TABLE OF CONTENT

ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................................4

CHAPTER I: Introduction on Vietnam Polystyrene company.................................................6

1.1. General Information....................................................................................................6

1.2. Company Structure......................................................................................................7

1.3. Products........................................................................................................................8

1.4. Strategy.......................................................................................................................12

CHAPTER II: Actual employee incentive program in Vietnam Polystyrene company.........13

2.1. Tools to create incentive for employees.....................................................................13

2.1.1. Financial tools....................................................................................................13

2.1.1.1. Salary...........................................................................................................13

2.1.1.2. Bonus...........................................................................................................16

2.1.1.3. Social welfare...............................................................................................19

2.2. Non-Financial tools................................................................................................22

2.2.1. Working Environment....................................................................................22

2.2.2. Job Description................................................................................................23

2.3. Evaluation on employee incentive program..............................................................24

2.3.1. Strengths..............................................................................................................24

2.3.2. Weaknesses and causes......................................................................................25

CHAPTER III: Solutions to enhance employee incentive program in Vietnam Polystyrene Company....................................................................................................................................27

3.1. Solutions about salary................................................................................................27

3.2. Solutions about job description.................................................................................27

3.3. Solutions about working environment......................................................................27

CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................29

PERSONAL REFLEXTION....................................................................................................30

REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................34

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

NAME OF TABLES/FIGURES PAGE NUMBER

Table 1: Sample employee timesheet 12

Table 2: Sample Salary Table 13

Table 3: Bonus for individual and group 2010-2015

15

Table 4: Statistic Number of Employee in 2010-2014 period

18

Figure 1: The organizational structure of VNPS

5

Figure 2: Evaluation about job 2013 21

ABSTRACT

In business today, beside-> apart from other resources, human resource is one of

the most important factors to helping enterprise to win in competitive market. As a

result, human resources have-> play an important role to-> in determining the success

of enterprise.

Incentive program is important aspect of human resources management.

Enterprise implementing good incentive program have good labor forces, which leads

leading to high productivity and effectiveness in work. This will make enterprise have

competitive advantage with other enterprise. However, implementing good incentive

program is difficult case for any manager. Manager always issues some policies to

stimulate employee can to enhance their ability and have high interest with work.

After practicing in Vietnam Polysterene (VNPS), I realize that employee incentive

program was highly paid attention to group leader of company, I decide to write

internship report: “Employee incentive program in Vietnam Polysterene Company”.

Report researches and evaluates employee incentive program of VNPS. After that,

report seeks some solutions and proposals to complete employee incentive program of

VNPS.

Report content includes 3 chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction on Vietnam Polystyrene Company

Chapter 2: Actual employee incentive program in Vietnam Polystyrene

Company

Chapter 3: Solutions to enhance employee incentive program in Vietnam

Polystyrene company

Because of limited time and research scope, internship report cannot avoid some

mistakes, so I hope to receive some contribution from lecturer to complete internship

report.

Thank you!

CHAPTER I: Introduction on Vietnam Polystyrene company

1.1. General Information

VIETNAM Polystyrene was established in 2006 to meet the demands of

expandable polystyrene with the vision to deliver our clients comprehensive solutions.

Located in VUNG TAU, VIETNAM, our plant is the one and the only expandable

Polystyrene manufacturing plant, of such magnetite in our region. As the increasing

demand of Expandable Polystyrene (EPS) we have continuously and rapidly taken the

initiatives, for massive expansion for immaculate performance.

In order to keep up with international quality level, we believe in staying abreast

with latest technology, VIETNAM Polystyrene has made enormous investments

including the hardware, software and technology expertise that give us an edge today.

That is the reason why the clients come to us from not only the domestic but also the

international.

As the surging demand shifts we have taken up the challenge to meet not only the

quality requirement of our customers but also fulfill their increasing demand. We are in

progressive strive to carry out an expansion of our plant which we now have a capacity

of 40,000 TPA for Expandable Polystyrene. 50% of this alone meets the entire need of

the Local Market while the rest is produced for export.

In additions, VIETNAM Polystyrene CO .Ltd is an ISO 9001 certified company

assuring that all processes and procedures are standardized.

VIETNAM Polystyrene is also leading company in technological advancement.

Company’s in house Research and Development (R&D) Department has been working

hard to attain the best standards in the industry as well as produce the new grades of

GPPS, HIPS and EPS adding a vast variety to cater to the different needs of different

consumer, we are now able to produce the grades as per customer’s requirement.

1.2. Company Structure

Figure 1: The organizational structure of VNPS

General Director

Director of Business

Business Department

Director of Production

Production Department

Director of Quallty

Quality Department

Director of Ware-House

Ware-House Department

Director of Accounting

Accounting Department

Director of Human

Resources

Human Resources

Department

(Sources: Human Resources Department of VNPS)

General Director: is legitimate representative of the company, manages and

controls the company operation since the appointment decision has come into force;

five Directors assist General Director and are responsible for providing leadership and

direction for directly under departments.

Business Department: is in -> take charge of long-term, short-term strategy,

make deal with customer, execute exporting process.

Product Department: is in charge of producing GPPS, EPS and HIPS.

Quality Department: is in charge of testing product and production line.

Ware-House Department: is in charge of keep track the goods and deliver the

goods to carrier.

Accounting Department: advises General Director on financial management, is

responsible for recording, codifying and processing financial information, preparing for

financial statements.

Human Resources Department: advises General Director on the organizational

structure of business, arranges the human resources appropriately with the company’s

business requirement, prepares wage table.

1.3. Products

Polystyrene is a versatile polymer resin used in a wide range of applications –

especially in the packaging industry. It is sold in three main forms:

 Expandable Polystyrene (EPS)

 General Purpose Polystyrene (GPPS)

 High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS)

The general form is pure polystyrene with few additives and is used when clarity

is required even though it is very brittle.

The high impact form is translucent or opaque because of rubber compounds

added to the reaction and incorporated into the resin to inhibit crack propagation and

hence reduce brittleness.

The expandable form is the same as the crystal form except that low molecular

mass hydrocarbons, usually pennant, are incorporated into the finished resin. These

additives vaporize during subsequent processing to produce foam.

VNPS EPS

VNPS PEARL is a General Purposes Expandable Polystyrene (EPS) having low

density range, good Water Proofing and good resistance to Alkali/Acid. The moisture

content level is very low.

VNPS PEARL is available in different bead sizes they are:

a. M (1.8 – 2.4 mm)

b. MS (1.19 – 2.0 mm)

c. S    (0.84 – 1.26 mm)

d. SS  (0.6 – 1.00 mm)

e. SSS  (0.4 – 0.71 mm)

f. SSSS  (0.25 – 0.50 mm)

VNPS GPPS

General Purpose Polystyrene (GPPS) – is the product of styrene monomer

polymerization by way of solution. It is a transparent solid product manufactured in the

form of 2-5 mm granules and has high capability of processing.

General Purpose Polystyrene (GPPS) has excellent clarity and gloss. They are

available in Blue tint and have good dimensional stability at high temperature.

VNPS GPPS-525 & GPPS-525N is General Purposes Polystyrene having

excellent clarity and gloss. It is in Blue tint or Neutral and has good dimensional

stability at High temperature.

VNPS GPPS-550, 550N, 550P are General Purposes Polystyrene having

excellent clarity and gloss. They are available in Blue tint and have good dimensional

stability at High temperature. GPPS-550 is injection grade and GPPS-550P is

Extrusion grade.

VNPS HIPP

High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) – contains rubber (Butadiene) contents of 5 to 10% is

particularly useful in the manufacture of parts which require a high degree of impact

resistance. HIPS has superior impact resistance property of Butadiene, Rubber but

transparency is not better than GPPS.

High Impact Polystyrene having has good gloss and stress cracking resistant

(Refrigeration Grade).

1.4. Strategy

In domestic market, VNPS applies pricing strategy. As-> Because of the

advantage of monopolist in plastic product, VNPS can supply the goods with lower

price and shorter time delivery in comparison with exporter from other countries.

In global market, Vietnam now signs many free trade agreements and Generalized

System of Preferences with many countries in the worlds. And therefore, these things

help VNPS enhance their competitive in global market. Developed countries, for

example; Japan, German and countries from ASEAN can import VNPS without import

tax. As a result, VNPS can export to other countries in the world with the huge

advantages.

CHAPTER II: Actual employee incentive program in Vietnam Polystyrene

Company

2.1. Tools to create incentive for employees

2.1.1. Financial tools

2.1.1.1. Salary

Salary is the main income for employee’s life and is the most essential factor to

determine how employee commits with the job. Because of this, salary have – has

importance role with each employee. Employee works to cover their life and their

family so the minimum salary must satisfy the least demand of employee for example:

eating, wearing,… However, the demand of people nowadays is increasing, and the

need of consumer become more and more complex, leading to thus, salary issue

become very importance->important part for each employee. And the interest of

employee is that their salary can meet their demand and help them to accumulate in the

future or not.

VNPS pay salary for employees, which were based on wages table system was

issued by government. The decree specifically regulate about co-efficient according to

title, level and type of jobs. Applied that, VNPS will calculate basic salary for

employee.

The minimum salary according to regulation of government is 1.900.000/month.

This salary is used uses to make salary fund, rest day, holiday and pay social insurance

for employee.

At present, VNPS applied salary by actual working-hour for all of employee in

company. This type of salary by actual working hour applied for worker, professional

officer, administration officer and service officer. This is based on salary title or level

and actual working-hour of employee.

There are three types of salary by actual working hour: Hour Salary, Day Salary

and Month Salary. However, VNPS applies only one type on salary which is hour

salary.

Salary by actual working hour in VNPS is simple salary by actual working hour

plus responsible salary.

The responsible salary is the salary that was plus based on co-efficient is regulated

as follows:

- General Director: 1

- Director of Department: 0.6

- Officer staff: 0.3

The actual working-day in month is identified by employee timesheet. This work

is responsible of human resources officer. On the 24th each month, human resources

officer send employee timesheet to Director of human resources department check and

sign. Following that, General Director checks and signs the last time. Based on that,

human resources department calculate the salary for each employee in month. Sample

of employee sheet has following types:

Table 1: Sample employee timesheet

Number Name Title

Working Day in monthTotal

Working

Day

Total

Day

Off

Actual

Total

Working

Day26 25 … 2 1

1 Bui Hoang Long TP 1.0 1.0 … 1.0 1.0 25 0 25

2 Nguyen Van Hue NV 1.0 1.0 … 1.0 1.0 25 0 25

3 Tran Vi Phuong NV 1.0 1.0 … 1.0 1.0 24 1 25

(Sources: Human Resources Department of VNPS)

To calculate salary, VNPS must identified salary per day and actual working day

of employee.

Salary per day was calculated by this formula:

Salary per day= Basic salary/25

We have:

Salary per day: Salary was paid for employee in one day.

Basic Salary: Salary based on title that was regulated

Basic Salary was calculated by this formula:

Basic Salary= (2.000.000) x Co-Efficiency Salary

Salary in month was calculated by this formula:

Salary in month= Salary per day x Actual Working Day

Responsible Salary was calculated by this formula:

Responsible Salary =Basic Salary x Co-Efficiency Responsibility

Following that, we can calculate actual salary of employee in month*

Actual Salary= Salary in month + Responsible Salary + Allowance

Table 2: Sample Salary Table

Number Name Title Basic Salary Actual

Working

Day

Allowance Actual Salary

1 Bui Hoang Long TP 2.000.000 26 2.000.000 5.200.000

2 Nguyen Van Hue NV 2.000.000 25 1.000.000 3.520.000

3 Tran Vi Phuong NV 2.000.000 26 1.000.000 3.600.000

(Sources: Human Resources Department of VNPS)

2.1.1.2. Bonus

Employee is highly interested in not only salary but also in bonus. Each company

has different purpose in paying bonus but in general, they use bonus to stimulate

employee to work harder and increase their productivity. These bring many advantages

to company, leading to therefore, almost company and organization must pay attention

to bonus issue for employee. Based on characteristic of industry, VNPS pay bonus for

employee has some different characteristic. VNPS nowadays applies some following

type of bonus:

- Regular bonus

- Irregular bonus

In VNPS, regular bonus (bonus each month) is regulated according to newest

bonus law, which was issued by government.

+ Formality of bonus:

- To Group:

The Best Achievement Group (01 group)

The Excellence Achievement Group ( 03 group)

- To Individual:

Each year, VNPS elects the excellent employee of year. With this type of bonus,

each department will elect, evaluate outcome of each individual to choose the best

employee in each department.

+ Criteria to elect excellent individual and group: According to decree no

56/1998/ND-CP and company instruction each month.

+ Bonus level:

- The minimum bonus must according to Circular No 25/2001/TT-BTC dated

16/4/2001

- Depended on condition each year, general director will increase bonus for group

and individual achieve title in the end of year.

According to statistic, specific bonus of each excellence individual and group in

2010 as follow:

Table 3: Bonus for individual and group 2010-2015

Bonus Title

Bonus Base

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Excellence Individual In

Year

5.000.000 5.000.000 4.000.000 6.000.000 6.000.000

Best Achievement

Group In Year

10.000.000 10.000.000 8.000.000 12.000.000 12.000.000

Excellence Achievement

Group In Year

7.000.000 7.000.000 7.000.000 10.000.000 10.000.000

(Sources: Human Resources Department of VNPS)

Aside from bonus title of Individual and Group, all of employee will receive

salary in thirteen month according to regulation of government.

In specific, co-efficiency bonus will calculate, based on title of each individual,

bonus was calculated by formula:

Bonus Thirteen Month = Co-efficiency * Basic Salary

Co-efficiency in thirteen month was regulated as following

-Excellence: 2.5

-Very Good: 2.0

- Good: 1.5

- Average: 1.0

All of evaluation title will be checked by director of each department, human

resources director and general director and applied for employee having working time

in company in more than one year.

With the employee working less than one year, bonus will calculated as follow:

Real bonus= Bonus Thirteen Month * Working Month/12

Irregular Bonus:

At present, VNPS applied some type of irregular bonus as follow:

- Month Bonus

- Project Bonus

- Innovation Bonus

With month bonus:

Each month, VNPS will calculate efficiency and effectiveness of each employee.

The real bonus applied for each month as following:

- Excellence: 1.2* Basic Bonus

- Very Good: 1.1* Basic Bonus

- Good: 1.0* Basic Bonus

- Normal:0.9* Basic Bonus

- Weak:0.8* Basic Bonus

Basic Bonus correspond is 800.000 VND

With project Bonus:

After each project is finished, VNPS will calculate based on this fomular:

Real Project Bonus = Basic Bonus * Co-efficiency Bonus

Co-efficiency Bonus was regulated as follow:

Large Project: 1

Medium Project: 0.8

Small Project: 0.5

Basic Bonus correspond is 2.000.000 VND

With Innovation Bonus:

After each Innovation is Invented, VNPS will pay 5.000.000/each innovation.

2.1.1.3. Social welfare

Social welfare and services quality will contribute to maintain the existence of

employee with company. In process of enhance incentive program, there are many

factors to create motivation. To create motivation effectively, director must harmonize

all of these factors to create efficiency and effectiveness incentive program.

Compulsory Social Welfare:

According to regulation of government, VNPS must implement fully four

insurance regimes of employee:

- Maternity Subsidy

- Sick Subsidy

- Accident Subsidy

- Dead Subsidy

These regulations are to guarantee the minimum safety condition for employee

and their family in case of unlucky circumstance and risky toward to help employee

and their family feel caring when they contribute effort and health for company.

Based on fundamentals of these regimes, VNPS will adjust difference voluntary

social welfare to be suitable with actual situation to bring the safety and believe to

employee in VNPS, stimulate them to dedicate more for company without feeling

excruciated. This is appropriate strategy to create motivation for employee through

social welfare and service quality.

Table 4: Statistic Number of Employee in 2010-2014 period

Target 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Number of employee 97 102 113 100 160

Total Salary Fund 1,301,640 1,405,600 1,730,189 1,402,400 2.246.541

Paid Social Insurance 221,278 238,952 294,132 238,408 381,912

(Sources: Human Resources Department of VNPS)

The percentage that VNPS pays for social Insurance is 17% (Minus 1% cost union

because employee pay for VNPS’ union).

As above, it is easy to see that compulsory social welfare in VNPS was

implementing seriously and according to regulation of government. It is also assured

for that voluntary insurance and services quality will be implemented effectively,

seriously and in time for employee in VNPS.

Voluntary Social Welfare:

Based on compulsory social welfare, company has some kind of voluntary social

welfare.

- Health Insurance: Each year, VNPS organizes healthy examination for employee

1 time/year. VNPS has medical room to first aid for employee in case of some injuries

or sick happen. In case of employee was suffered very bad injuries, need to surgery and

hospitalization in a long time, apart from health insurance was paid, VNPS supports for

employee 300.000/person.

- Beside Dead Subsidy according to regulation of government, to employee that

works at VNPS at present but die for any reason, VNPS will support burial fee and

have involvement of union is 200.000/ person. If the dead person is relative of

employee ( father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter), the union will support

100.000 VND/ person. In addition, department where employee work directly will

have some other support.

- Money in special holiday was regulated in fix term as follow:

+ Tet Holiday: With employee work less than 6 months: 250.000/ person

With employee work more than 6 months: 500.000/ person

+ 30/4, 1/5 holiday, new year holiday: 200.000/ person

+8/3, 20/10 day, VNPS celebrate meeting for all of woman employee and each

department have some gift to show the interest to woman employee in VNPS.

+ To the son and daughter of employee, each year if they have good result in

studying such as good studying in year, excellent student of city, excellent student of

country will receive the gift that deserve with them and was organized to visit

attractive place in country,

-Each year, VNPS organize for employee relax, recover their health after hard

working for example: climbing mountain and going to sea

- VNPS support lunch meal for employee, which is 15.000/person/day, employee

can have lunch at VNPS

2.2. Non-Financial tools

2.2.1. Working Environment

Working environment is philosophy state of all of employee in their working

place. It demonstrates the attitude of employee with VNPS, with their job and was

expressed their attitude and behavior toward their colleague, their leader, their work.

Working environment takes great affect to incentive program for employee. VNPS

orient that company need to make friendly but seriously between employees and

between employees with their supervisor. VNPS highly appreciate fairly environment

in company but this does not mean freedom (Employee can talk whatever he think it is

good or bad but before they do something, they need approval from their supervisor).

Some solutions that VNPS applied to enhance working environment:

- Take the right to employee to contribute idea at their work by writing letter to

opinion mailbox or talking directly to their supervisor. VNPS will conduct to solve

seriously idea of employee. As a result, mailbox brings many efficiency and

effectiveness idea for company.

- Any question related to salary, employee have the right to take a question with

human resources employee and do not sign in salary table. Human resources employee

will review it to human resources director. Human resources director will be

responsibility to responsible for explaining for employee and solving problems. This

brings seriousness and public in salary system of employee in VNPS.

2.2.2. Job Description

VNPS conducts to propose requirement, mission of job for employee through job

description and job specification well. However, VNPS now try to research to

emphasize on job specification and job description to let employee know and

understand the meaning of the job.

In 2013, VNPS require employee to do survey to judge the job. According to

outcome of survey, 90% employee understand their right and obligation and only 10%

show that they do not understand and they are not interested in that because they

believe in their vacancy, they do not need to know their right and obligation. They

should work as order of their supervisor which is enough.

Besides, the survey shows the feeling of employee toward the job with statistic as

follow the table:

Figure 2: Evaluation about job 2013

Intersting

Good

Boring

Not improve

(Sources: Human Resources Department of VNPS)

From the table, we can see that 10% of employee supposed that their job is

interesting, 60% of employee think their job is good, take the largest part. 20% of

employees think the work is boring and 10% think they do not have the chance to

improve themselves at the work present. This statistic shows that part of employee in

VNPS are not satisfied with their job.

2.3. Evaluation on employee incentive program

In general, VNPS employee incentive program have satisfied some basic demand

of employee.

2.3.1. Strengths

With the effort to enhance employee incentive program through the year, VNPS

gains some advantages and some changes.

About salary, hour salary encourages employee to work on time and sufficient day

in month. Salary paying for employee has the advantage with previous period when

employee receives responsible more with their job, work more effective. It also shows

the fair in paid salary by balancing between people in company and having comparison

with other company. With this employee will feel stable and take focus their

intelligence and their strength to work.

About bonus, this work creates large motivation for employee and help they them

not only work effectively but also believe in their work. With the bonus was regulated,

employee have conscious that if they work positively and effectively, the bonus will be

increased and help them to increase their income, guarantee for their family life.

About working environment, VNPS completes organization structure, improves

working condition for employee.

About job description, job description and job specification help employee

understand their job specifically faster and have more responsibility at work because

they understand the nature of work.

2.3.2. Weaknesses and causes

About salary, because VNPS pays salary to employee based on their level and

actual hour working without commitment to quality and effectiveness of work, leading

to phenomena that employee does not pay attention to outcome of work and waste of

time.

About evaluation criteria, an evaluation criterion has not finished yet, leading to

some omission related to effectiveness of work.

About social welfare, the level of social welfare is low and does not encourage

enthusiasm of employee. Social welfare is basic and does not meet the demand of

employee.

About non-finance tool, not-finance tool does not consider properly, formality is

not diverse and employees are responsible for building and improving working

environment are passive.. It is only based on contribution of employee.

CHAPTER III: Solutions to enhance employee incentive program in Vietnam

Polystyrene Company

3.1. Solutions about salary

Salary tool is one of the most effective tools of manager to create motivation. At

present, salary of VNPS is low and not guarantees to keep employee work for VNPS as

well as motivate them work harder.

Because of this, VNPS should implement some methods to enhance salary policy

for employee:

- Each year, VNPS needs to consider price fluctuation situation to adjust the

salary which is suitable with inflation.

- VNPS should have some policies to support new employee such as support

salary when trial working, support vehicle cost…

3.2. Solutions about job description

Making motivation by non-finance tool is efficient. There are some solutions to

enhance these issues:

- VNPS needs to train and instruct new employee understand the process of work

not only themselves but also other department.

- VNPS should design for employee have the right to take part in some issue

related to their work in authorized range and receive feedback to help them stimulate

their ownership spirit, and creativity in work.

- Because employee has the demand to affirm and fulfill themselves at work. So,

VNPS must identify roles and position of employee shows them their level of their

contribution and how important it is important with VNPS. This helps employee affirm

their roles and have more motivation to work better.

3.3. Solutions about working environment

Working environment is essential factor to create incentive for employee. To

enhance it, VNPS should do some following things:

- Enhance internal communication; connect employee relationship through group

activities such as: team building, gala dinner…

- Organize musician entertainment activities, sport activities such as football,

badminton, tennis tournament for employee of VNPS.

- Construct forum where employee can interact after working time, issue internal

publications.

CONCLUSION

In modern economic, to help enterprise achieve success, invest in human

resources is one of the best solution to construct fundamentals to gain intrinsic to deal

with challenge. Because of that, along with training specialist skill and knowledge,

employee incentive program need to be paid attention to enhance the effective of

employee and raise profit for company. Exploitation and stimulation for employee will

only effective when their motivation is always pushed by some methods related to

physical and mental of owner of enterprise.

In chapter I, internship report introduces about VNPS Ltd. Chapter 2 researches,

analysis, presents actual incentive program of VNPS and points out strength and

weakness in employee incentive program. Chapter 3 concludes some solutions and

proposals for VNPS to enhance employee incentive program.

Because of limited time and research scope, internship report cannot avoid some

mistake, so I hope to receive some contribution from lecturer to complete internship

report.

Thank you!

PERSONAL REFLEXTION

During my internship at VNPS, I had two main job natures in sales department

aiming at improving its efficiency. On the one hand, I was responsible for looking into

the import/export procedure from different perspectives and devise standard operating

procedures. Since our company is a foreign company in Vietnam, we have to follow

the regulation and employee Vietnamese to handle import/export procedures. However,

there are several mistakes being made out of cultural difference and communication

discord. Therefore, devising the standard operating procedure can be a fundamental of

improving the process and benefit to managing the organization effectively and

efficiently. On the other hand, I work as a team member to maintain customer

relationship by visiting customers accompanying with managers. Maintaining good

customer relationship or exploring any potential business is very important for our

business, especially when we just started to expand our market share from this year. In

order to achieve my goal of making some contribution for the company, I dedicated

myself in observing each detail for every process regarding sales operation.

Devising Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) As for the import and export

procedure, I collected information by following my colleagues to do every step in

person, and ask any questions if necessary. Thanks to their coordination, I collected

abundant information to draw out the current procedure and devise the standard

operating procedure. From the experience of establishing the procedure, I observed the

following points which are worthy of further discussing:

+Communication problem: Firstly, cultural differences will lead to

communication problem between Taiwanese management tier and Vietnamese

employees. Traditionally, people from Taiwan possess more serious attitude towards

work while Vietnamese employees have more flexible attitudes. Therefore, the

messages will be misunderstood occasionally. Furthermore, not only will the cultural

difference will lead to communication failure, the language is also another main

problem leading to misunderstanding. Sometimes one message has to be translated into

three languages, insufficient understanding will become totally different meaning.

+ Government issues: When it comes to international trade, the trading

agreement between countries is the critical factor that leads the business to be

competitive. Since Vietnam is one of the ASEAN members, there are several FTAs

have been signed between Vietnam and other countries around the world. This makes it

possible to do business with competitive advantage from Vietnam. The most important

part of FTA is about the import and export tax which are identified and categorized by

HS code for different products. And if you want to apply for tax free for some product,

you need apply for the certificate of origins approved by the government based on the

terms of FTA. However, government corrupts is serious in Vietnam. In Vietnam, since

the government officials’ salary is low and they own the authorization power of the

document, you need to cooperate with them under-table, which means you need to pay

them privately to make everything go smoothly. Another similar situation is to apply

the customs whether during import or export procedure. I think government corrupts is

a critical issue for those people who want to invest in Vietnam.

+ Logistic importance (Coordination with logistic company): In the

petrochemical industry, the unit profit is low and businesses make money by large

quantities and good management skills to keep the cost stay stable at low level.

Therefore, keeping the logistics cost low-> low costing logistics ? is the most

influential element when it comes to building the competitive advantages in this

industry. In order to achieve this goal, managing your logistic partners is an important

task.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Regarding with maintaining the

relationship with customers, I possess the same attitude to observe everything in details

when visiting customers, including topics of talks, ways of greeting customers, seat

arrangement, and most importantly, the way of doing business, etc. I made notes for

those pieces of information and tried to clarify our business relationship with

customers. Eventually, I put all the information together to better understand our

corporate strategy towards customer relationship management. There was one time I

went on a business trip to visit some Taiwanese companies with the board of director

and general manager. We visited three customers around Binh Duong province nearby

Ho Chi Minh City, each of them produce different products, such as helmet, organic

glass, and polyfoam. I have learnt a lot on that day. On the one hand, I can put myself

in the same condition and catch the meaning behind words easily because we used the

same mother language. On the other hand, I saw how top managers or business owner

bear in mind based on different customer needs. Luckily, my boss, as one of my

supervisor, provided me some background information and the reasons why we visited

customers accordingly beforehand, so that I could understand the situation well. The

first company we visited was a manufacture producing helmet, and they had tested our

products few years ago and they decided not to use our product since the experimental

result did not meet their requirement. However, with the continuous improvement of

our technology, we were confident to provide them the products they need. After

discussing the details of manufacturing processes with their managers and factory

chief, they took us to visit their factory to see how they produce helmets and how they

do experiments for those products. They introduced the experimental methods and

showed us the result if qualifying the regular standard and what goal they were

pursuing. After that, my bosses judged what the key points of improving the products

are based on their yearly experience in this industry, they invited our customer to bring

us there and visit their production line. We inquired several questions in details

regarding the processes, such as temperature and parameters. After exchanging each

other's opinions, both side understood each other better and finally came to the

consensus of cooperating to develop better-quality products starting with providing

them two main products based on their need. We thought this was a great progress

although it was only oral deal rather than paper contract. I felt my luckiness to witness

a successful business deal. Later on, we went to visit our customers around the area.

The reason of visiting was to maintain customer relationship and to understand how

their business went on. This type of visit was far more casual than making a business

deal. Everyone just sat down and chat casually. From those talks, I categorized the

following main points:

First of all, stealing problem is serious in Vietnam. Almost every company we

visited mentioned about this problem. Everyone shared their own experience and how

they deal with the problems, but still in vain eventually. I was too naive to consider it

could be a serious problem in running a business. It not only happens once accidentally

but well-planned actions relating to a small organization, even employees involves if

bad luck. I found this may be a serious problem in running a business in a developing

country. How to devise a complete system to prevent this problem from happening thus

becomes a great issue for an organization.

Secondly, chitchat is important to get closed to each other in business. It could

be a discussion about a cell phone or recent gossip, or it could also be expressing

personal opinions regarding international events, such as Korea-Japan island issue.

Thirdly, mutually share business information based on each other’s business

strategy. We need to understand what our customers need accordingly because they are

in different departments producing different products from each other. Some customers

are price oriented while some are quality oriented. And some are under developing

progress while some are mature in the market. Therefore, understanding our customer

is a must to go further business.

Generally, visiting customer helps me widen my view and get better

understanding of real business relationship. I also learned the details of interacting with

customers, such as how to arrange the seat, how to observe customers' implied

behavior.

REFERENCES1. R.A.Noe, J.R Hollenbeck, B.Gerhart, and P.M. Wright, 2011, Fundamentals of Human Resource

Management 4th edition, published by McGraw-Hill

2. http://vietnampolystyrene.com/web/