Expeditors Company - Weaknesses and Strength - Case Study Example

INTERNSHIP REPORT Name of Student Institution affiliation INTERNSHIP REPORT Company culture Expeditors Company is extremely obsessed with the quality of service provided to their clients. Therefore, this concludes that quality is a huge motivator for their company’s culture. In line with this it also promises quality career positions for their current and potential staffs depending on their target performance. Their compensation is also quite lucrative compared to those of their competitors. Good presentation is also a key factor in Expeditor’s company’ culture. The company is keen on it being presentable to its clients. Therefore, it has a clear set quality standard in its office ergonomic. Customer service is also a huge consideration in the company’s culture. It puts a lot of emphasis on consistency in its service provision to its customers. This helps the company build a reputation on quality service delivery to its clients. Expeditor’s company culture also entails giving their clients a listening ear to their feedbacks and inquiries in order to foster good customer relation. The other reason for their emphasis on customer relation as their company’s culture builds a good relation with the ocean partners, air shipping transport companies and local suppliers. This helps the company get lower shipping prices or cheaper routes for them to alternatively use. The company’s culture also embraces technology that ensures that they deliver services faster than its competitors. Maintaining a specific quality is part of the company’s culture, due to the company embracing information it is capable of improving the quality of its services from time to time. Since the company provides its services globally, it has taken up the initiative to foster a good relationship with its employees. Through these efforts, it has made some effort to help its employees in locations where culture is new to them. Personal weaknesses and strength A major weakness that made my internship difficult was my low marketing ability. Since the company had no tangible asset that you would show a potential client one needed to have impeccable marketing skill to close deals. Since I had limited experience in marketing, I found my experience working as a salesperson in the customs clearing office quite challenging. Communication was also a major challenge in my work experience in this office where you are guaranteed to come across quite many customers and potential clients. The fact that I am an introvert I found it very difficult to communicate with these clients who I did not know personally. The notable strength throughout my working experience in the custom clearing offices was my urge to learn new things. Since my experience in this office was somewhat new, my urge to learn new things was a great plus for my internship. My supervisor took me through everything and including the tips and requirements needed to handle a certain task. However my determination to learn new things was my major driving force behind my internship. I learnt how to make business quotes that were sensible and negotiated deals with potential clients. My IT skills also came in handy throughout my internship; I was able to handle the online inquiries and orders very easily thanks to my IT skills. My punctuality and impeccable work ethics were also a plus throughout my tenure in the company. This helped me meet my work deadlines and offer great work quality on any task that I was allocated by my supervisor. Company weaknesses and strength On the company’s weaknesses, there were some that were noted during my internship period. It was noted that in Expeditors company salespeople were the only individuals who got a job promotion. This is backed up the evidence that there were other workers who have been working in a specific job position for over ten years without getting a job promotion. In line with this the company seems to value the salesperson’s workforce more than the other workforce from another department. This is backed up by the effort the company to train and take the sales people for seasonal training in order to improve their skills. It also noted that the company is obsessively concentrated on salespersons since it has a build perception that these are the individuals to bring success to the company through more sells. Therefore, it has neglected other working department, for instance, the IT department. I noted throughout my internship period that the IT department was lagging behind considering the constant developments in this area. In this case the company was more willing to invest in salesperson as opposed to the IT workforce. These revealed that the companies managerial and operational decision being made were poor. On the other hand, there was notable company strength throughout the internship programme. One of the major strength that was noted was the company’s uniform that was worn by its staffs. This was a great way for the company to build a company brand that clients and potential customers that they can relate with. It was also a good strategy for promoting unity between the company’s workforces. The other plus was that the company ran each sector differently in terms of management and operation. This ensured that each sector would be able to build its strategies and goal differently from another sector; however, they had to be in line with the company’s goals. This promoted competition within the company hence in the long end the company will attain success. The other strength of the company that was noted was the company effort in promoting unity within its working force. This was evident through the company frequently organizing events and occasion for its staffs to relax and socialize. This is also attributed to being the reason behind the good relationship between the staffs and the management. In line with this the company was also ready to listen to the staff's complaints and make any adjustable changes to improve the working conditions for its staffs. Recommendation Despite the satisfaction in the company’s operation there are some recommendations that it might need to look at. One major recommendation for the company is it should ensure that there is equality in administration and investment in all its sectors. This will boost its growth and efficiency more a whole other than concentrating on particular major sectors. The company should also put more effort in ensuring that some of its workers who are new to a particular culture or country have an easy time adjusting. This could be well done if the company carry out training on some key challenges these individuals are bound to face in the new culture or country. Lastly, the company should ensure that staffs from each sector go through seasonal training in order for them to be par with the current changes in the industry. Conclusion Despite the challenges in the internship the experience and lessons learnt from this programme was a major gain for me. After the experience, my marketing skills are now much better so is my knowledge around the customs clearing office in the freight industry. References Adalsteinsson, G., & Grimsdottir, E. (2015). THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPANY CULTURE IN A MERGED COMPANY. IJBR, 15(3), 105-114. http://dx.doi.org/10.18374/ijbr-15-3.9 Read More