Analytics | Process | Strategy | Innovation | by Tan Wei Xiang

Category: Management

  • I’m back! Update on the past 3 years.

    Hi there! It’s me, Wei Xiang again. It’s been a while since I last added a post here and many supporters have mentioned to me how much they missed my content.

    A Look Back on Past Favourites

    So much had happened over the past 4 years, including Google Analytics updating to GA4. Lost some old data back then, but thanks for the continued support especially on our top 3 posts below:

    The Past 3 Years

    After all that radio silence, you may have been curious what I’ve been up to for the past few years. Just some quick highlights, there’s lot’s to catch up over in future.

    In 2021, and into the first half of 2022, I took on a new portfolio at DFI retail group. Besides supplier partnerships, my analytics and program management initiatives extended to promotions and pricing, as well as managing the margin improvement programmes in the business.

    2022 I took a big leap, two big leaps in fact!

    I moved to a new job at William Grant & Sons as Sales Operations Manager, exposing me beyond analytics and program management to process improvement and operations management. It was so eye-opening to learn about the end to end workings of a beverage business.

    At the same time, I also embarked on my MSc in Management of Technology and Innovation specialising in digital strategy at National University of Singapore (NUS). It was refreshing to interact with both fresh graduates and adult learners, adding more perspectives to how I view my skillsets and career. There’s way too much to share but I’ll get an education review up again for my masters in future!

    Fast forward till today, I’ve left my job in William Grant & Sons and also completed my masters degree.

    A Brand New Journey

    While I embark on my journey to find my next big opportunity to impact through my various offerings like scale self-service analytics, process improvement and innovative business development, I’ll take this chance to revitalise this blog to keep the quality content flowing again.

    If you liked our post, do follow us on our LinkedIn, or our writer’s personal LinkedIn Account for more tips. 🙂

  • University Internship Search Guide (Tips from 3 MNC Experiences)

    University Internship Search Guide (Tips from 3 MNC Experiences)

    Hello everyone! It’s me again. I understood from a few of my NTU NBS juniors that first year students are now required to do a compulsory internship as part of their curriculum. I am sure many of the other universities will start to have this requirement in place, and even if there is none, I definitely encourage you to think of how you can make full use of your time.

    I did not have a year 1 Summer Internship unlike many of my peers so if you are reading this and did not manage to secure an internship in your first year, you are not alone! Here are some steps which you can take to find your internship.

    1. Have a Good Resume or Portfolio with Unique Value Proposition

    The first thing you need is your job hunt apparatus — your resume. I heard of many formats in the resume which may or may not work, but personally when I was looking for internships and my graduate job, I used the one page resume format. Some key parts to include is Education, Skills (Especially when you have no work experience), Work Experience, Projects, Co-curricular Leadership and Achievements.

    However, the key focus is not on the format, but how your resume tells a story. Personally, I took a Business Analytics and Entrepreneurship Undergraduate Degree with an intention to apply these skills in management. Having the technical skills on my resume without work experience helped me in getting my resume spotted by the hiring manager for a Regional Talent Management role at my first internship company, Schaeffler, a German MNC operating in the Automotive industry. As for my other internships, I believe that most of my interviewers also looked at my co-curricular leadership as well as achievements in making the holistic decision to shortlist my resume for interview. One way to do it is to focus on what is transferrable to the job. With a business analytics degree, I am well-positioned to join almost any business function of any sector since it is a very broad and general degree with the technical power to do wonders in many functions and sectors.

    If you need some reference, I recently ported most of my resume to my own portfolio site. If you need help refining your resume, do drop me a note in the comments section below or reach me through my LinkedIn! Do let me know you reached me through this blogpost!

    2. Prepare a Good Cover Letter Format

    In all honesty, when I found my first internship, I did not use a cover letter. However, I found out that after hunting for my subsequent internships and full time job, I had a higher rate of success whenever I included a cover letter in my applications. So please prepare a cover letter.

    Each cover letter should be in a specific format which the recruiter wants to see. It is not merely sharing about your value proposition, but about how your value proposition aligns with the job description provided by the employer.

    The general rule of thumb I have when writing a cover letter is to write it accordingly to the job description. This will do your recruiters a great favour when they comb through the many job applications for the particular role.

    Same as before if you need assistance, do drop me a note in the comments or LinkedIn!

    3. Utilise the resources you have in the Job Hunt

    For starters, here are some resources which you can use during your job hunt:

    A. Career Services Office(s) in your University

    In Singapore, most local universities have a dedicated career office. Some like NBS has an extra one in the school for dual job search prospects! These career offices have dedicated career coaches and advisors who can help you with your career planning as well as internship search. Do reach out to them early!

    The career services offices in my alma-mater also have exclusive job portals, CareerAxis and CareerFit for NTU and NBS respectively to help students with their internship and full-time positions.

    B. Job Portals

    To gain more possible avenues for internships and jobs, especially from the hiring freezes due to COVID-19, you could try job search portals too!

    I have previously consolidated a list of useful job portals which could be used over on my LinkedIn post!

    C. Professional and Personal Network

    Another way to find an internship is through professional and personal networks. You could create a LinkedIn profile to reach many professionals who would love to connect with students and might even offer a role!

    Some students have managed to secure internships through their professors, family members or friends.

    If you love this post so far and want to connect with me, here’s my LinkedIn Profile!

    4. Rehearse for Your Interviews

    Forget those memorised long model answers for all the possible questions. From my internship and job hunt experience, the key questions a recruiter wants to know are these:

    A. Is the candidate interested enough?

    This is through your research about the company, their key achievements, how you want to grow while taking up the internship roles. Do prepare some questions which show your interest in the industry as well as proper research about the company.

    B. Is the candidate able to do the job?

    This part looks at your past experiences, how these experiences could help you with the role you are applying for. You might want to try learning the STAR and CAR approaches to tackling these types of questions when they are posed.

    C. Does the candidate fit in?

    For this, just be yourself. Do not try to be someone you aren’t. Many recruiters and hiring managers can tell if you are faking it. Even if you made it through, personality and cultural mismatch may be a potential cause for a less than ideal experience. Therefore, be as genuine as you can! Basically, most questions which don’t fit the first two belong here! (E.g. What’s a superpower you want to have, what is your favourite hobby, etc.)

    5. Do Start Early

    There is a saying that the early bird catches the worm. This is also true when you search for an internship. Some companies love to confirm their head-counts earlier as internship hiring may be just a small part of what they need to do. Therefore, do start early!

    Hope that this helps with your internship hunt! Do let me know down in the comments below if you have other ways to hunt for an internship as well as you want to learn next!

    Hope you liked our story today. Do bookmark this site, leave a comment in the section below, and follow us on our LinkedIn page as we look forward to curating new content for you!

    Got your internship and want to make it a memorable experience? Here are some rules that I follow!

    Tracking your web traffic? This post on Google Analytics may give you some business insights.

    Working from home during this period? Here are some key takeaways from my in-office turned work-from-home internship.

    If you are looking at acquiring some technical skills to stand out, try reading these selection guides for Business Analytics Modules or for General electives!

    Image Credits: Photo by Peter Nguyen on Unsplash
    Original Post Date: 27 Jul 2020

  • 3 Reasons Why I Make it a Point to Contribute back to University

    3 Reasons Why I Make it a Point to Contribute back to University

    Recently, I attended Nanyang Business School’s Fireside Chat for newly admitted students as an Alumni Co-host in the Business Analytics breakout room. This was my third event at Nanyang Technological University ever since I graduated. It felt like I was transported back to the time when I was selecting which university to head to five years ago, having to make an informed choice to cap off my years of formal education.

    The post today is about 3 reasons why you should contribute back to the university community after graduation, be it through events, content writing (what I’m doing too), and mentorship. As a business graduate is always a win-win for everyone, and while the listeners gain, I feel I gain a lot as a speaker too!

    #1 Being Able to Learn New Perspectives

    I realised that one of the benefits to return to my alma mater to do sharings is that I can learn many new perspectives. I came to realise that people of different generations and backgrounds think very differently. I learned about the thought process which goes through the current student’s mind as they look at the next steps of their journey. One question which got me thinking was when thinking about Co-curricular Activities (CCAs) to join, which would be the most helpful in the business context, which of course I responded that there is no hard and fast rule and you are the master of your own ship. However, that did set me thinking of how much forward-thinking the next batch of students seen to be… Or perhaps I’m the only one who had not thought so far ahead when choosing a course, I knew I wanted to run a business and add value to society, which I did run one during my university days!

    If you would like to learn about my perspective of university life, do read my graduation reflection post.

    #2 Honing Listening and Public Speaking Skills

    Another benefit of attending alumni events was honing my listening and public speaking skills. Being placed in a room of eager-eyed prospective students who ask any questions which you can possibly imagine, I found it interesting to have had the chance to thoughtfully formulate original answers to a new audience confidently over time! Over till my third event, I felt that I am improving in terms of my public speaking skills, experimenting with the various ways that I can potentially use to bring a message across.

    I remember that back during my days as a Toastmaster, I hear that public speaking is the biggest fear of most people, of which I say yes I’m still fearful that I may make a mistake, but being able to articulate your thoughts clearly is a very important skill that I’m consistently improving on!

    #3 Critical Reflection of Your Experiences

    I felt that attending an Alumni event was also a chance to critically reflect on my experience. Through the various engagements I had about university life, internships, exchange and curriculum, I had the chance to narrate the experience I had and in the process realise how much of a transformative experience I went through.

    One of the experiences I got asked about was whether I was already decided on Business Analytics when I entered university, and I responded that it was an informed choice between two majors, Business Analytics and Marketing.

    Another experience was about the Stars Wars in university, which basically means course registration, it was ironic though when I responded that I hardly faced any issues, but when there’s an issue, there was a member in the undergraduate office team to assist, who coincidentally was the moderator in the room!

    Thus, these back to school experiences I had removed any Halo effect or contrast effect of one’s experience and allowed me to objectively reflect.

    Hope you liked our post today. Do bookmark this site, leave a comment in the section below, and follow us on our LinkedIn page as we look forward to curating new content for you every week.

    Thinking of heading to university but can’t get decided? Do read our analysis of the Graduate Employment Survey 2020 here!

    Photo Credits: Screenshot with Virtual Background designed by Nanyang Business School

  • Time Management: 5 Ways How I Stay Productive at Work

    Time Management: 5 Ways How I Stay Productive at Work

    Time Management. An ironic topic to get back into my posting cadence after skipping a week. (Thanks for staying tuned to my blog!)

    Over most of April, I had the opportunity to take on a different type of work (Project Management) which resulted in a lot of my schedule being spiralled off course. Last time this happened was in January, when I was doing my MiniMasters Classes while juggling with a big project at work. This post would not be a recount of that experience, which will be for another day when I fully see through the project. Here are some of my tried and tested secrets to staying productive at work:

    1. Effective Calendar Management (Compartmentalising)

    Firstly, let us begin with a tool which is commonly available to most of us while at work. It is called a work calendar. I tend to schedule most of my required meetings for the week, as well as any potential work preparation I would need for the meeting into the calendar. By doing so, I am able to set fixed timings in each week completing what I have set out to do. Blocking time on the calendar signals to the audience that there is limited time in the day, ensuring that my meetings stay succinct, and I would have time to complete my other to-dos.

    When collaborating with multiple colleagues on a project, I would sometimes also block additional calendar time for myself especially when I know that there might be multiple rounds of discussion which may not have been set out in the diary. This way, I would not be thrown off guard and be left firefighting, which disrupts the productivity of other tasks in the day.

    2. Setting Up a Dashboard of Items (Kanban)

    Secondly, setting a dashboard of items, also known as Kanban, is a place where you can stay up to date with your deliverables, or even your team’s deliverables (I didn’t have a chance to do this at work yet).

    Personally, I use Trello (Not Sponsored), where a Kanban Template lets me place everything in boards, cards and checkboxes, creating a directory cum to-do list of sort. I do this board not only for work, but also for my own weekend planning too. As a bonus, this well separates work and life, as each aspect is clearly documented for when it is time for which.

    3. Prioritising (Eisenhower Matrix)

    You may have heard the saying that goes, “There is no end to work, once you have no work left there is no need for you anymore.” When faced with mountains of work, the Eisenhower Matrix is one way to look at prioritising. Is the task urgent? Is the task important? If both checks out, do it immediately! If it’s urgent but not important, if it’s not too much of a hassle, just help, otherwise delegate to someone else who believes that it is important. If it’s important but not urgent, put it on calendar (back to tip 1) and ensure that you set time for it. If it is neither important or urgent, you can always delegate or just leave it there, perhaps automating the process for the long run using various techniques, for instance ETL or RPA.

    In one of my recent reflections, I found prioritising especially important when I was juggling between work and study. While I’m finished with the extra studies for now, I learned that I need to stay mission oriented and prioritise according to what would be important for me.

    4. Start of Day and End of Day Routine Planning and Reflection and stick to it.

    While not having diligently stuck to it sometimes, I tend to make it a point for the first and last 30 minutes of the day to be planning out the day and what I intend to complete, as well as reflecting on the day, what went wrong, how I can do something more effectively.

    As the saying goes, “when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Each day should start with identifying the goals which needs to be achieved for the day, as well as how much time there is. This way, time can be effectively allocated (through calendar) to different levels of priority. That said, things may go wrong sometimes, for instance ad-hoc tasks assigned by your managers.

    Sticking to the plans as much as possible will ensure that we stay mission oriented and focused.

    5. Getting Ample Rest

    This might sound counter intuitive, as spending more time doing more work means being more productive right?

    Productivity is the measure of output over a given time. Just because you are spending more time doing work does not mean that you are productive.

    Most humans require at least 8 hours of sleep a day, not trying to be a science teacher here but it is something about the brain needing to reorganise thoughts and reinforce learnings. Surprise, I usually try to sleep for at least 8 hours before my exams at university, and I do quite decently I must say! Anecdotally, this is a tried and proven method for me to be productive.

    Hope you liked our story today. Do bookmark this site, leave a comment in the section below, and follow us on our LinkedIn page as we look forward to curating new content for you every week.

    If you liked this post, here are some work rules that I like to stick to.

    Photo Credits: Original Image by Tan Wei Xiang

  • Innovation: Business Model Canvas vs Strategic Business Functions

    Innovation: Business Model Canvas vs Strategic Business Functions

    If you had been following our Innovation posts where we use the business model canvas to breakdown businesses, you might have always wondered how the business model canvas for a lean business scales up to that of a full business. We also had that question so we decided to explore linking the business model canvas to various business functions, in order for us to fully comprehend what it means.

    Business Model Canvas
    Business Model Canvas obtained from Quantic

    Value Proposition

    The value proposition is considered the most top level summary of what the business is. Therefore, this should be under the Chief Executive Officer, or the Business Strategy Department. While the Marketing team also would have a say in this, the value proposition is the heart of the business just like how the Chief Executive and Business Strategy brings everything together.

    Customer Segments

    In a corporate business, segmentation should be jointly owned by the Marketing Department, Consumer Insights Department, as well as Business Strategy Department, as there is a high level view of the customer and certain decisions would have to be made on the specific customer segments to target.

    Customer Relationships

    For customer relationships, the high level view would be driven by the Marketing Communications Department, as it would maintain the general relationship with the customer.

    To target specific customers, the Sales Department would be the primary team developing these personal relationships.

    Channels

    Channel selection should be done by the marketing department, in order to achieve the broad go-to-market objectives of the company.

    The execution of channels would usually be done by the Supply Chain Department and Operations Department, depending on the mix of channels chosen.

    However, in this age, there is also online channels available. This is when the Digital Marketing Department arises to manage these channels.

    Key Partners

    Away from the external facing functions, key partners would usually be managed by the Corporate Communications Team, who consistently keep partners engaged. In businesses without a dedicated Corporate Communications Team, the Business Strategy Team should own this function.

    The Sales/Procurement department might also be the right team to engage these key partners depending on whichever side the company is on.

    Key Resources

    For key resources, there is a variety of functions which govern this.

    For human capital and labour, the Human Resources Department is definitely the one in charge.

    For resources related to technology and infrastructure, we have the Information Technology Department in charge.

    For financial-related resources, we have the Finance Department in charge and if there is no Real Estate department, the Finance Department also owns the aspect of leasing and ownership of commercial space.

    Key Activities

    The key activities will likely vary based on the business which is in question. While key activities should be carried out by the Operations Department, organisations are becoming more decentralised and constantly spreads out the key activities across various departments.

    Cost Structure

    The cost structure of the organisation should be helmed by the Finance Department, but as a partner to the various departments. Everyone plays a part in the cost structure but the owner of the costs should be finance.

    Revenue Streams

    The revenue streams usually stems from the pricing strategy as well as opportunity identification and the Business Strategy Department should clearly be in charge. The Finance Department can track the revenue streams to manage the profit and loss of the company, however the onus is on the Business Strategy Department to consistently look for new opportunities to increase the revenue streams.

    How Many Teams Should There Be?

    While you first start a business, you may find yourself doing everything, you might eventually want to scale up and see which functions are required by the business. As a general guide as covered, these are the functions in a business:

    1. Chief Executive Office + Business Strategy (To plan for the business.)
    2. Marketing + Consumer Insights + Sales (To manage customer-facing aspects of the business.)
    3. Supply Chain + Operations + Procurement (To run the external operations of the business.)
    4. Finance + Human Resources + Information Technology (To enable the internal operations of the business.)

    While the functions can be combined in other ways too, the key is to understand your evolving business needs, as well as the skills of your team to ensure that your business runs smoothly.

    Now that you have read the breakdown of how each department comes together in the business model canvas, are you more intrigued to run your own business in the future? Let us know in the comments below!

    Are you interested in exploring business ideas? Please drop us a note at businessmodel@tanweixiang.com.

    If you liked reading about this post, do follow us on our LinkedIn Page. You may like to build your own hair salon, photo studio, bakery or ramen restaurant.

    Image Credits: Photo by Raspopova Marina on Unsplash
    Artwork Designed by Tan Wei Xiang