Executive summary
Vietnam will very soon enjoy its largest pool of labor ever, to which 9 million youths will enter next year.
Unfortunately to a great majority of them, this is a leap of faith. Career orientation services in Vietnam have stagnated far behind demand, and such advanced techniques as MBTI tests are almost absent in local and university career centers. Another concern is the graduates’ lack of skills required to write effective resumes, conduct interviews, and negotiate salary. Those are the opportunities that Orient Star grasps to fill this huge gap in the human resource market.
Orient Star’s mission is to help Vietnamese youths find the right professional path. Within 3 years it will become a reputational career center in Hochiminh City (HCMC). Then it will gradually metamorphose to a social service, when the government expectantly upgrades university career centers’ quality in 2015.
Orient Star’s primary customers are senior students and junior employees, who are from 20-24 years of age. The market size will reach 8.8 million in 2015, but the primary targeted segment right now is in metropolitan HCMC, which will then be expanded geographically.
Orient Star pull customers to its service with an integrated marketing campaign, including advertising
(physical and online banners), websites, forum infiltration, free workshops, and job fair participation.
The total cost is about VND 270 million in 3 years, with expected results of 70% targeted segment knowing of Orient Star and 40% appreciating its service. The current services are career orientation and job matching (VND 100,000/session), resume tutorial and mock interview (VND 100,000/session each).
Free services such as free regular workshops about tips in CV writing, guides in interview, and limitedresult personality test, and numerous coupons help generate customer actions.
People are Orient Star’s greatest competitive edge. Foreign high-qualified career counselors are to be recruited. Talent retention is done by high employee benefits. The main talent attractions are high salary, equity share program, extensive training, advanced performance measurement system, open communication, cooperative culture, and a sense of self-actualization to help empower Vietnamese young generation.
The business needs VND 360 million of cash in the first 3 months (200 million from bank loans and 160 millions from sponsorship), VND 100 and 20 million respectively in the next 2 quarters. Those loans and sponsorship are to be repaid completely in year 2, with payback period and time to positive cash flow are respectively 2 years and 9 months. IRR and NPV (required rate of return 20%, compound monthly) are respectively 107% and VND 1.48 billion after 3 years. Profit is negative in the first 4 quarters due to high fixed cost, but then significantly increases due to high contribution margin (no identified variable cost). 4-quarter profits for the period ending Sep 2011, 2012, 2013 are VND -400 million, 560 million, and 2.4 billion respectively. ROA and ROE are respectively 88.85% and 93.67% in year 3.
The management team includes Chu Bao Ngoc, Nguyen Thi Huong Lan, Huynh Quoc Huy, and Nguyen
Anh Hao. All are scholarships holders at RMIT University, have GPA above 3.5, and actively involve in mangement positions in various clubs at RMIT Vietnam. Their strongest fields are human relations, marketing, finance, and management accounting and computerized aid systems, respectively. They are young, energetic, and cooperative team mates with the same passion for entrepreneurial challenges.
Besides, Orient Stars honorably has Mr. James Cooper (MBA), Mr Melvin Fernando (M.Com), Ms Linh
Nguyen and Ms Phoenix Ho (Course Coordinator and Career Counselor of Career Development in RMIT
Vietnam, respectively) as our mentors. These mentors with extensive experience in career counseling finance, entrepreneurship, marketing and accounting will specifically and effectively fill the skill gap of the management team.
Page 1 of 30

1.
The industry
1.1.
Industry overview
1.2.
The company …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………4
1.2.1.
Vision, Missions and Objectives……………………………………………………………4
1.2.2.
Service description ………………………………………………………………………………4
1.2.3.
Competitive edge …………………………………………………………………………………4
1.3.
Entry and growth strategy………………………………………………………………………………………………5
2.
Market research and analysis……………………………………………………………………………………………………………5
2.1.
Consumers’ insights……………………………………………………………………………………………………….5
2.2.
Competitive landscape…………………………………………………………………………………………………..6
2.2.1.
Market size……………………………………………………………………………………………6
2.2.2.
Competitors and their competitive edge……………………………………………….7
2.3.
Segmentation and targeting…………………………………………………………………………………………..7
3.
Marketing plan………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….8
3.1.
Pricing strategy………………………………………………………………………………………………………………8
3.2.
Integrated Marketing Communication strategy…………………………………………………………..…9
3.3.
Location strategy………………………………………………………………………………………………………….12
4.
Business Operation………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….12
4.1.
Process description………………………………………………………………………………………………………12
4.2.
HR strategy………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…14
5.
Implementation schedule…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…15
6.
Management summary………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 17
6.1.
Founders……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..17
6.2.
Mentors, Advisors & Skills gap…………………………………………………………………………………..…19
7.
Critical risks, problems and assumptions…………………………………………………………………………………………19
8.
Legal issues…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…20
8.1.
Legal………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…20
8.2.
IT…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……21
9.
Financial plan………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………22
9.1.
Income statement Statements………………………………………………………………………………….…22
9.2.
Cash Flow Statements…………………………………………………………………………………………….……23
9.3.
Balance sheet………………………………………………………………………………………………………………24
9.4.
Business ratios…………………………………………………………………………………………………….………25
9.5.
Fund raising…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………28
10.
References……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………28
11.
Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..29
Page 2 of 30

1.
The industry
1.1.
Industry overview: the business opportunity
For the most part, Vietnamese educational system remains underdeveloped that cannot keep pace with
Vietnam labor market’s needs and expectation. According to Euro Monitor (2007), 50.6% of Japanese companies in Vietnam cannot find suitably qualified engineers and 59% of them cannot find middle managers from the local labor market. One of the rooted reasons is the underestimation of career orientation for students from the early stage. In fact, over 50% of senior undergrads feel uncertain when being asked about their future career pathway in a survey conducted by Ministry of Education and
Training survey, Jan 2008 (Dantri.com.vn, 2009).
For high school students, there’s a misleading perception that university entrance is nearly the only way to develop a career. In the meanwhile, Vietnamese universities’ system with limited capacity only allows
20% of high school students to enter the tertiary level. Therefore, the remaining 80% high school students may have a strong demand for career orientation. Even for the large part of undergraduates who succeed to enter colleges, found their choice of major incorrect. According to Truc (Truc 2008), only
58.6% chose the career relating to their interests and capability. The remained 41.4% of freshmen probably have chosen their major due to their parents’ influence, lack of information or based on their ability to meet the University entrance requirements. As a result, a potential large number of 80% high school students as well as 41.4% uncertain junior undergrads need career orientation and development.
20%
30%
Have an approriate job
Have an inapproriate job
Is difficult to find a job
50%
Figure 1: Fresh graduates with job status – Source: “The Labor” Online news 2006
Overall, 70% have difficulties in finding the right job. The general cause again originated from the underestimation of career planning during college years, thus missing numerous opportunities for career development later. The head of Vietnamese educational system has not taken much action towards this which resulted in “more than 40% candidates chose inappropriate jobs” in 2008
(Vietbao,2008). There are only small student’s union instead of career center in each university that provides unmatched part-time jobs, disclose the big gap in meeting the high demand of career development for college students. This demand becomes even much higher now when Vietnamese labor market is expanding tremendously to keep up with the extensive foreign investment.
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1.2.
The company
1.2.1. Vision, Mission & Objectives
Vision: We aim to develop the youth especially the underprivileged of local provinces nearby Mekong
Delta to uncover their talents and provide career opportunities by connecting them to the right recruiters, offer social benefits in the long term. At the same time, we will continue to develop the career center in HCMC to sustain the capital for above investment as well as expanding the network.
Mission: To become a professional career development center in Ho Chi Minh City within the next 3 years, matching the right people to the right professions, providing opportunities to the young people and thus enhancing the welfare of the society.
Company’s objectives for 3 year period:

Appear in the top of mind of students for career counseling in Ho Chi Minh City by the end of 2013.

Achieve break-even after 1 year.

Making 2 billion VND after tax profit at the end of 2013 to prepare for Mekong Delta investment in
2014
1.2.2.
Service description (Main service and additional services)
+Main service:
Our core services include: online personality tests with very detailed results, direct career consultation via phone or face-to-face, resume and cover letter writing/editing, mock interview with our counselors, and salary negotiation.
To pull customers to our services, some free services include free tips and guides for career orientation, resume writing tips and samples, and free personality tests with online limited results.
The core benefit that customers will obtain is the feedback and advice. Feedback is for their resume and interviewing style and how real-life employers will think about them; advice is to help applicants make a difference from multitudinous 230,000 job seekers and make a good impression to potential employers.
Also, the job matching at the end is very important as the customers would be easy to measure the outcome of Orient Star by getting the right job.
+ Additional service:
Regular free workshops about how to write good resume, tips on job interview or guidance in workplace professional behaviors would attract lots of students to come to our center for later direct marketing.
1.2.3.
Competitive edge
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The market for career counseling service in Vietnam is growing and competition is increasing. Orient
Star intends to differentiate itself through the perception of integrity, professionalism, care and credibility.
Firstly, Orient Star takes priority over “the quality of the staff”, which means Orient Star’s staff must be qualified and experienced in career counseling field. Most of Vietnamese companies deliberately overlook this point with a view to reducing the cost. In contrast, Orient Star always bears in mind that, for a service business, the staff is an integral part to success. So, it has spent a large number of money
(35% of total budget in the first year) to develop people into professionals.
Besides the qualification and capability, “the quality of the staff” also consists in their passion and zeal.
Orient Star’s principle is to develop the young by helping them to discover themselves, hence its people are often encouraged to devote to supporting the young generation with their hearts. In doing so, they can provide the best service with attentiveness and enthusiasm. They can follow the customers from the very start till they can get the job and even after that. The customers who enjoy good service from
Orient Star can come back or generate good buzz.
Last but not least, Orient Star, from the start, conceives that most of the customers have a strong desire to get not just a job but an ‘appropriate and satisfactory’ job. Our survey reveals that 66% target audience and 88% parents pay attention to the effectiveness and reliability of the service, which they cannot find in profit-driven companies. Therefore, Orient Star will try to bring the ‘real’ benefits to the customers by working on the principle that “Action speaks louder than words”. Orient Star will not promise much but make the customers satisfied by its performance.
1.3.
Entry and growth strategy
The barrier to entry is medium because the estimated start-up cost for a career counseling center is around 360 million VND, which is not very high, but the difficulties in finding the competent people for counseling service would impede the market entry. The initial actions to find post the job offer in Linked in, Vietnamworks.com, mainly attract ones with HR background or students counseling service.
Moreover, in RMIT Vietnam, there’s a career center in which the professionals/counselors have wide network with various HR persons and counselors in Vietnam. It could be considered as an advantage over our few direct competitors.
Our growth strategy mainly focuses on growing into a social enterprise by offering the opportunities for developing the youth so that they can add values back to the society. As stated in the vision, after year
3, the fund will be for developing the youth in Mekong delta and give them opportunities to grow with their talents, eventually making a positive impact on the Vietnamese economy.
2.
Market research and analysis
2.1.
Consumers’ insights
Through conducting 40 interviews and surveys, there are some findings about the consumers’ insights from 10 customers (parents) and 30 consumers (students).
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The target audience of Orient Star is both the university students and those who graduate already.
Many of the students have not come to any career counseling service before for reasons such as they are still studying and have no demands or they are not aware of any good service. However, almost all of the target audience interviewed (91%) support this service because they think it will be very helpful for them to find and get a job. Furthermore, they confess being in desperate need of soft and practical skills from these services.
Most of the target audience judge a career counseling company based on its reputation, reliability and the effectiveness in gaining the satisfactory job. Another point is that the customers are young, modern and updated, thus they require the service to be professional and the staff to be experienced and attentive with good customer care.
Moreover, the student audience does not care much about job provider, rather they highly value supplementary services such as career orientation, interviewing skills or CV editing while the result is vice versa to the new graduates. Probably this audience group graduates already and what they need is an immediate job and how to get that job, namely job provider.
Most of the 91% supporters think that the reasonable price for packaged services is around 200,000
VND. 31% of them are really willing to take the services while 58% say that they will consider about that.
Recommendations:
+ 91% supporters of career service are the potential and productive market for Orient Star. Orient Star seems to go on the right track for focusing on providing consultancy, orientation and soft skills, which has been proved to match the strong demand of the customers. To satisfy the hard-to-please customers,
Orient Star should have its office well-equipped and hire professional and qualified counseling experts.
Besides, Orient Star also ought to invest in marketing communication activities to build up its image and reputation to win customers’ trust.
The full price should be affordable and acceptable of around 200,000 VND and adjusting it more reasonably to each service.
2.2.
Competitive landscape
2.2.1
Market size (students, adults from 19-25)
Our interviews of 10 parents and surveys of 30 students reveal that high-school students are not in need of our services because the age of 18 is considered too early to find a job; instead their viewpoint is focusing on studying to achieve high results and subsequently find a good job after graduation. On the contrary, the penultimate and ultimate year college and university students in Vietnam provide very positive response to our services. For example, a lot of students even said “This is a critical time in my life so I am willing to pay any amount to find a good job that can suit me best”.
These target students’ age range from around 20 to 22 years old. Furthermore, most of the graduates cannot find a suitable job that can satisfy their desire so they keep on changing jobs until they reach 24
Page 6 of 30

when they have normally settled down their final job or at least have a high degree of commitment.
Thus, our market size expands to this section also.
To conclude, our market size includes penultimate and ultimate college/university students and new graduates Vietnamese. Their associated age group is therefore from 20 to 24. According to the statistics from General office for population family planning (2010), the population is projected to stand at
8,795,000 in this age group in 2015, which is one of the age group that occupies most of the Vietnamese population and thus a very promising market for our business.
2.2.2
Competitors and their competitive edge
There are 2 types of competitors facing our business including online websites for job-seeking and some
(but not many in the current situation) career units at some colleges/universities.
For online websites, they provide online information for job-seekers, including vietnamworks.com, careerlink.vn, timviecnhanh.com, sieuthitimviec.com and kiemviec.com, jobvn.com, vinacareers.com,
jobsvietnam.com.vn. Their competitive edge is that the information is updated regularly by their wide network of staff looking for recruitment information from various companies and organizations. Another competitive edge is that it is very quick and convenient for job-seekers who only have to log onto their websites and search for job information. However, these websites do not offer so many services as our business including career orientation, writing resume tutorial and providing mock interview.
As for career units at college and universities, these organizations also provide information for their own students. The competitive edge is quite obvious since the students can access to the information right at their schools. However, the staffs working in these units, as researched by our team, are not very proactive and their job information is either not timely or not quite attractive to the students. Students prefer to search outside school for better and timelier job information.
2.3
Segmentation of the target audience a/ Primary target audience
Page 7 of 30

Basically, the primary customers of Orient Star, also the end-users, are divided into two smaller groups, university/college students and new graduates.
Geographic
Group 1
Country Vietnam
Country region - Density Ho Chi Minh City – Urban areas
Demographic
Gender
Family life cycle
Age
Occupation
Group 2
Both male and female
Young and single, possibly live with family or live in the university dormitories
20-22
University and college students
22-25
Fresh graduates, white-collar workers but are not sure about their work and wish to switch.
Psychographic
Lifestyle
Personality
Active and busy with their study or work. Because they are all welleducated, they prefer professional career counseling centers with good customer care service.
The target audiences are young, modern and up-dated, hence open-minded and willing to adopt the new service which focuses on soft skills (discover themselves, interviewing skill and write CV) like Orient Star.
Behavioral
Benefits
Loyalty status b/ Secondary target audience
The customers come to Orient Star are in need of career orientation, editing
CV, interviewing skills and job provider
The target audience will be loyal to the services which are truly professional, enthusiastic and effective
For the target audience who is still mostly financially dependent on their parents, especially students of
Group 1, parents play as an impetus factor in encouraging their children to go to the career service.
Parents: Their income is generally around 4-6 million monthly per capita. Most of them can afford the recommended fee of Orient Star’s service, which is not high. Moreover, according to our survey, 80% of parents are willing to pay for the service as long as their children can take their desirable job. One of them attributed it as the last ladder to lead their children to success.
3 Marketing plan
3.1.
Pricing strategy
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Our team’s interviews 10 parents and 30 students reveal that career counseling services, though not completely new, are not very common in the mind of the Vietnamese public. However, the findings also indicates that 91% of the interviewees do find our services useful and they recommend the fees ranging from 50,000 VND to 70,000VND for each counseling service including career counseling, resume tutorial, mock interview, and job matching.
So Orient Star Pty Ltd will employ value-based pricing (Vanderbeck, EJ 2005). A newly-established company with unpopular services like us needs to first raise awareness of the services so that people become appreciative of the services and gradually increase the usage of them. This, of course, can be done through marketing, advertising and communications but pricing also plays a vital role since few people are willing to pay a premium price to an uncommon service. Thus, value-based pricing strategy is best in our case, which is also in alignment with our mission of enhancing the social welfare by matching the right people to the right professions at an affordable price.
Our projected pricing for the services are as follows (in VND with the exchange rate 19,000 VND/ USD):
Service Name
Career Orientation + Job matching
Year 1
100,000
Year 2
120,000
Year 3
144,000
Resume Tutorial
Mock Interview
50,000
50,000
60,000
60,000
72,000
72,000
Each year, each service price is increased by 20% due to the combined effects of projected inflation rate in Vietnam and penetration pricing strategy.
Career Orientation and Job matching are offered as one service insofar as career orientation is a very good basis for job matching and good job matching needs proper career orientation first.
3.2.
Integrated Marketing Communication strategy
These advertising and promotion activities are prepared from 10 September in order to be implemented from 20 September 2010 before the launch day of Orient Star, 1 October 2010. The plan is for 3 years period till 2013. The marketing strategy also attempts to communicate the message of developing people, help consumers uncover their interests and strengths, thereby develop a right career pathway.
The communication target audiences are not only the consumers (students and graduates) but also their parents and the clients.
 Objectives
By the end of year 3, Orient Star aims to achieve these objectives:

To reach 80% of the target audience

To build up 70% brand awareness of the target audience of Orient Star as a career counseling service.
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
To get 40% of target audience to perceive Orient Star as a service for developing people help them to discover themselves and find the right job.
1.
Advertising
1.1
Out of home advertising:
The banners will be placed nearby the location of Orient Star centre two weeks before its launch day. From the location strategy, these banners will reach the target audience at the surrounding universities and bookstores. Besides, the banners can also put in other universities and Education and Youth organizations in HCMC. The prominent advantages of banners are location specific and low cost.
1.2 Internet advertising
According to Internet World Stats (2010), the Vietnamese user growth percentage has rocketed by
12,034% from 200,000 users in 2000 to reach 24,269,083 users in 2010.
Therefore, Internet is a significant and effective means for Orient Star to approach its target audience, particularly through online service on its own website. This opens up an interactive communication of Orient Star-the clients, Orient Star-customers (primary and secondary-parents) and clients-customers.
1.2.1 Online newspapers
Orient Star will place advertising banners on Dan tri http://dantri.com.vn/, which is a very popular online education newspaper with the target audience of Orient Star. The banners will be set in education column instead of the homepage for specialized content and considerably reducing the cost.
1.2.2 Orient Star’s website
Orient Star starts drafting on its own website “OrientStarJob.com.vn” since 10 September. Orient
Star provides its service through both at office and online (online personality test, resume editing).
Besides, website with information about Orient Star’s activities is probably the most efficient way for the company to interact and communicate with its (students, graduates and parents) and clients.
It serves as a “virtual office” of the company so that they can keep contact with us distantly.
1.2.3 Education forums:
University forums attract students to share information, knowledge and experience. There are often columns of job support. Orient Star plans to hire “seasonal workers”, to join these forums and provide the information in order to generate buzz about Orient Star’s service. University students will be hired in accordance with their universities (one student/university). These forums are among the most popular and have attracted many students.
Page 10 of 30

Forum of University of Economics HCMC http://forum.ueh.vn/ (102,807 members)
Forum of Foreign Trade University HCMC http://www.ftu2.com/forum/ (10,355 members)
Forum of University of Technology HCMC http://www.daotao.hcmut.edu.vn:8080/Forum/ (47,904 members)
For both graduates and students, forums of education and youth clubs will be helpful.
For example, the website of “Encouraging talents club”: http://khuyentaiclub.net/4rum/
2.
Public relations (PR)
PR is another tool to convey the message of developing the young generation by helping them to recognize and discover themselves in the process of finding job.
2.1
Job Fair:
Job fair is almost the best place for Orient Star to build up and widen networking relationships with clients. Annually, there will be a job fair organized by businesses and education centers of HCMC.
This year it takes place on 15 October 2010. Orient Star will register to join in this fair where it can meet the fresh graduates audience. During the event, catalogs, leaflets and fliers are delivered.
Lucky draw is applied, not just to stimulate the excitement but primarily to collect the contact information of the target audience for maintaining relationships and direct marketing later on.
2.2
Workshops at universities
Orient Star will work with some universities in HCMC to organize free workshops and presentations
(by foreign counselors) about career orientation or soft skills. The workshops are expected to arouse students’ interest and excitement by the three values, the topic of students’ concern, foreign counselors (credentials) and it is free. At the end of the workshops, the addresses of Orient Star’ office and website are introduced so that the student can contact to get more information if they are really interested in our service.
Similar to Job Fair, lucky draw will work for getting the information of the customers.
3.
Direct marketing and sales promotion
Seasonal students of Orient Star are responsible for sending direct mails to the target audience based on the contact information collected through Job Fair and Workshops at universities.
Moreover, the information about the customers who sign in Orient Star’s website as a member is also recorded. The objectives of emails are to keep reminding customers of our service and update
the company’s activities.
In-bound toll free number service is essential and convenient as the customer service to give the immediate and in-depth response to the customers’ questions.
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For sales promotion, online coupons are sent to customers who use Orient Star’s online service. The coupon will be 10% discount for the next usage of Orient Star’s online service. This method encourages and motivates the current online-service users to continue using the service.
Scheduling
Orient Star comes into operation in October, thus heavy advertising will occur at the beginning of
September to December to raise customers’ awareness about Orient Star new business.
Pulsing strategy is applied with heavy advertising between April and August when many Vietnamese students graduate and start finding job. April to August can be deemed as the season for career counseling service in Vietnam.
Budget for 3 years
OOH advertising:
Dan Tri online newspapers
Job Fair- catalogue, flier, leaflet
30,000,000 VND
180,000,000 VND
30,000,000 VND
Workshops at universities 30,000,000 VND
Total
3.3. Location strategy
270,000,000 VND
As researched and examined by our team , the best location for career counseling services is on Nguyen
Van Cu street near Nguyen Van Cu bookstore.
The first reason is that there are many schools located in this street including Le Hong Phong high school for the gifted, University of Natural Sciences, University of Education and it is next to one of the biggest and reputable bookstores in HCMC. Besides, this street is located at the borderline of district 1 and 5 which are the 2 most crowded and commercialized areas in HCMC with the current population of
204.899
people (District 1 2010) and 191.700 people (District 5 2010) respectively, which is very likely to catch the attention of the customers. Last but not lease, it is a wide 2-way street so it is very easy and convenient for everyone to access.
4.
Business Operation
4.1
Process description
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Online sale
1.
Client goes to “Our service” section
2.
Client chooses from alternatives (online personality test, downloadable test, …)
3.
Client create user account
4.
Client enters information (name, age, gender, university…)
5.
The system records the information into database
6.
Client chooses payment method
7.
Client makes payment
8.
Client downloads documents or perform the online test
9.
Client logs out
10.
An email is sent to client 1 day later to inform of test result availability
11.
Client logs in
12.
Client downloads result
13.
A thank-you email is sent to client with a coupon for further online and office conselling.
UC 2 – Office sale (See appendix for more information)
Career counseling process
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Personality test,
IQ, EQ test,
Strength finder test results
Discuss with
Professional counselor
Summarize the consumers’ profile, values and beliefs, academic capabilities, interests.
Identify distinct psychologies and capabilities of consumers
Get the test results and receive the advice from professional
Conclusions from
Professional
Database about jobs, personalities to fit with the job and the required skills
Blue : end-users’ roles
4.2
HR strategy
Red : backstage operation
Our HR objective is promoting personal growth while enjoying great pride in developing young generation with the counseling team, making an impact on the society. To achieve the objective, there are certain HR activities which are suggested by our mentors and adapted from HRM Guide (2006),
Insala (2007) and Smith (2010) to embed the organizational values to our people, the valuable assets.
Strategy HR activities Values embedded Budget/year
Personorganizational fit rather than person-job fit.
-Recruit the candidates who fit the organization’s culture rather than recruiting solely on the basis of skills that fit a particular job.
- Run employees’ orientation program to share vision, guidance to help new ones build professional skills quickly.
- Treasure passionate people.
- Social benefits first and business credibility and success come after.
- Caring about people
90mil VND
Involved parties
- HR manager
- HR Agency
(Vietnamworks,
Navigos group)
- Finance
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Use selfmanagement rather controlling management strategy a
-Training about the professions – psychological in counseling; understanding the culture, customers and their impact on the society.
-Encourage flexible working schedule, but still meeting business and departmental needs. This helps improve employees’ self-management ability.
-Develop reliable evaluative systems for employees to self evaluate combined with coach’s feedbacks for career development.
-Learn together, grow together  continuous improvement innovation. with
-Open-minded through coaching (the mentor accept new ideas from the youth, and sharing experience with them)
-Flexibility.
50 mil VND
Improve employees’ satisfaction huge potential benefits**
-Reduce stress by clear job roles and responsibilities.
- Ensuring frequent and honest communication is very important clarify what oneself and others’ are doing. This would build trust fast for effective collaboration within organization. This also helps people involve sharing views, satisfying one’s ego.
- Professionalism
- Honesty and clarity
-Caring people, which triggers mutual care and care for the customers.
-
- Whole company esp. the counseling teams.
-Some agency. training
Whole company
Implement
Legal employment practice
- Consult a legal specialist or an HR professional when drafting an employee handbook.
- Maintain employee database within in the company for payroll and easy tracking.
-Recognize great achievements to reinforce good behaviors.
- Professionalism
-Clarity
- Growing organization.
50,000,000VND HR team.
**The benefits of employee’s satisfaction include increased productivity, improved morale and sense of organizational commitment, enhanced motivation and desire to advance within the company, and decrease turnover rates.
1.
Implementation schedule
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2.9
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.6
4.1
4.2
4.3
Task
ID
1.5
2.1
2.2
2.3
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
3.5
4.4
Task name
Write a business plan
Consult the business plan with mentor
Revise and finalize business plan
Raise funds from banks
Raise funds from investors and sponsors
Negotiate the office location and sign contract
Acquire business license permit and tax code
Contact providers of office supplies, computers, IT solutions, and website
Contact potential counselors with the help of mentors, negotiate and sign labor contract
Hire staffs, accountants, guards, IT staffs…
Register Vietnamese and foreigner staffs to local government and labor agencies
Deploy and test the website, and prepare for the initial marketing campaign
Contact companies and build affiliation (1)
Launch the marketing campaign
Prepare and organize inauguration ceremony
Prepare legal issues for equity share program
Prepare legal issues for deferral of income tax and establishment of worker union
Prepare copyright legal issues for customs clearance to facilitate buying MBTI tests
Prepare financing plan to raise additional funds
Welcome the first clients
Contact companies and build affiliations (2)
Discussion with staffs and counselors for their feedbacks on how to run a career center
Revise the business plan for long-term growth
Ngoc, Lan,
Huy
Lan, Huy
Huy
Hao, Lan,
Ngoc
2.3
Hao, Huy 2.7
Ngoc, Lan 1.3-2.7
Ngoc, Lan 2.1-2.8
Hao 1.3
Hao 2.2
Hao
Huy
All team
2.1-3.5
3.2-3.5
Ngoc, Lan 3.2-4.1
All team 4.1
All team
1.3-1.5
2.2, 2.4
Resource Prerequisite
All team
All team
All team
Ngoc
Huy
Lan
Huy
Hao
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.3
1.4-1.5
2.1
1.4-1.5
1.4-1.5
2.4-2.5
3.3-4.3
July August September October November
10 20
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5.
Management summary
5.1
Founders
The four founder members are scholarship holders of RMIT International University Vietnam and have an excellent academic performance with a high GPA.
Besides, they are also full of energy for extra-curricular activities by joining and leading many university activities. Especially they soon reveal great interests in supporting students. They all are members of the
RMIT Vietnam Commerce Student-staff Consultative Committee, which works as the representative of
RMIT students to get their opinions and ideas heard by the staff (lecturers and administrators). They also play as Student Learning Advice Mentors for supporting the students who have difficulties in some particular courses.
Chu Bao Ngoc: Marketing Manager
Education Background: Now at the age of 21, she has just been completed her Bachelor of Commerce degree which has improved her proficiency in studying, researching and innovating in business field of study. As a consequence of her academic excellence, she has been invited to become a member of the
Golden Key International Honor Society since 2009.
Extra-curricular activities and Social activities commitment: Joining RMIT Business Club and
Environment Club in various leadership positions helped develop her self-managed skills and strengthen her passion to make a positive impact on the social community by organizing successful events, Earth
Day and Swapping Day 2009. With a flair for marketing and inspiring innovative ideas, she recently led her team to win second prize in Marketing Competition by Clinique Ltd and RMIT Vietnam Business
Club. All provide a very good evidence of her activeness, enthusiasm and passion to create a change. Her originated business idea about developing the youth has led her to career counseling business and the commitment to accomplish growth and success with her team.
Huynh Quoc Huy: Accounting and Finance Manager
Education Background: A 20-year-old Chinese Vietnamese young man who can speak Cantonese,
Vietnamese and English languages fluently. His outstanding academic performance was demonstrated right at the time he was at high-school when he received the prestigious Lawrence S.Ting Community
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Scholarship and Odon Vallet Scholarship for outstanding academic results. Besides, he displays a flair in studying English language since he is the holder of many international English language qualifications such as Michigan University ECPE and IELTS 8.0, to name a few.
Extra-curricular activities and Social activities commitment: He has been working as the President and
Chairman of the RMIT Vietnam International Club since early 2009 where he organized many soft-skill development workshops, charity activities and holding huge recreational or social events. All these gradually build up his organizing, managing and strategic planning proficiency as well as enhancing his wide network of social friends and business relations. He was able to raise funds & sponsorship for charity, recreational, social and business events very well which indicates his competence in capturing opportunities with the right negotiation expertise. He is particularly interested in executing financial plans and did succeed to manage big financial budget for his club’s operation including those projects worth more than 150 million VND.
All confirm his enthusiasm, activeness and willingness to try new things typical of a businessman. Thus, he is undoubtedly the right person that can contribute to the overall success of the Orient Star Pty Ltd.
Nguyen Anh Hao: Accounting and Finance Manager
Education Background: After 4 semesters pursing his Bachelor of Commerce degree, his GPA is amongst the highest at RMIT University Vietnam. His passion is to excel in Finance and accounting discipline and so his specialist stream is Accountancy.
Extra-curricular activities and Social activities commitment:, he joined in Sports Clubs and is also an energetic and helpful member of the RMIT Vietnam International Club where he works in accounting & finance team which was able to manage and handle big financial plans worth more than 150 million VND as a student. Overall, Hao is a conscious young man who is very entrepreneurial with the right degree of enthusiasm and accountability so he is quite suited to the nature and operations of our Orient Star Ltd.
Nguyen Thi Huong Lan: Human Resource Manager
Education Background: She has been pursuing her Bachelor of Communications (Professional
Communications) degree for the last 4 semesters and has shown a great interest and craze for advertising and Public relations field.
Extra-curricular activities and Social activities commitment:
She has devoted enthusiastically to volunteering activities such as Orientation Day of RMIT University and Terry Fox Charity Run. She also joins the HCMC’s Study Encouraging Organization as the community of students in most of the universities in HCMC, which has earned her useful real experiences with
Vietnamese students when later working at Orient Start.
Her working experiences as a tutor for Vietnamese senior and international school’s students help her to soon recognize the shortcomings of Vietnamese educational system and motivate her to contribute to career counseling service and work harder for the future of Vietnamese young generation.
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Mentors and other advisors
James Cooper
Mr. James Cooper is the holder of a MBA degree in Business. He has had many years of experience working in Optical industry. Currently, he is an Entrepreneurship lecturer at RMIT University Vietnam.
He is helpful, enthusiastic with a high degree of commitment and professionalism. In fact, he has been a mentor for our team from the very moment we entered this competition and now remains helpful for our team’s overall business concepts developing, planning and effective administration.
Melvin Fernando
Mr. Melvin Fernando is the holder of BBA and M.Com degrees. He started off in the field of marketing at the age of 17, and went on to become the Manager of multiplex cinema in Malaysia (GSC). He then joined a Japanese multinational (JVC) in which he experienced the operations of a plant that produces electronic goods. He is now a Senior Lecturer at RMIT University and has been teaching several marketing courses for the past 2 years.
Linh Nguyen
Linh Nguyen is Course Coordinator Career Development, Work Careers and Lifelong Learning at RMIT
International University Vietnam from 2005 – present, who has very clear big picture how a career development center processes. Thus she gave us many attentive pieces of advice on starting up a career counseling center.
Phoenix Ho
Over five years of experience in the field of education and counseling. Skills include career counseling, career workshop facilitation, curriculum development, MBA lecturing, parenting workshop facilitation, community radio show hosting, substance abuse prevention, data collection and analysis, interviewing and writing, theatre art performing, classroom management, and many others. Recognized by colleagues and clients as effective team player, servant leader, passionate counselor, and community change agent. She is now career counselor at RMIT International University Vietnam from March 2009present. Her specialties include Career Counseling; College Course Lecturing (MBA and undergraduate);
Workshop Facilitating; Radio Show Hosting; Family Workshop Teaching
Skills Gap:
The biggest challenge in conducting our business plan falls mostly into financial strategies since this is a critical part of a successful business. Our mentor with Master degrees will certainly be helpful for us but our team also tries the best to learn and grow to ultimately fill the gap rather than purely relying on the mentors for bridging the gap for our team.
7.
Critical risks, problems and assumptions
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It is difficult for clients to gauge whether Orient Star’s quality is high or not. The ultimate measurement is their admission to their desired company, which depends on many other contingencies than Orient
Star’s advice. Since this service is unprecedented in Vietnam, people’s perception does not grasp these inherent contingencies. From the surveys and interviews, clients are willing to go to Orient Star if it can
ensure some significant degree of job admission. Once a client fails one or several companies, he may claim back the money, sue Orient Star, or bad-mouth the company’s service. In an attempt to prevent these risks, we offer physical evidence such as stamping on the consulting documents and revised resume to demonstrate that Orient Star does care about every customer and put effort into helping them to gain the job.
Orient Star is established in the fact that current career advisories in Vietnam are not good and the assumption that it will not be improved significantly at least in the next 5 years, both by government agencies and by universities. If the free service provided by the government and universities greatly improves in less than 5 years, Orient Star will not have enough time to establish enough reputation to compete.
Hiring enough well-qualified counselors is a big problem. Many Vietnamese counselors lack formal education on the subject, and many have worked for years in local schools, universities, and HR companies, which is difficult to recruit them. There are many talented career counselors from abroad, but attracting them to live and work in Vietnam is difficult. High salary, equity share, and culture learning opportunities are good attraction points, but obviously Orient Star’s bargaining power is relatively low.
A large portion of the population may oppose the idea of charged career orientation service. Free services have dominated for too long that so many people have considered it a kind of public good and demanded the government to deliver it freely and in an effective manner. However, if Orient Star can deliver strikingly better service, then the opposition probably recedes very quickly, just as the cases of private hospitals and universities 10 years ago.
8.
Legal issues
8.1
Legal
Orient Star will be established as a Joint stock company. The management board will possess equal shares with voting priority (priority will expire in 3 years, article 78 Enterprise Law). Therefore, Orient
Star can pay a portion of salary to counselors in terms of shares and can do equity financing. The setting up procedure will be done pursuant to Enterprise Law.
There will be at least 1 to 2 counselors from abroad, who must register to Ministry of Labor-Invalids &
Social Affairs (article 133 Labor Law). When they stay in Vietnam, they must also register to local government in pursuant to Immigration Law. Labor contract with counselors is to be formed pursuant to
Chapter 4, The Labor Code. It does not specifically dictate a term on restraint of trade, so signing and enforcing each term rely on the negotiation between Orient Star and counselors.
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When the counselors bring tests, books, and other documents with them, or purchase them from abroad shipping to VN, they must register to Vietnam clients and take appropriate procedures (circular
58/2003/TTLT-BVHTT-BTC). The after passing Vietnam customs, the use of the tests and documents for business purpose in the land of Vietnam is not specifically dictated in section 6 of Civil Law.
8.2
IT
A centralized information system is to be installed with the following requirements
1.
Recording of clients’ information and delimiting online and offline clients
2.
Recording of counselors’ information
3.
Matching clients’ preference to a suitable conselor
4.
Allowing counselors to store their own experience and findings after each counseling session
5.
Allowing counselors to deliberately share any portion of their own experience into a common experience base, accessible to all counselors using intranet
6.
Disallowing all counselors and even IT staff to see the experience stored in any conselor’s own account that he does not want to get public
7.
Delimiting and analyzing sale trend based on any factor on demand, such as time, gender, age group, channel (online/offline), university, interest …
A website is to be implemented with the following requirements
1.
Satisfying all 10 Nielsen’s usability heuristics
2.
Linking to major universities, career centers, and HR companies
3.
Appearing in the first 3 pages on Google search result
4.
Registering to some major SSL Certification Issuer to ensure safety
5.
Allowing online purchase and payment via Paypal, Credit card or Master card
6.
Recording client information and associated purchase into the centralized information system
7.
Linking with a page on Facebook, Zing, and Yahoo 360 plus and other social network
8.
Recording online visitor trend and analyzing it based on any factor on demand, such as time, previous page, Googe search keyword…
A computerized accounting system will be installed once the company gets bigger, after doing the cost/benefit analysis. Actual requirements will be dictated by the company accountants and the management team.
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9. Financial plan
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Key Assumptions:
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Page 27 of 30

9.5.
Fund raising
Bank loans, sponsorships, and contributions from owners are main funding sources. In Oct 2010, Orient Star is expected to raise VND 100 million, 60 million, and 40 million respectively. In the next 6 months, bank loan and sponsorship are expected to rise to VND 250 million each. In the next year, additional bank loan needed is VND 30 million, then both sponsorship and bank loans are gradually repaid. From the beginning of year 3, the projected balance of both is nil.
10.
References:
Anh, D 2010, ‘Choose career matching interests’, Hieuhoc, viewed 21 July 2010, <http://www.hieuhoc.com/huongnghiep/chitiet/chon-nganh-nghetheo-so-thich-2010-06-15>.
Dantri, 2009, ‘Senior undergraduates are anxious about unemployment”, Dantri, viewed 23 July 2010, <http://dantri.com.vn/c25/s201-358764/sinhvien-nam-cuoi-so-that-nghiep.htm>
District 1 2010, ‘General information’, District1.Hochiminhcity.gov.vn, viewed 1 August 2010,
<http://www.quan1.hochiminhcity.gov.vn/portal/gioithieuquan1/thongtinchung/default.aspx>.
District 5 2010, ‘Geographic information’, District5.Hochiminhcity.gov.vn, viewed 1 August 2010,
<http://www.quan5.hochiminhcity.gov.vn/Office_Infor.asp?Cat=2>.
Euromonitor International 2007, “Skills shortages hinder Vietnam’s growth”, viewed, 22 July 2010, Global Market Insight Database, RMIT online library.
General office for population family planning 2010, Population prediction according to age group 2010-2015, GOPFP, viewed 1 August 2010,
<http://www.gopfp.gov.vn/web/khach/solieu>.
HRM Guide 2006, ‘Small benefit from effective employee management strategies’, Hrmguide.net, 31 August, viewed 21 July 2010,
<http://www.hrmguide.net/sme/hrm_sme.htm>.
Huynh, N 2006, ‘Wrong orientation – difficult to find job’, The Labor, viewed 25 July 2010, <http://nld.com.vn/145185P0C1051/chon-sai-nghe-khotim-viec.htm >
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Insala 2007, Employee engagement – A review of the most current research, Insala, viewed 20 July 2010, <http://www.insala.com/Articles/employeedevelopment/employee-engagement-a-review-of-the-most-current-research.asp>.
Internet World Stats 2010, ‘Internet usage in Asia’, Internet World Stats, viewed 29 July 2010, <http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm>.
Smith, PN 2010, ‘Top five HR priorities for small business owners’, Brighthub, 22 January, viewed 22 July 2010,
<http://www.brighthub.com/office/entrepreneurs/articles/59731.aspx>.
Truc, D 2008, ‘More than 40% candidates choose the inappropriate job’, Vietbao, viewed 26 July 2010, <http://vietbao.vn/Giao-duc/Hon-40-thi-sinhchon-nghe-khong-phu-hop/20771900/202/>.
Vanderbeck, EJ 2005, Principles of cost accounting, 13th edn, Thompson Corporation, Canada.
11.
Appendix 1
Details of Use Case 2
1.
Client arrives at office
2.
A welcome staff greets client and asks for his information (name, age, email, university…)
3.
Staff enters information into the computerized system and directs client to waiting room
4.
Computerized system records client information into database and assigns him to a suitable counselor
5.
Client waits in the waiting room, chatting with others, reading career development books, career magazines, sample tests, and even accessing the internet
6.
Client meets counselor in a private room
7.
Client discusses with counselor for 30 minutes
8.
After 30 minutes, client leaves the office
9.
Staff says good bye to client
10.
Conselor summarizes the discussion into his database
11.
Thank-you email and note are sent to client’s email and physical address
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Appendix 2:
HR’s Performance management model
Adapted from Simple Performance Management model of small business
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