Maintenance Industry in Abu Dhabi - Term Paper Example

? Finance and Accounting Internship Paper of the Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Chapter Introduction 5 1 Brief Insight of the General Contracting and Maintenance Industry in Abu Dhabi 5 1.2 Objective 6 1.3 Outline of the Study 6 Chapter 2: Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company 7 2.1 Company Overview 7 2.2 Growth Manifesto 8 2.3 Products/ Services of the Company 10 2.4 Organizational Hierarchy 11 Chapter 3: Internship / Work Experience in Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company 12 3.1 Work Setting (Department) 12 3.2 Job Description or Responsibilities 13 3.3 Work Experience 14 3.4 Achievements 15 Chapter 4: Recommendations and Conclusion 16 4.1 Suggestions 16 4.2 Conclusion 17 References 18 Executive Summary This is the summer internship report of my training at Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company, as finance and accounting intern. I worked in the finance department under the supervision of Mr. Ibrahim, one of the finance managers, who directly reported to the Vice-president Finance department. However, the received my daily tasks and assistance from the financial executives who were in Mr. Ibrahim’s team. Mr. Ibrahim evaluated my performance, which my senior provided me. I assisted financial executives in different accounting and financial management functions associated with the construction of few projects for eminent clients of Abu Dhabi. I assisted my managers in tasks ranging from posting expenses, and other transactions, calculating payroll, planning payment schedules, internal auditing, tax compilation, etc. It was a great learning experience because I could explore and actually understand various financial functions practically. Acknowledgement I would like to express my gratitude to Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company, and Mr. Ibrahim for giving me the opportunity to work as an intern in his team, and guiding me through the problems that I faced in daily functions. I would specially express my thanks to all the Finance Executives, and my seniors in Mr. Ibrahim’s team for co-operating with me and guiding me throughout my internship. I also want to thank Dr Ibrahim and Dr Suja Thomas, who assisted me in compiling all the information and findings of internship in the form of a report. They have been my mentor throughout my internship. Last but not the least; I thank my family and friends, as without their motivation I would not have been able to achieve success through my internship. Chapter 1: Introduction This section of the study aims at introducing the readers to the industry of general contracting and maintenance of Abu Dhabi, so that they can understand the nature of work the company does, and its position in the market. 1.1 Brief Insight of the General Contracting and Maintenance Industry in Abu Dhabi The maintenance and construction sector includes establishments primarily construction of highways, buildings, or utility system. The establishments are mainly engaged in preparation of new sites for construction and sub-dividing various plots of lands for sales. The construction work that is generally done includes maintenance, repairs, alterations, etc. In the next few years Abu Dhabi is going to lay out a fully developed plan for becoming a global leader in maintenance and construction sector. Even after the global recession and real estate crisis in Dubai, Abu Dhabi was not knocked off, and it succeeds in registering a growth of 33.5 percent in the year 2008. According to the records stated by Emirates, the maintenance and construction sector also showed an escalating growth in 2007, when the rest of the world stated facing the heat of financial crisis (Campbell, 2007; Weygandt, Kimmel, & Kieso, 2010). The major reason which this industry is flourishing in Abu Dhabi and other Gulf countries is due to increasing interest of tourist in the country. Construction and maintenance of hotels, villas, parks, sports facilities, luxury pent houses, etc have increased in the past decade, which prove the above notion to be true. Even the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council forecasted that by 2013 the resident units would increase to 277,500, from 226,000 in the year 2009. This revealed a growth in resident units by 5.3 percent annually. It has been forecasted that the supply would be by a rate of 9.1 percent, as per the past record (Campbell, 2007; Warren, & Reeve, 2006). However, even then the supply would be around 251,200 units, which signifies a shortfall of 15000 units. This statistics was mentioned in order to indicate that the industry will enjoy growth and development in the future years (Besley, and Brigham, 2011). 1.2 Objective I worked in Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company as a finance and Accounting Intern, under the Finance Manager of the company Mr. Ibrahim. My aim was not only to work in the company as an intern but to also learning various functions that the employees in finance department perform in order to support the operations of the company. The major objectives that I had in mind for my internship has been stated below: To get the first hand knowledge of analyzing the annual reports of a company To have practical knowledge of how financial decisions are taken To understand the drivers that the financial managers consider in order to plan various projects To assist the financial managers in record-keeping and financial analysis Since the finance and accounting department has to work closely with the human resource and marketing department too, so I also wanted to know how this chain of action functions. 1.3 Outline of the Study This section is significant because it will give the readers a complete view of the company and my experience in Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company as a finance and accounts intern. The study is initiated with a brief description of the maintenance and contracting sector of Abu Dhabi because Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company have also its headquarters in this country. It would assist in estimating the scope of growth and development that the company has. Followed by this, my objectives of developing this study and opting for internship in Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company have been explained. In the next chapter, the discussion would be mainly based on the company’s profile, its services, growth policy, organizational framework, etc. After introducing the company and the industry, I will describe in detail my work experience in the company along with the work setting, job responsibilities that I had achievements, etc. This would describe my learning from this internship, and also regarding the operational functions of the organization. The objective that I developed for my internship would be also assessed in this section, in order to reveal whether I was able to achieve them or not. I will conclude the study with the probable suggestion that I can state based on my understanding of functions. This does not guarantee that the company will implement these suggestions because financial decisions and suggestions in the company are stated by employees of the company, whereas an intern is not an employee of the company. However, the suggestions would be solely based on my learning about the financial systems and processes. Chapter 2: Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company 2.1 Company Overview Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company were developed in the year 2010. The purpose of developing the company was to meet the modern engineering and the construction challenges through successful implementation of the strategies for the commercial and civil projects. The company has a pool of well-trained and highly experienced human resource, which comprises of engineers, executives, and various technical staffs. There are unskilled workers and laborers too in the company, who assist in meeting the soaring expectations of the clients. There are more than 200 people who are engaged in diverse departments in the organization. The policy of no discrimination on the basis of nationality is strictly followed in the company. The company is also endowed with leadership of the well-experienced civil, mechanical, electrical, and structural engineers, competent technical staffs, and experienced construction executives. Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company want to grow sustainably and expand their business towards full-scales capabilities in construction, maintenance, and engineering. It is a young company but has got solid construction and maintenance expertise in Abu Dhabi and United Arab Emirates. The company also has records of delivering excellent performance since its inception. The company is associated with various government departments such as General Directorate of Military Works, and Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority (ADWEA). 2.2 Growth Manifesto 2.2.1 Mission. The mission of Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company is dedicated towards development of excellent partnership with their clients, government and customers by offering them safe and high quality projects on the right time and within their budgets. The success of the company lies in its strategies to invest constantly in technology, technical enhancements, equipments and technology. They are dedicated towards the empowerment of their employees, and in this regard the company provides all the employees with a rewarding career and also ensures that they also grow along with the company. The company also takes care of the safety, job security, heath, and family welfare of the employees. 2.2.2 Vision. The company aims be globally known as one of the leading companies in the contracting and maintenance, which has specialized work force and resources for delivering services of premium quality and projects that are unparallel or unmatchable in the industry. 2.2.3 Quality Policy. Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company through their quality policy ensure that contract specifications and the drawings are executed exactly as it is within the time of contract. It should also be in compliance with the legal requirements that will assist in offering satisfaction and good value to the clients. The policy of quality is based on the quality management system, under which the company provides the framework for reviewing and setting the quality of the targets and objectives. The management of the company has committed themselves in improving the effectiveness of their quality system through analysis of customer feedback. Internal audits are also conducted and trainings are conducted for reviewing the quality management process of the company. 2.2.4 Health and Safety Policy. Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company have a set of health and safety policy, which they consider for every project, and ensure that these policies are followed while delivering services to customers, they are stated below: They ensure that the education and awareness of the new employees are up to the mark, by training them through planned training programs. In these training programs they are taught safe methods of workings, and time management before they resume their actual duties. Apart from this, the company also ensures that the organization is a safe place for people to work. For this the environment, equipments, facilities are checked, in order to prevent any risk of safety and health. Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company promote that effort should made by everybody to avoid health hazards and assist themselves and other to avoid accidents or any kind of injuries. These are the statutory obligations of every employee in the organization. They ensure that safety of the employees is a responsibility of the line management. Apart from this, the effectiveness of the safety policy is monitored and these policies are not only displayed or published, but reviewed annually (Thomsett, 2001). 2.3 Products/ Services of the Company Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company offer several services to its customers which includes project management, maintenance, construction, engineering, product development and financing. In most of the projects the company has been able procure finance for accommodating the shortage of the owner during the yearly allocation of fund does not match the progress of the construction process and also when the payment term are longer than the period of construction. The company offer single point support for clients requiring project management services. Swift decisions are made and total assistance is provided to the customers through effective communication with customers, the will provide the customers a complete feeling ownership. For every project, a project manager is allocated, who is given full authority to manage and support the different departments in specific areas such as procurement, project control, administrative, engineering, construction, administration, financial, and control. Apart from this function like maintenance is also another core service that the company provides. Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company offers high standard of maintenance service for their new as well as existing clients, who wish to have a reputed maintenance service provider. The company every type of maintenance services related to engineering and construction, as in this field the company has strong experience, which it has acquired over short span of time. The service that the company provides does not include aluminum, tiles, carpentry, and painting works. Engineering services is also provided by the company. Quality engineering in the commercial and residential projects is the reason of success behind the excellent performance of the company. Construction and various civil works is another function of the company. The company is into construction of villas for eminent personalities in Abu Dhabi and UAE (Carbaugh, 2010). 2.4 Organizational Hierarchy Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company is a start-up company, which is into business for the past three years. However, due to escalating performance and development of the company the size of work force increased to more than 200. These are those employees who work under the company payroll. However, there are many workers who work with the company on contract basis under their contracting or sub-contracting teams. There are several small projects for which the company cannot allocate its own employee, due to other important projects. It is then the company allocates off-role workers who work under sub-contractors for those projects, but the guarantee for quality and safety is borne by Wahat Al Wafa, so that this does not affect the goodwill of the company (Brigham, & Ehrhardt, 2010; Siddiqui, 2006). The top level management comprises of the owner of the company, along with the president, and Vice-presidents, who handle each department of the company. There are total eight to ten departments in the company, which are headed by a president and assisted by a vice-president. The departments in the company are marketing and sales, finance, human resource, maintenance and repairs, project management, construction, engineering, design, supply chain, purchase, and administration or operations. The project managers work under the vice-presidents, who have their own teams to manage. The workers and laborers are off-role employees (Brebbia, 2012; McCrary, 2009). Chapter 3: Internship / Work Experience in Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company 3.1 Work Setting (Department) The finance and accounting department is headed by the president, and vice-president, which have financial officers or managers working under them. I reported to Mr. Ibrahim, who was also a finance manager. These finance managers have to handle one or more than one projects. The finance executives’ work as teams under the finance managers, and each of them has to co-ordinate with the clients in recovering the money; assess the financing issues of the company, record the expenses and costs related to the project. The Company uses System Administration and Programs (SAP) for its entire accounting, finance, and administrative functions. It would be better to say that the whole organization is connected by SAP and enterprise resource planning (ERP) framework. Information can be shared easily across departments, and reports can be compiled easily (Chandra, 2005; Ladley, 2010). The finance executive have the responsibility to work in co-ordination with the other departments such as marketing and sales, recovery, construction, maintenance, engineering, human resource, etc. They allocate funds for every department as their expense, after discussion with the top-level management. The finance executives collect information for daily expense and fund allocation to prepare their report for every project. The finance departments also work in co-ordination with the human resource department for calculating the salaries, wages, reimbursements, appraisal, incentives, etc. The recovery section functions as a part of the finance department. They collect the construction and maintenance charges or fees from the clients on behalf of the company. They also assist the clients in availing loans from banks, if the clients wish to. The marketing and sales department also has to present their figures of revenue generation, by submitting online reports to the finance departments. In this company, the finance team which handles a particular project is responsible to handle every financial aspect related to that project till the end of its operations and final delivery (Elmaleh, 2005). During my Internship, Mr. Ibrahim’s team handled few important projects, as the goodwill of the company in construction was attached to it. The pictures of those projects have been stated below. All these villas have been constructed and designed by the company especially for VIPs in Abu Dhabi. 3.2 Job Description or Responsibilities I worked in Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company as an intern for a span of four weeks. I report to Mr. Ibrahim directly, but the finance executives in Mr. Ibrahim’s team assigned me tasks, and responsibilities. It was introduced to several functions in the finance department such as accounts payable, Customer reporting, financial operations, internal audit, budgeting, risk management, tax. All the responsibilities that are being mentioned were not entirely my duty. I assisted the finance executives in performing these functions. In the process, I learnt how the diverse functions in the finance department were undertaken. The functions that I performed was creating the monthly schedules, working with the daily operations in treasury, performing the reconciliations of the banking statements, processing the month end journal entries, and also assisted in creating payment plans. There are many other functions that I got to learn just by assisting the finance executives, though those responsibilities were not put on me. Interns in this company are exposed to every aspects and functions of the department that they are appointed for. In this way if the intern is found to have performed well, they also look forward to appoint them in the company as employees. This is another reason, why internship is rigorous in Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company (Epstein, 2008; Ingram, & Albright, 2006). 3.3 Work Experience Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company is a young company, but it has made its mark in Abu Dhabi and UAE due to its sustainable and disciplined growth. The company functions on simple ideals, but these ideals or values are strictly followed. Growth of the organization, with the growth of employees is the core value and it is followed. Moreover, safety and security of employees play an important role in the company. My experience as an intern was extremely good because I received a well-coming response from all my seniors. One of the best parts of my internship was that my learning was not confined to my team under Mr. Ibrahim, because as an intern whenever, I tried to seek assistance for my work for those seniors, who do not train me, I received help and advice. The organizational culture of the company is based on certain pre-defined ethics. The first was to help each other and create an environment of harmony. Second was to create an atmosphere healthy competition, and third was to ensure own and other’s safety. Apart from my core responsibilities, I learnt things like team work, co-operation, co-ordination, patience, multi-tasking, and efficiency from my seniors. Another significant trait that I got to learn apart from financial functions was the leadership qualities of my seniors. I did not get the opportunity to interact with the customers, or suppliers, but I interacted with employees from other departments too, as I often got the task of compiling financial information from other departments, so that the finance executives can assess them and present them in report form to be forwarded to Mr. Ibrahim for final assessment before the file went to top management for evaluation. 3.4 Achievements I have already mentioned my objectives and aims from this internship at Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company. I wanted to learn about the annual report of the company, how the financial data is procured from different departments and compiled and analyzed, to understand that way the financial managers plan the payment schedules, etc. Being a student of Bachelor of Business Management, I have learnt different concepts of finance and accounting from basics. Concepts related to journal entries, ledger positing, preparing final accounts, understanding tax calculations, calculating payroll, etc were explained to us in class. These theories and concepts have assisted me in understanding their practical usage easily. Though I found one thing to be true, and that is; there is a vast difference between theories and its practical implementation, I can say that my knowledge in finance and accounting has assisted me in grasping the instructions of my seniors efficiently. I was successful in fulfilling my objectives, that I considered in the beginning of my internship, but I would want to brush up my concepts in tax, and audit, so as to be more competent in this two field in finance because I found they play significant role in finance department. Chapter 4: Recommendations and Conclusion 4.1 Suggestions It would not be appropriate to state suggestions for the company because firstly, I was just a intern and got to know certain aspects of the financial operations of the company, but yet there are lots of other things to explore, without which stating suggestions for the company would not be a good idea. Secondly, the company like any other prospering construction and maintenance company of Abu Dhabi have developed its business on ethics and values, so offering further suggestions at are moment is not suitable. However, regarding my internship tenure, I can say that our university should have a discussion with these companies to extend the span of internship to 3 months that is 12 weeks. This will assist in learning things and also practicing them. As an intern I can also suggest that the company can train the interns by assigning duties to them in every department, so that they understand the entire business processes. As a student of business management, I would benefit more if I get to have the scope of practical exposure in every department. 4.2 Conclusion I am a student of Al Ghurair University, who is studying Bachelor of Business Management, and my internship in the finance and accounting department, of Wahat Al Wafa General Construction and Maintenance Company, was a part of the curriculum. My objectives for this internship were clear. It ranged from learning about various accounting postings, maintenance of books of accounts, learning tax calculations, auditing, payroll calculation, etc. I was successful in fulfilling my objectives because I had excellent leaders and seniors to guide me through my internship. They allotted various work for them, which were diverse and I could learn various aspects of accounting and financial management that the company follows. After completion of my internship, I realized the fact that in order to have further comprehensive knowledge of the company and its operations, the span of internship should be three months, as it will give more practical exposure. Apart from this the organization should also provide scopes to the intern to work in other departments too, so as to understand their operational functions. References Besley, S., Brigham, E. F. (2011). Principles of finance. 5th ed. Connecticut: Cengage Learning Brebbia, C. A. (2012). Sustainability today. Billerica, MA: WIT Press. Brigham, E.F. & Ehrhardt, M.C. (2010). Financial management theory and practice. (Ed.13). Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Campbell, C. (2007). Legal aspects of doing business in the Middle East. Glasgow: Yorkhill Law Publishing. Carbaugh, R. (2010). International Economics. (13th ed.). Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Chandra, P. (2005). Fundamentals of financial management. (4th ed.). New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill. Elmaleh, M. S. 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Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Weygandt, J. J., Kimmel. P. D., & Kieso, D. E. (2010). Financial accounting: IFRS edition. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Read More