I knew photography was not my forte. During that short session in a lab, I got to know Mr. Aloysius Tan, which then invited me down for the welcoming ceremony with the SBM Director, Mr. Chiang, to assist in taking photos. On the 5^th of May, I followed Mr. Faun down to the conference room in level 1 and just before that event; my heart was thumping so fast! When the foreign students had gathered, and the Director was present, I began shooting the photos and suddenly, all the fear and skeptics were abolished. I enjoyed this experience as it allowed me to be part of SBM’s events, despite being a DBI student.

3.    3. Describe your personal Learning Experience and Achievements gained from this particular stopover with reference to the main Learning Objectives of TEP.

Entrepreneurial Development Mindset

I believe that to be an entrepreneur, there are a certain set of skills that are required. To be innovative, is one of them. For my projects, I had to come up with innovative ideas like the IPP scrolling credits. Determination is another that I’ve learnt. To be honest, my skills in any IT-related software, is really lousy. I remember on the first 2 days I was so worried that I might be marked down for my final work, but Mr. Woon assured me that as long as you are determined, it is okay. So thus, I put in all my determination in doing my projects and I can safely say that I am more adapting in flash now. Thirdly, to be quality-minded is also of extreme importance. With the nature of the occasion and the sheer number of persons that would watch the SBM Graduation Video, I knew that my work would have to be of best quality, as it would reflect that my lecturers in SBM had trained us well. Finally, to be customer-focused is what all entrepreneurs should have. For the DHL project, I learnt that no matter how much trouble a client puts you through, you should always smile and do the changes. It would ensure a good working relationship between both parties.

Business Process Mindset

The skills I’ve learnt in ELDC for this category differed a lot from the ones I learnt in EMRS. Thus it was a newer experience for me and my peers. In ELDC, I learnt that it takes many things for a successful project to take place. Project Management was one of the skills I managed to polish here, by achieving an objective by matching the 3 required criteria; time, resources and goals. From the subcategories of Defining, Analyzing, Ideating, Selecting, Implementing, to Evaluating, every aspect in these categories has taught me something. How to define a project, the analyzing and gathering of information, the brainstorming for ideas, the selection of an idea, the implementation/execution of the project and finally, to even, evaluating the entire project. Without these steps, it would not be feasible for a project to be done without complications and/or delays.

Operational Skills

In ELDC, the most valuable thing I’ve attained, from this category, throughout my 6 weeks here would be data collection. I’ve learnt that data needed for every project is always there, however the only hard part would be the techniques used to attain in. While doing the SBM Grad’09 MM, I had to seek different teachers to attain valuable photos and information and this was challenging as they were usually busy or would forget to send me whatever they had promised earlier. I had to seek their help and even hound them for certain photos. I was lucky enough to catch Miss Belinda Loh to attain a few TEP photos from her before she went back to the corporate side of NYP! This taught me to be flexible as well, seeking alternatives like taking photos myself or reusing photos from blogs, etc.

Generic Lifelong Skills

To be honest, I have so many skills in this category that I have learnt. I’ve learnt how to sharpen my presentation skills, I’ve learnt that before you go out to meet a client, you have to have a professional outlook and image. Resourcefulness was also a skill I learnt as I had to seek ways and means to find the data required for the projects. I learnt how to have effective communication between my teammates and how to get along well with them as teamwork is a crucial factor in life. Having a sense of responsibility is something that must be embedded in each and every one of us as it would make us bear the consequences of what we have done or what we have not done. Time management was a crucial factorial in my projects because of the tight schedule we has Finally, I have learnt that passion is indeed an important lifelong skill because if you do not have passion in whatever you are doing, you would not put your heart and soul into it. And if you do no put your heart and soul into it, you would not give your best, and vice versa.

The skills that I’ve learnt are in lieu with the information I’ve attained from the “introduction to ELDC/KM website”

4.      4. Provide some suggestions on how to improve at least two (2) of the following in your stopover:

·         Business Process

In ELDC, the thing that lacked would probably be a primary storage folder of previous projects and also, a secondary storage folder of previous items, be it graphics or songs etc. It is to my belief that with a creation of the storage folders or databases, it would allow future students in ELDC to attain the necessary images and information for their current or future projects. It would allow them to reuse those advance techniques that the previous batches had used, thus resulting in more professional projects being done, efficiently.

 

·         Business Operations

Being a DBI student, the room we were allocated to was roughly 1/5 of the actual ELDC room. I was astonished as to why we were separated from the SBM students when we learning identical things from the same teachers. I believe that both the DBI students and the SBM students should be allowed to merged together to harness specialties from both sectors. With the promotion of a cohesive learning environment and group work, I believe that the Business Operations would be improved, dramatically.

·         Business Development

Firstly, with the usage of more relevant and updated software, it would enable students to be in tune with the most updated techniques available. Despite all the projects that I was entrusted with, I still felt that the software I was using was not the best available. While I was using Macromedia Flash MX 2004, the current industry is using the 2008 or even the 2009 version! Secondly, I feel that that more commercial projects should be entrusted to us, not just the in-house ‘local’ projects given by NYP lecturers, but those which would require us to meet more industry clients outside. With this exposure, it would allow us to be prepared for the real world.

I thank you sincerely, for your time taken to read this report.

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Well if you've managed to read through both lengthy reports,
you should hve a clear gist of what i was doing the last 12 weeks!

Lunch yesterday was at forlino with a lot of people,

photos up soon.

going to shop now byebye.