Journal for Internship Course 4

Week 1 DQ

Question:

· Provide a short biography to the class as an introduction helping to create a community environment. Also, you can respond to the questions shown in the Introduction as an example. The introduction is found in the Internship Course Resources in Supplementary Material in this GAP course. 

· Be sure to add what country you are from along with your educational background and previous work experience. 

· Explain your internship job description.

· Identify the College of Business course that you are currently enrolled in, or if there is no business course that you are taking this session. 

Answer:

Hello everyone, This is my second year in Westcliff University, and I have taken 8 MBA courses so far. I am currently taking the GAP, so this internship course is the only class I am taking for this semester. My concentration is the Business Statistics and Data Analytics. I chose this concentration because I am in the management position in the company, and I wish I could better develop our business using the analytic skills that I learned through the courses.

          I am from Japan. However, since my mom is Chinese and my dad is Japanese, so I am fluent in both Chinese and Japanese as well. I went to the elementary school in China, middle school in Japan, and I came to the United States 9 years ago from the Junior year of the high school. I went to the high school in Massachusetts call Wilbraham and Monson Academy. After I graduated from high school, I went to the Northeastern University in Boston for my Freshman year. Since the weather in east coast was too bad during the winter, I transferred to the Pepperdine University from Sophomore year. I received the bachelor’s degree in international business from Pepperdine University in 2018.

          I started to work in the largest Asian E-commerce company based in Los Angeles call “Yamibuy” immediately after the graduation as the Account Manager for Marketplace department. My main job responsibility was to maintain the relationship with sellers and help them to achieve the better sales performance on our platform. I worked in Yamibuy for one and half year, and I switched my job to my current company “Sunway Nuts USA, Inc.”, because I got the better working opportunity and I think my current company could give me more chance for the personal growth. Sunway Nuts USA, Inc. is the startup trading company. Main business of our company is to import the food from China and selling it in the United States. We have two business model which are wholesale and retail. I am working in the e-commerce department which is mainly responsible for the online retail business as the Director of E-commerce. I am leading our team to sale our products on various online platform such as Amazon, eBay, Yamibuy and Taobao US, etc as the third-party seller. I am responsible for the team management, business development and performance for our whole team. Our goal this year is to expand our business to more website like delivery app and create our own website. Another goal for us this year is to expand the category such as electronic and home goods.

          I wish I could learn the various job experiences of different fields and positions from my classmates through the course to explore the career opportunities and get some inspiration of the business management and strategies. At the same time, I would like to share my experience with my classmates and professor to get some advices as well. Additionally, I hope I could develop my professional journal during the course to help with my career path in the future.

          Something I am proud of that I accomplished recently is that I successfully settled the new account in delivery app, which is the brand-new selling channel for us. I wish this could be the great opportunity for us to develop the business. Another thing is that I got the authorization from one of the biggest electronic brands in China call “Xiaomi Youpin” as the distributor in the United States. I am excited to cooperate with them in 2021 to start the new filed of our business.

Week 2 DQ

Question:

· Read the articles on journaling, review the template in the GAP resources in the course and identify what approach in the articles you found useful and why?

· Post to the discussion board that you have reviewed the journaling materials and what you learned, let us know if you have experience journaling, share your thoughts. If you have questions, please post. Be sure to respond to a peer.

Answer:

The first time that I started to write the professional journal was from my last internship course. Through out my last corse, I was able to earn the good habit of writing the journal. At the same time, I realize the importance of keeping the professional journal which could help to record the achievement that I have done during the job, the lessons that I learned, time management and scheduling the work by prioritizing it, etc. Keeping the journal could not only help me to look back my journey and get more improvement, but also could help me to expand my career opportunities. I am looking forward to continuing my professional journal in this semester, and I think the content of the journal could support me through my future career life.

Week 3 DQ

Question:

Outline and describe in the discussion those components that you will be working on in this session to build or improve your professional portfolio and post to the discussion board. 

Answer:

 According to the Winsor and Ellefson (1995), "A professional portfolio is a thoughtful, organized, and continuous collection of a variety of authentic products that document a professional's progress, goals, efforts, attitudes, pedagogical practices, achievements, talents, interests, and development over time." A well-organized professional portfolio could quickly help you to introduce yourself and represent your work experiences with the achievements to the person who does not know you such as the interviewer. Therefore, professional portfolio is the good tool to share your talents, attitudes, efforts, responsibility, achievement, and goals to the others. 

          The components that I will be specially working on this session to build my professional materials are my work experiences with the projects that I have involved, achievements that I have previously made, my professional skills and strengths, and my future plan with the goal. I hope I could develop and improve my professional portfolio through the semester by getting the inspiration from the course and peers.

Week 5 DQ

Question:

· You will upload the total interview in the Week 5 assignment file in GAP for the professor.

· In the Week 5 discussion forum you will describe the main points of the interview content and experience.

· Conduct the interview. Share with the class a description about the interview content in the Week 5 discussion (you can upload a file attachment for the professor and place a description in the discussion and converse with your classmates about the interview). 

· What are some of the major observations you made in regard to your interview; were you satisfied with the information gained during the interview? 

· What are some of your own personal strengths and weaknesses related to the interview process? 

Be sure to make entries in your journal about the Interview. 

Answer:

I conducted the interview with our CEO, Frank li, he is the founder of our company Sunway Nuts USA, Inc. and below is our interview content:

1.     How do you consider the trade war between China and U.S? Is that a challenge or risk for your company?

 

Back to 2020, the Trump Administration announce the new import rules which add punitive tariff 25% on all products from China. I really had struggle moment for my business at that time, because my business starts the idea that importing the Chinese dried foods into U.S market. The first reason was the China really have long historic culture on foods which I really familiar with it. The second reason was the Chines foods have advanced price competing foods’ price on almost developed countries. However, the punitive tariff reduces the advantage on price. During that time, I started to consider the product of market positioning. I redefine the customer base, start mid-high-end customer, the age considering young and middle ages’ people. They more attention to product’s quality and package design. Comparing the quality and package design, price not priority to consider. I switch the risk to become the chance. The product in market is keeping growing and attractive.

 

2.As international business, how you balance the China team and U.S team?

 

Due to culture and education difference, they have different thought and ability. I will keep my China team focus on executive ability, and let U.S team focus on creative ability. They all play an important role in our company. To be specific, one side focus on building cooperation relationship, another side focus on marketing expand.

 

3.What’s your goal for your business?

My goal is to make Sunway corporation goes in public. My plan is building food industry chain to get IPO from investors.

 

4. How you schedule your work time to manage two teams?

During daytime, I work with my U.S team in physically, and nighttime I have conference call with my China team. But I focus on program manager, have meeting with them. Let them have power and support to lead their team finish the achievements.

 

5.What is core value of your company?

I believe it is strong logistic and product development. In addition, cultivating teamwork is also a core value for my company.

Week 7 DQ

Question:

· Describe what you think of a message contained in the video?

· What are the two top skills that you need to make your internship successful based on the video advice and/or other recommendations you have received?

· How to make the most of your internship, what is one change you will make to excel? 

· Do you have a recommendation for class members? 

Answer:

  Describe what you think of a message contained in the video?

The most mentioned message in the video is that internship experience could give us a chance to find out what job we are passionate about and explore more career opportunities as an intern. From the perspective of employer, interns could bring a lot of energy as well as fresh ideas to the company, and they usually have a strong commitment into the work. Internship could also help employers to learn the characteristic of the interns during the work period, instead of evaluating the people from the short interview.

·        What are the two top skills that you need to make your internship successful based on the video advice and/or other recommendations you have received?

The two top skills that needed to make internship successful based on the video advice is bringing the energy, new ideas to the workplace, and show the good attitude and commit to the work.

·        How to make the most of your internship, what is one change you will make to excel? 

To make the most of my internship, I would cherish the opportunity of the internship and learn from the industry experts. At the same time, I would like to socialize with the people from different departments and positions to learn about their job to explore more career opportunities and fid out what I really like.

·        Do you have a recommendation for class members? 

Internship is a great opportunity for us to learn the experience from industry experts. Therefore, I recommend my class member to socialize with different people from the company to learn their experience and get some career advices from them. Socializing with different people in the company could also help you to quickly learn the company culture and better involve into the company. Last but not least, showing the great attitude and brining the energy to the workplace is definitely important as an intern!

 

References:

The Value of an Internship for Employers - Employer Prospective [Video file]. (2015, May 12). Retrieved February 16, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnTGVPfnTm8

Week 10 DQ

Question:

· From the MBA program learning objectives provided in the University Policies or the Westcliff University Catalog website, select an objective that relates to your professional future. 

· How does this PLO apply to your current internship job? Give an example. 

· Are there areas in your internship job where there could be improvement concerning this PLO topic or is it being handled well; what are your recommendations?

· In your response, provide at least one (1) peer reviewed source to support your ideas on this subject. 

Answer:

 Among the MBA program learning objective, I chose “Value and integrate diversity and a global perspective in business decisions”. It is closely related to current internship job and my professional future because I am working in a food trading company which imports ready to eat food from China to USA. Our company is still in the phase of developing, and we will involve in more international business in the future as well. 

          As a Director of E-commerce in the company, one of my job responsibilities is to source the products that are suitable for the different selling channels and customer bases. Currently, we are selling our products on the various E-commerce site with different customer bases. For example, Amazon and eBay are the biggest selling channels for our mainstream market, and Yamibuy and Weee are the biggest selling channels for our Asian market. Through our selling experience, we realized that the demands of these two markets are totally different especially for the food industry. For example, the best-selling products for Asian market is not attracted any mainstream customers, but Boba Milk Tea is more popular among mainstream market. Therefore, another important job responsibility for me is to differentiate the item listing on different selling channel and apply the marketing strategies which fit the target market. At the same time, knowing the local law and importing restriction of the countries is also especially important as an employee of the food trading company because the increasing trade and quantity of imported goods as well as the ever-increasing global food supply chains are major challenges for ensuring the safety of imported food. (Wisniewski & Buschulte, 2019) For example, dairy product from China are strictly restricted to import to the United States because of the melamine scandal in China in 2008. 

          As a person who are working in a globalized company and facing the customer from different regions, it is important for me to value and integrate diversity and a global perspective in business decision. I think my current internship job already gave me a prime opportunity to contact with the global perspective in business decision no matter from behind the scenes to the front-end.

 

Reference

Wisniewski, A., & Buschulte, A. (2019). Dealing with food fraud: A review of existing definitions and strategies for the prevention of food fraud, established in legal regulations focusing on Germany’s major trading partners. European Food and Feed Law Review : EFFL, 14(2), 102-117. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/dealing-with-food-fraud/docview/2227421027/se-2?accountid=158986

Week 13 DQ

Question:

· What recommendations do you have for yourself to be more effective and productive in the workplace based on your performance this session? 

· What type of performance review would you find helpful to assess your progress?

· What would you communicate to your supervisor during your performance review?

· What information in your performance review could you use in your Professional Portfolio? 

Answer:

●     What recommendations do you have for yourself to be more effective and productive in the workplace based on your performance this session?

          I would recommend myself to plan and write down the schedule by categorizing it with priority every day, so I could be more productive and finish the tasks on time. At the same time, setting the goals could also help me to be more effective and productive because I could always remind myself and try my best to accomplish the goals that I set for myself. According to Pritchard (1990), “Implementing goal-setting systems that accurately represent organizational goals is necessary in order to maximize employee productivity”.

 

●      What type of performance review would you find helpful to assess your progress?

          I find that 360-degree feedback from my supervisor are extremely helpful for me to assess my progress, because I would like to learn what I did great, and what is my strengths as well as what I could done better, and how can I improve in the future. Rating scale is another helpful method of performance review because I could easily identify my performance from various perspectives.

 

●      What would you communicate to your supervisor during your performance review?

          I would like to receive the feedback and advise from my supervisor during my performance review. It will be helpful if my supervisor could tell me what I did great and what I could done better with the details and advices moving forward.

 

●      What information in your performance review could you use in your Professional Portfolio? 

          I could include my project experience, completeness of my KPI, my strengths, work summary, and my skills in my Professional Portfolio.

 

References

Pritchard, R. D. (1990). Measuring and improving organizational productivity: A practical guide. New York. NY: Praeger Publishers

 

Week 14 DQ

Question:

· Select a TED Talk video relevant to the business course you are currently enrolled in and/or your internship assignment. 

· Describe what information you agree with and the parts you liked or disliked in the video content.

· Summarize it for the weekly discussion and include the URL reference.

Answer:

One of the most important elements of business is performance management, a corporate management tool that help managers to monitor and evaluate the work of employees. The goals of performance management are the creation of an environment such that the output of all people is at their best and as a result, the work output is efficient and of a high quality. By implementing a formal management program, managers and employees are able to talk about the goals, expectations, goals and the progresses of their careers. Performance management can thus be broadly interpreted as seeing the members of the workforce as part of a bigger whole.

          In her Ted Talk, Margret Heffernan talks about one of the aspects of management; constructive conflicts. She argues that businesses can improve their performance if rather than avoiding conflicts, they could put in place channels that facilitates communications for disagreements. Further, collaborative thinking should be encouraged as a way of achieving solutions to problems that crop up in the business. What I loved about the video was the call that she made to collaboration in order to improve output. It is an element absent in many business models as people focus more on competition in order to be viewed as more productive.

          Her suggestion that we should challenge the status quo is however open to questioning. How would we challenge a system that other people have tried and tested? Further, in a competitive world, deviating from the normal at most times may result in a loss of work; no advantage at all in that. Though we may wish to raise conflicts in the workplace, our fears too are justified as we attempt to protect our positions.

 

Reference

Heffernan, M. (2016). Dare to disagree. TED Talks. Retrived from: https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree