INTERNSHIP REPORT

AT

Unique Circles Limited

BY

GIFTY AMANKWAA

FROM
1ST JUNE, 2011

TO
20TH AUGUST, 2011

PREFACE

The purpose of this report is to explain what I did and learned during my internship period with the Unique Circles Limited. The report is also a requirement for the partial fulfilment of Garden City University College internship program. The report focuses primarily on the assignments handled, working environment, successes and short comings that the intern did encounter when handling various tasks assigned to me.

Because the various parts of the report reflect the interns shortcomings, successes, observations and comments, it would be imperative that the recommendations are also given. Therefore the report gives a number of comments and recommendations on the internship programme.

It is hoped that this report would serve as a showcase to the improvement of the internship program in Garden City University College.

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Company Profile Unique Circles Limited was established in 2006 with two staff as its initial working human resource. They first rented and occupied the old premises of the Top Martins building at Asokwa, Kumasi on 28th February 2006, and then moved to Asafo which is the perfect location to reach its customers. The mission of the company is to encourage and facilitate the processing of procurement, Auto sale and construction in all form in the most cost efficient and cost effective manner and maintain the best mutual institutional relation with its objectives. The company has six major clients with over ten minor clients. Some of its customers are the Kwame Nkumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Konongo Government Hospital, Bekwai Government Hospital, Ghana Bauxite, Owere Mines etc. The company execute their contract received from their customers through pre-financing of the projects which is subject to terms and conditions detailed in the contract document. Working Environment The hierarchy in the company is the Managing Director, Training and Operations Manager, Human Resource Manager and Finance Manager. If I start talking about ideal environment there will be numerous organisations that we can think about, and I personally think that Unique Circles Limited is one of those organisation where employees can feel maximum satisfaction in reference to the working environment. I started my internship with the company through an interview with the Human Resource Manager and secondly by the Operations Manager for whos project I was being hired. I

was a little nervous initially for the interview, but after some minutes, I started to enjoy the interview and made me show my best level of confidence, which the panel for interview later really appreciated and mentioned in specific. I had no issues or concerns as to my status after the interview. 1.3 Duties and Responsibilities

I began my internship program on 1st June, 2011 with Induction at Unique Circles Limited. The internship was to last for three (3) months and as a result my internship came to an end on 20th August, 2011. In somewhat more concrete terms, Unique Circles Limited provides the Ghanaian business market with timely, credible, policy-relevant data and information for decisionmaking and action planning for its customers. It is while I was with Unique Circles Limited that I was involved in a range of different tasks and smaller explorations that were clearly stated within my terms of reference. I will present four major areas identified as sticking out as the central themes around which most of my work at Unique Circles was organized. As will become clear in the course of reading, these four themes are closely interrelated and overlapping and are presented here one by one merely for purpose of clarity and coherence. 1.2.1 Sales Officer

Marketing and sales differ greatly, but have the same goal. Marketing improves the selling of business environment and plays a very important role in sales. If the marketing department generates a list of potential customers, that can benefit sales. The marketing department in an organization has the goal to increase the number of interactions between potential customers and the company. Achieving this goal may involve the sales team using promotional techniques such as advertising, sales

promotion, publicity, and public relations, creating new sales channels among other things. So my contribution as a sales officer is to go out and prospect for new businesses. Prospecting in marketing is where you go out to look for potential buyers. In the process of my prospecting I talked to a lot of people in different institutions and I also exhibited my personal selling process skills learnt in class which prospecting is one of them and the rest is presentation, objection handling, closing of sales and follow ups. I also experienced cold calling here and there, cold calling in marketing is approaching somebody you dont know and trying to talk to him/her by convincing the person to buy your products. Its also an embarrassing part in sales. It was tedious though but I was able to handle a lot of them. Also with the right attitudes in sales I was able to come out with amazing number of prospects at the end of it. The primary function of the sales is to generate and close leads, educate prospects, fill needs and satisfy wants of consumers appropriately, and therefore turn prospective customers into actual ones. To understand a customer's goal and requirements is relevant to the company and the creation of a valuable solution by communicating the necessary information that encourages the customers to achieve their goal at an economic cost comprise the functions of the salesperson or of the sales engine. The customers requirements were not over-evaluated and mis-sell. 1.2.2 Intensified Prospecting and develop Cliental data base A sales process established to mitigates risk by stage-gating deals based on collection of information or execution of procedures that gate movement to the next step of closing deal. The large number of initially interested persons on the narrow end of orders only a fraction of the initially interested people remain and actually place to lose deal. So I took a few days to group these prospects into potential and non-potential buyers. This is

because not everybody will be interested to buy, so you do this to know your possible buyers and develop a cliental database which will include their names, phone numbers, and any vital information that will help me in my follow up as well as the company. This also controls seller resource expenditure on non-performing deals. Ideally this also prevents customers from investing into contracts they don't need though such a benefit requires ethical intentions by the sales person. A formalized sales process is generally more common for companies that either have complex sales cycles, large revenue risks that require systematic assurance of revenue generation, and those that choose to use a more consultative sales approach. An effective sales process can be described through steps that walk a salesperson from meeting the prospect all the way through closing the sale. Often a bad sales experience can be analyzed and shown to have skipped key steps. This is where a good sales process mitigates risk for both buyer and seller. A solid sales process also has the dramatic impact of forecasting accuracy and predictability in revenue results. I became very happy because my prospecting days lead to Konfo Anokye Hospital deal and they are now a potential customer of unique circles. 1.2.3 Procurement

There are several alternatives to tendering which are available in formal procurement. One system which has gained increasing momentum at Unique Circles Limited and among developing economies is the Selection in planning process which enables the company and its potential customers to make significant changes to their requirements with relative ease. The selection in process also enables vendors and contractors to respond with greater accuracy and competitiveness as a result of the generally longer lead times they are afforded. Its very interesting because I learnt that in marketing we sell but in procurement we bargain for the best price and you also insist on quality.

1.2.4

Supervision

I was responsible for providing strategic advice on collaborative aspects of supply to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, in support of decision-making by the company and other multistakeholder consultations. My critical role was double check items supplied with stores clerk at KNUST stores. This is because accurate supply of goods is very important in procurement.

CHAPTER TWO

2.0

COMMENTS ON ASSIGNMENT

My original career interests were entirely entangled in the applicability of marketing skills in prospecting and developing cliental database that were directly related to marketing issues. Currently this has changed, since my interests in marketing issues have taken several huge leaps since I started handling my assignments at Unique Circles Limited.

2.1

Completion of the Assignments

Most of the assignments that I did handle were long-term projects that had already started and they were at the most advanced stages of their completion.

20011 Re: Re-Roofing Publishing Department: When I joined Unique Circles Limited, there had been previous work that had been done on the same. It therefore made sense to me to continue doing what the rest of the team was doing. I did finish my assignments concerning the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Project.

Prospect for New Customers: A lot of prospects were found, we were suppose to visit all of them, I handled my part but I couldnt stay long to see the final product of the project since I was running out of time thus come back to school. Academic Coursework: Personal selling process learnt in sales management was applied during my prospecting days and also in procurement as a topic in innovation management; outsourcing was also applied. Marketing research also help a lot during our

pricing in procurement. And with my customer service, good human relations were with our customers were established. The skills learnt were excellent because I realised that I can not only restrict myself only in sales as a marketer, rather learning different related courses to better myself in the future in diverse ways. When I started my marketing course in Garden City University College, my only interest was to become a good Sales Manageress wherever I found myself working after school. But I can add more value and touch to my career and experience after my internship experience with Unique Circles Limited. It will be better if every student have a practical field work because it will help you to know the field aspect behind the theory aspect in academic field.

Work Experience 2.2 Co-workers When I first arrived, it was unclear to me exactly what my duties were to be. This was because my terms of reference didnt indicate exactly what I was to work on. Through my senior supervisor, my immediate supervisor and other colleagues within Unique Circles Limited, I was able to quickly understand what my work involved and to what extend I was to do it. The following were some of the motivations that made my work easier and enjoyable: Personally working as team with the rest of the staff at the company was something that I truly treasured then since it was through them that I found it more enjoyable and easy to deal with my assignments. Working on projects and Prospecting for new customers that I believed would eventually provide a clear understanding on the state of the marketing sector. This gave me the morale to work even harder in order to meet deadlines. Professionally it is good to understand individuals and institutional ethics so that you can adapt to the conditions. Its also good to work in harmony with all people, accepting your mistakes and work towards achieving efficiency in the job field.

2.3

The Impact of My Work

Most of the projects that I did work on focused more on prospecting than on any other marketing strategies endowment available in the business world. Generally, each project executed were critical to the understanding of marketing related issues such as personal selling process like presentation, objecting handling and closing of sales. .

Though my contribution might have been small compared to what the entire team contributed, I believe it did had a lot of positive impact towards the achievement of the overall objective of each of the project aims and objectives. In short, the product of my work contributed a lot to the overall mission of Unique Circles Limited which is: To provide the business community with improved access to meaningful marketing data and information, and to help increase the capacity of marketers to use marketing tools for decision making and action planning to attain an ideal market development.

2.4

Successes and Short Comings

Successes There were many successes, both on my side and on the organization side. Personally the following is what I succeeded on:

First, to me it was a success having been given a chance to handle work on various informative areas that I believe will go a long way to enhance the productivity of the company. Through the work that I used to do, my knowledge on marketing related issues was largely broadened. I can clearly understand how one can effectively use marketing tools to study issues concerning underground prospecting and procurement tools to execute its marketing challenges. I wasnt familiar with some of the software (SPSS) to analyse data then but now I can confidently use it with ease. It is one of the software that really make analysing data with ease and one of the most enjoyable fields to deal with.

Unique Circles Limited largely succeeded a lot through my skills, competence and the

overall output of my work because; o I used to hand in my assignments in time. Therefore, enabling each project to meet its deadline. o The projects benefited a lot from my comments. Most of which were directly incorporated into the decision-making policies and development of strategies. o I did a lot of researches to verify the information (facts and figures) that were in the project. This assured the company of very objective but also high quality information Short Comings There werent many short comings since as an intern I was given a lot of support by my supervisor and other fellow staff. Therefore the major short comings that I did face were: Time was limited and therefore I had to leave pre-maturely before the complete products of my effort were finalised. In terms of cultural differences I must say that nobody should expect it as easy to integrate in a different culture. But the difficulty was not based on the way I was welcomed here, it was that I needed some time to feel comfortable with my new environment.

CHAPTER THREE

3.0

INTERNSHIP AS A LEARNING PROCESS

While the work I performed during this period was particularly glamorous and equally thrilling, I feel that this internship period exposed me to experiences which have significantly altered my perception of marketing related issues towards a more marketing holistic model.

3.1

My Expectations

I had originally intended to join Unique Circles Limited as a way to participate directly in providing solutions to marketing problems particularly with the use of marketing as a tool for decision making. What this meant is that I wished to participate largely in the direct assistance aspect of Unique Circles Limited in its marketing issues. Unfortunately though, a lot of my work within the office had to do with the preparation of various project dealing with procurements and prospecting which I can proudly now say that I learned a lot from.

3.2

Exposure to Unique Circles Limited

One of the most significant aspects of this internship was being surrounded by a network of people and divisions whose main mission was to care for the prospect and establish ideal projects. This allowed me to listen to people with ideas and opinions that I had never before considered, and helped me to develop new ways of thinking about the same problems I had previously been thinking about. In addition, I feel that I grew a much deeper respect for marketing and how to deal with issues outside marketing.

3.3

Benefits of the Program

In retrospective, I can say that I benefited from the internship programme than I thought would in a number of ways: Having a rare opportunity to use the knowledge and skills that I had acquired back at the college to provide critical marketing information to the company in order for them to develop and put in place competent policies in decision making for the betterment of the company. Career-wise, the internship programme undoubtedly enriched my curriculum vitae (CV). Also, having gotten a chance to interact with most staff, I have had an insight on how to shape my career towards the marketing job in the near future. The internship programme gave me a chance not only to work with a marketing company but also a chance to learn from the best marketing experts the world could probably provide. This would reflect much onto my experience. To conclude, I can state that my internship at the Unique Circles Limited was a rewarding experience and provided me with some new perspectives that I did not come across during my studies back at the college. I also have to stress that my colleagues at Unique Circles Limited contributed greatly to making my stay there a very enjoyable one.

CHAPTER FOUR

4.0 4.1

OBSERVATION AND CONCLUSION Observations

During the three months, I realized that it takes many steps to achieve a vision. This was ascertained by a number of observations:

I did observe that teamwork played quite a huge role in attaining most of the Unique Circles Limited mandates. It was equally important as the ability to work independent. But the goal must be to find a way to combine it in the right way. Most of the Unique Circles Limited employees are committed to their work. Most of them would come to work early, leave late in the evenings and a times come to work during the weekends in order for them to meet their deadlines. This is something that I feel few employees in any given organization would do. Interns are given the much needed supervisory support that goes beyond work related issues. This is so given the fact that a supervisor would once in a while spend at least part of his/her private time to talk with an intern over issues that touches on personal life. This was very encouraging.

Even with the aforementioned positive observations, honestly I think that Unique Circles Limited staff does need frequent common group activity/activities that would bring them together once in a while. This will eventually result in a stronger bond amongst them. I did observe that the lack of these activities affects stronger teamwork play.

4.2

Conclusion

In conclusion, I really appreciate the way I have been guided through this internship programme with Unique Circles Limited, beginning from the opportunity to take the time I needed to refresh and expand my knowledge in several issues concerning marketing, over a somehow protected period where I could discover and learn to value my new working environment, and finally earned the confidence to deal with assignments myself. It is through them that I did enjoy my work everyday.

CHAPTER FIVE

5. Recommendations

From my experience I can wholeheartedly recommend Garden city university college internship to every student who would like to experience an organization that has in my opinion realized their vision to find the balance between being progressive, able to balance human concerns, technical considerations and nevertheless being highly successful. What you have to bring with you, is the willingness to improve knowledge about the global world. The work experience and you have to be able to work independently, self motivated and you must solve smaller problems on your own. Anyhow, if youve got into some serious trouble you will always find somebody assisting you to work it out.