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.

2.1.1.1.

Salary...........................................................................................................13

2.1.1.2.

Bonus...........................................................................................................16

2.1.1.3.

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

2.2.

2.3.

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

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

2.2.1.

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

2.2.2.

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

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

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.
Companys 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 customers 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

Director of
Human
Resources

Accounting
Department

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 companys
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.
2.1.1.
2.1.1.1.

Tools to create incentive for employees

Financial tools
Salary
Salary is the main income for employees 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 month

Total

Total

Actua

Working

Day

Total

Day

Off

Worki

Day
26

25

Bui Hoang Long

TP

1.0

1.0

1.0

1.0

25

25

Nguyen Van Hue

NV

1.0

1.0

1.0

1.0

25

25

Tran Vi Phuong

NV

1.0

1.0

1.0

1.0

25

24

(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

Allowance

Actual Salary

Working
Day
1

Bui Hoang Long

TP

2.000.000

26

2.000.000

5.200.000

Nguyen Van Hue

NV

2.000.000

25

1.000.000

3.520.000

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 Base
Bonus Title
2010
Excellence Individual In 5.000.000

2011
5.000.000

2012

2013

2014

4.000.000

6.000.000

6.000.000

10.000.000 10.000.000

8.000.000

12.000.000

12.000.000

7.000.000

7.000.000

10.000.000

10.000.000

Year

Best Achievement
Group In Year
Excellence Achievement

7.000.000

Group In Year
(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

(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 others 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.

REFERENCES
1. 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/