Chapter 1: Internship Introduction

1.1 The Objective of Industrial Training

For the duration of 8 weeks internship at LivingSocial Sdn. Bhd., I was required to study the organization, Sales of Escapes Department to the practical situation. The internship is a good opportunity for me to gain a working experience before graduated. The internship enables me to understand how the theoretical portion of their studies can be applied to the practical situations. The experience and understanding of the real life situations in industrial organizations and their related environments can accelerate my learning process such that how my knowledge could be used in a realistic way. An internship program is organized to give me an opportunity for enhancing my capabilities to adapt to the critical environment of business, communication skills, interaction between colleagues and superior, promote human relations, the operation and work as a team. In addition, this is a significant program to allow me to think critically in selecting the optimal solution in handling a situation. During industrial training, I also can develop a sense of responsibility toward my team, department, company and society.

1.2 Limitation
LivingSocial is a huge company which has many types of products and divisions and it is quite impossible to cope up all the activities during 8 weeks internship period. The limitations prevail while conducting the study. The basic limitations faced in preparing the report were: The companys policy of not disclosing some data for obvious reasons, which would have been very much useful for the report. Occationally it was difficult to collect data from the department files because important files are kept in volt for safety and there is impossible to collect the data in current time. Performance appraisal is a very sensitive issue and many information are not been disclosed as sack of secrecy.
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Chapter 2 The Background of LivingSocial

2.1 The Profile of the Company
LivingSocial helps people around the world to find, share and enjoy great local deals and unique experiences. Through its daily deal emails and alerts, LivingSocial introduces members to handpicked local businesses, products or services daily at savings of up to 50 percent or more. Started from December 2007, the registered name for the company is formally known as Integrated Methods Sdn. Bhd. which as a buying guide platform within consumers and merchants. There appear the well known of a local marketplace named Everyday.com.my. The goal of the company is to close the gap between consumers and merchants. As technology rapidly grows, the company introduced Everyday Coupons which offers handpicked and unique experiences to consumers. In September 2011, the company became a part of The LivingSocial Family. LivingSocial is originated from Washington, D. C. The Co-Founder and CEO is Tim OShaughnessy. Tim sets and communicates LivingSocial's core strategy and oversees the growth of company as the next great consumer brand. Besides that, Amazon invested in LivingSocial and own 29% of LivingSocial. Over global, there is 70 million members of LivingSocial worldwide in 26 countries with 64 markets. In Malaysia, there is 2,700,000 unique members and is still growing. LivingSocial continued to strive and become a market leader in Malaysia.

Figure 1: Tim OShaughnessy sets oversees LivingSocial growth as the next great consumer brand.
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2.2 Company Organization Chart (Malaysia branch)

CEO / General Manager (Jeremy Fitchet)

Sales (KL - Klang Valley) Northern HR & Admin Marketing Division Escapes

Operation Group

Daily Deals

Hot Spot A,B,C,D

Johor Home and Living, Health Beauty, Fashion and Electronic

Shop

Supersale s

Operation Manager

Customer Service

Media Planner

Media Planner (shop) Logistic

Financial Planning Division

Editorial

Creative Image

Merchant Services

Media Planner

Photographer

Figure 2: Working environment in LivingSocial

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2.3 Products of LivingSocial

LivingSocial is the online marketing platform which let the members to purchase and share the best things everyday to do in the city. LivingSocial members can discover valuable local experiences across the globe. With unique and diverse offerings each day, LivingSocial inspires members to discover everything from weekend excursions to events and experiences to exclusive gourmet dinners to family aquarium outings and more. The products of LivingSocial can be divided into few categories such as daily deals, events and experiences, escapes, shop and takeout & delivery.

Table 1: Various Categories of Products from LivingSocial Categories of Products Daily Deals Descriptions Different types of deals and discounts provided daily. The variety of products includes from restaurants and family outings to personal fitness, spa indulgences, home services and more. Events & Experiences Exclusive access to concerts, one-of-a-kind outings, sporting events, classes & more. For instance, yoga class, day care for kids, pro studio photoshoot session, karaoke package, intensive personal make up workshop, facial therapy and more. Escapes Launching of travel packages and guided adventures to different destinations across the street and around the world. Different destinations based on customers interests such as for family packages, location in cities, luxury hotels and involve different kind of activities. Shop Customers can shop for collections of curated, high quality merchandise complementing local experiences. These can be divided into fashion, baby & kids, home & living, health & beauty, digital & gadgets and sport & fitness. Takeout & Delivery Online food can be ordered from nearby restaurants. Delivery is free or free shipping for some food ordering and products.
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Chapter 3 Job Description

3.1 General Responsibilities
Within these 8 weeks of practical, I was assigned on responsibilities for performing a variety of duties to support the Sales of Escapes Department function of the LivingSocial Sdn. Bhd., coordinating work within the Escapes department, as well as with other departments, co-operate with travel agent, reporting pertinent information to manager and director and responding to customers inquiries. 1. Hunting, looking and launching for wholesaler deals. 2. Assessing and planning for the potential wholesaler deals in Discovery Overland Holidays. 3. Assist in implementation of marketing strategies. 4. Perform analysis of marketing and sales data. 5. Do calculation and worksheet in obtaining the best rate for each travel package to the LivingSocial customers. 6. Seek and analyze competitors marketing and sales materials both on and off line. 7. Research and qualify potential new partnerships/sales opportunities. 8. Co-operate with other departments as well in launching wholesaler deals which to be featured on LivingSocial website. 9. Assist in answering customers enquiries and make rooms reservations with hotels via Discovery Overland Holidays. 10. Undertake other responsibilities as assigned from time to time.

3.2 Sales of Escapes Department

LivingSocial Escapes drives incremental revenue and builds brand for the hotels, resorts and boutique hotels. The deals that are launched by Escapes Department are divided into direct deals and wholesaler deals. The main difference is direct deals require the customers to make booking directly with the hotels whereas wholesaler deals require LivingSocial Escapes to make the booking for the customers through the third party and not directly with hotels. The LivingSocial Escapes acts as a bond to link the customers with the hotels. We will negotiate with the hotels to obtain the best promotional rate for the LivingSocial members. The travel packages of the hotels are featured or advertised in LivingSocial website without any charge. Thus, this is a risk free promotion. The attractive feature of the packages in website can promote the hotels and let more customers to know about the hotels at the same time. As the popularity of the hotels is increased, this can help the hotels to acquire more customers. In addition, the prompt payment using credit card, debit card and online transfer are easy and convenient. Thus, LivingSocial Escapes drives incremental revenue, builds brand for hotels, resorts and boutiques hotels and contributes to the Malaysia tourism.

3.2.1 The Flow of Process in Escapes

Figure 3: The flow of process of working in LivingSocial Escapes LivingSocial Escapes negotiate with hotels to create a great promotion more than 50% discount for LivingSocial members. We feature the travel packages of the hotels online with promotional via Facebook and display on Google. LivingSocial market the super deal of the promotional travel packages for free. As the technology grows rapidly, customers can buy the super deal at LivingSocial website using computer or android phone. Then, they will share the super deal with friends and create buzz. This will gradually create the talking topic among people and increase the popularity of the hotels. Customers are required to print out the deal voucher and make call to make reservation for the day they prefer to stay. Finally, the buyers can enjoy their property.

3.2.2 Wholesaler Deals

For the first 6 weeks, I was assigned a job in charge in launching the wholesaler deals. Initially, I was given a target of 150 wholesaler deals in a month. Then, my department change strategy to maximum 4 deals per day. Every day, I have to collect the data via online and offline to check for the competitor selling rate and Discovery Overland Holidays selling rate. I will search for online travel agents for the competitors selling rate for week day and weekend start from this month till the end of year. The competitors are Agoda.com, Booking.com, Expedia, Mari-Mari and Mariote.com. Analysis will be performed to observe the maximum, minimum of the selling price and get the average of the selling price. Next, I conduct calculations by using Microsoft Visual C++. This programming makes my job easier and faster instead of manual calculation. Then, I will seek and analyze competitors marketing and sales materials that I obtained. I use the C++ programming to calculate for the best selling price and margin for each travel package with minimum 8% commission. Finally, I will perform analysis of marketing and sales data that I record in my worksheet to see the potential of the deal to be launched.

3.2.3 Sales Agreement

After I get the best selling rate for the travel package from my calculation, I have to make a sales agreement. Sales agreement is an agreement or contract in which property is transferred from the vendor to the vendee for a fixed price in money. For the content of sales agreement, I have to describe the room packages whether include breakfast, type of rooms, any additional of the packages. Apart from that, the agreement includes voucher worth, voucher sales price, discount, commission and the validity period for the packages. It is signed when a Discovery Overland Holidays agreed for paying same money which is demanded and specified in this contract by the LivingSocial. After that, the sales agreement will be submitted to manager and director for approval.

3.2.4 Fine Print

The next step, I have to produce the fine print for the wholesaler deals that I am going to launch in LivingSocial website. I have to describe precisely the escapes kits for the package, specify the travel period, additional terms and conditions with the blackout dates, check and check out time and maximum occupancy per room. I have to check with the hotels to see any terms and conditions since every hotels have their fixed rules. Then, I fix the period for reservation and disclosure the terms and conditions for reservations which reservation must be made within 5 working days from the date of purchase; subject to room availability.

3.2.5 Salesforce
Salesforce.com Inc. is a global computing company which headquatered in San Francisco, California. It is best known for its customer relationship management (CRM) product and expanded into the "social enterprise arena" through acquisitions. After that, I load the wholesaler deals that going to launch into Salesforce by creating leads, clone opportunities and so on. After finish loading, I will submit to merchant advocate and junior researcher for approval. Functions such as add deals, schedule a meeting, send e-mail, initiate a customer service inquiry and so on. After approval, merchant advocate will fill in the deals into the pipeline. After I obtain the high resolution images for the hotels, I send to the dropbox so that media planner will do their part in producing the attractive deals in website.

Figure 4: Salesforce is best known for best known for its customer relationship management (CRM) product.
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Figure 5: This is the opportunity that I clone when I load the wholesaler deal into Salesforce.

3.2.6 Inquiries by Customers and Make Reservations

For the last 2 weeks, due to lack of human resources in Escapes team. I was assigned replace the merchant advocate job. I assist in answering all the incoming calls in a courteous and professional manner. Besides, I have to respond and investigate customer inquiries, concerns and issues via phone. The inquiries and reservations from the customers are received via emails. Then, I have to reply all the sent in emails to the customers by utilising Salesforce. Every day, I have to provide answers to inquiries relating to deals, payment status, refunds and any other questions that may rise. For the refund request case, I have to investigate the reasons why customers request for refund and then require clarification from manager and Customer Service Department to review and take action. After approved, the customers will be refunded with deal bucks or cash. For every wholesaler deals, customers must send in emails to my.escapes@livingsocial.com.my to check for room availability before purchase the voucher and make reservations after purchase the vouchers on their preferred day of check in. I will reply the customers emails and send emails to Discovery Overland Holidays to confirm the booking. If the rooms request is fully booked, then I will send email to inform customers to advise another alternative date. For every case that I received, I will record every single case detail with current status in a reservation list so that easy for me to follow up more than hundred of case in a week. Sometimes, the hotels may
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take some time to process the booking and give us feedback after few days. These may arise some problems and the customers will call us to complain about this. Thus, I have to keep updating the room reservations status with the Discovery Overland Holidays. Once receive the confirmation voucher, I directly revert the voucher to customers. Finally, I close the cases with minimal error once the customers cases have been resolved.

3.2.7 Invoice
Invoice is a commercial document issued by the company, indicating the products, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services provided. Every day, Discovery Overland Holidays issues the invoices and confirmation vouchers once they confirm the customers booking. I have to print out every invoice and submit to manager on the end of day. The payment terms are included on the invoice such as the payment must be made in 30 days from the date on the invoice. LivingSocial could have already paid for the hotels room package listed on the invoice. The document indicates the buyer LivingSocial and seller Discovery Overland Holidays, but the term invoice indicated money is owed or owing.

3.3 Discovery Overland Holidays

Discovery Overland Holidays (DOH) is a travel agent which has a wide selection of products as a guidance that they offer to the travel partners. In year 2000, DOH was founded by the concoction of two corporate executive connoisseurs who had with them and more than 10 years of leisure and corporate travel experience. LivingSocial Escapes co-operate with Discovery Overland Holidays in launching the wholesaler deals. DOH offers us the services of hotel reservations, transportation, resort packages, private and exclusive travel arrangements and promotional rate of different types of rooms in whole Malaysia. Now, DOH have branch offices located in the main hubs of Penang, Kota Kinabalu, Langkawi, Kuching, Singapore and associate offices in Phuket, Koh Samui & Bangkok to facilitate and provide a more services.

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Chapter 4 Statistical Analysis

4.1 Analysis of the factors that affects Revenue of Wholesaler Deals

Figure 6: The worksheet of total 65 wholesaler deals that I collected through online and offline everyday with the record of my calculation of DOH rate before commission, DOH rate after commission, margin, commission in percentage, Agoda average selling rate, LivingSocial selling rate, difference between Agoda and LivingSocial selling rate and number of vouchers sold. Note that the hotels are indicated by numbers since the name of hotels cannot be revealed due to confidential.

Figure 6 shows that there are total 65 of hotels where 15 hotels with rating 3 stars, 33 hotels with rating 4 stars and 17 hotels with rating 5 stars. Thus, the wholesaler deals are mostly hotels with 4 stars.

Figure 7: Bar chart of number of hotels versus hotels rating

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From the scatter plot in Figure 8, it shows that the hotels rating with 5 stars generate the highest revenue which nearly RM8000. Thus, the higher the rating of hotels, the more revenue generated.

Figure 8: Scatter plot of revenue versus hotels rating

From the scatter plot in Figure 9, we can see that most of the points are ploted below RM60. That means that the different selling rate between LivingSocial and Agoda are mainly below RM60. The scatter plot also show that the highest record of revenue generated is about RM7800 which with difference of RM30 of selling rate.

Figure 9: Scatter plot of revenue versus the difference rate between LivingSocial and Agoda

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Figure 10: Test for the Pearson correlation between Difference Rate with Agoda and Revenue There is no significance effect of the difference rate with Agoda on the revenue. There is significance effect of the difference rate with Agoda on the revenue. From the Pearsons product-moment correlation test, the -value is 0.01561 which is smaller than the = 0.05. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. There is significance effect of difference

rate with Agoda on the revenue generated. The 95% confidence interval is lie between 0.05922327 and 0.50584045. The correlation is 0.2988063 which shows the relationship between difference rate with Agoda and revenue. The positive correlation indicates that when the difference rate with Agoda increase, the revenue also increase at the same time.

Figure 11: Test whether there is statistical significance evidence to conclude that the revenue is affected by the rating fac There is no significance difference of revenue with different the rating of hotels. There is significance difference of revenue with different the rating of hotels. From the Anova table above, the with tor= 0.05, we can see that critical value 3.99. Thus, ratio = 5.2165 with -value = 0.02575. By looking in -table Since the ratio of 5.2165 is greater than this

is rejected and conclude that there is significant difference of the

revenue with different rating of the hotels at a 5% level of significance.

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Chapter 5 Conclusion
5.1 Conclusion for the Industrial Training Programme
In conclusion, there were many things that I have experience and learned during the 8 weeks of my Industrial Training at LivingSocial Sdn. Bhd. The whole internship period was very interesting, instructive and challenging. Through this training I was able to gain new insights and more comprehensive understanding about the real industry working condition and practice. During the internship period, my department underwent some difficulty due to the lack of human resources. The hard situation gives me a stress to push me to be extraordinary in adaptable in problem solving and ability in decision making. The 8 weeks placement also has provided me the opportunities to develop and improve my soft and functional skills. All of this valuable experience and knowledge that I have gained were not only acquired through the direct involvement in task given but also through other aspect of the training such as work observation, interaction with colleagues, superior, and others third party related to the company. From what I have undergone, I am totally agreed that the industrial training program have achieved its entire primary objective. It is also the best ways to prepare university students in facing the real working life. Although it is only 8 weeks of training, the experience in the industry during 8 weeks is valuable for me. I have learned to be more responsible for my position and be punctual on work. As a result of the programme, now I am more confident to enter the employment world and build my future career.

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5.2 Recommendation
Some recommendations for the Sales of Escapes Department of the LivingSocial Sdn. Bhd. are as following: 1. The employees in Sales Department should have faith on their abilities of convincing clients besides the lowest rate offering by their company in winning businesses. 2. LivingSocial should take more skilful and experienced merchant advocate to make a difference in the sector. 3. LivingSocial should have a systematic management and give a guidance to lead the employees so that the employees feel secure to work longer. 4. LivingSocial should improve their reservation services and make a backup plan in case there is unexpected incident happen. 5. LivingSocial should repair the network system because the slow internet can be a resistance to to the working efficiency of the employees.

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Appendices
Appendix A: Input and Output for Calculation of Wholesale selling price using C++ Programming
#include<stdio.h> #include<math.h> #define m 30 main() { int comm; float i,x,y,agoda,selling,percent,z,margin; printf("\nPlease enter DOH rate with comm = "); scanf("%f",&x); y=x-40; printf("\nDOH rate before comm = %.2f \n",y); printf("\nEnter Agoda selling price = "); scanf("%f",&agoda); if (y<agoda) { i=8; selling=0; percent=0; printf("__________________________________\ n"); printf("| i |\tSelling\t|\n"); while (i<=m) { percent=i/100; selling=y*(1+percent); printf("__________________________________\n"); printf("| %.1f %% |\t%.2f\t|\n",i,selling); i++; } printf("__________________________________\n\n" ); } else { printf("\nNo solution\n\n"); } printf("Enter LS Selling = "); scanf("%f",&z); margin=z-y; printf("\nMargin=%f\n\n",margin); comm=(margin/z)*100; printf("Commission=%d %%\n\n",comm); } 17

Appendix B: Worksheet of Wholesaler Deals via Calculation and Collection of Data via Online and Offline
Hotels 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rating 3 3 4 4 3 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 5 5 5 4 3 3 4 5 4 5 5 5 3 3 5 4 3 3 4 4 Rooms 100 176 150 160 323 282 275 200 125 150 102 345 10 8 12 112 290 116 74 300 150 135 30 36 435 249 312 298 150 90 80 32 80 88 180 144 388 250 DOHbefore 205 215 255 285 175 235 185 225 245 305 375 250 475 555 835 275 224 183 426 345 395 310 513 553 245 252 273 315 415 515 195 225 355 235 210 248 285 263 DOHafter 165 175 215 245 135 195 145 185 205 265 335 210 435 515 795 235 184 143 386 305 355 270 473 513 205 212 233 275 375 475 155 185 315 195 170 208 245 223 Margin 34 49 21 41 12 35 15 22 25 32 35 40 95 135 95 20 16 16 43 55 75 22 56 66 24 28 47 60 48 57 21 25 27 45 20 47 35 22 Commission 0.17 0.22 0.09 0.14 0.08 0.15 0.09 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.09 0.16 0.18 0.21 0.11 0.08 0.08 0.1 0.1 0.15 0.17 0.08 0.11 0.11 0.1 0.12 0.17 0.18 0.11 0.11 0.12 0.12 0.08 0.19 0.11 0.18 0.13 0.09 Agoda 213.28 239.08 250 300 175 243 174 218.08 241.28 313.2 386.29 290 648 765 986 268 210 173 450 389.76 464 350 629.18 684.86 278.3 260 304.7 377 434 545 192 222 365 280 210 300 308.72 264.48 LivingSocial 199 224 236 286 147 230 160 207 230 297 370 250 530 650 890 255 200 159 429 360 430 292 529 579 229 240 280 335 423 532 176 210 342 240 190 255 280 245 Difference 14.28 15.08 14 14 28 13 14 11.08 11.28 16.2 16.29 40 118 115 96 13 10 14 21 29.76 34 58 100.18 105.86 49.3 20 24.7 42 11 13 16 12 23 40 20 45 28.72 19.48 Sold 35 40 23 17 23 22 12 35 33 67 89 45 12 26 67 23 34 31 23 68 90 45 54 34 67 39 46 29 37 23 47 57 76 49 42 33 30 27

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39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

4 4 4 4 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3

131 243 90 108 100 84 200 65 258 413 88 70 55 110 120 81 120 60 204 110 83 70 51 358 695 20 30

273 275 213 243 245 265 235 370 235 180 215 955 1155 770 805 835 250 310 255 203 313 295 345 414 257 212 258

233 235 173 203 205 225 195 330 195 140 175 915 1115 730 765 795 210 270 215 163 273 255 305 374 217 172 218

27 35 37 32 20 29 40 70 27 25 21 105 130 60 65 80 40 60 20 17 32 45 95 66 19 15 22

0.1 0.13 0.18 0.14 0.09 0.11 0.17 0.18 0.12 0.15 0.11 0.1 0.1 0.08 0.08 0.09 0.16 0.18 0.09 0.09 0.1 0.15 0.24 0.15 0.08 0.08 0.09

287.68 296 238 268 264 272.6 278.4 464 245 203 210 1050 1275 830 854 900 300 400 278 198 328 400 500 475.6 267 203 257.2

260 270 210 235 225 254 235 400 222 165 196 1020 1245 790 830 875 250 330 235 180 305 300 400 440 236 187 240

27.68 26 28 33 39 18.6 43.4 64 23 38 14 30 30 40 24 25 50 70 43 18 23 100 100 35.6 31 16 17.2

38 47 106 97 39 47 31 37 64 37 32 75 24 15 22 12 38 26 32 18 14 26 21 67 52 14 26

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Appendix C: Code of the Statistical Analysis

To call the data set of CSV file: data <- read.table("wholesaler.csv", header=T, sep=",") data To plot the bar chart of number of hotels versus different rating of hotels: counts <- table(data$Rating) barplot(counts, main="Bar Chart of Number of Hotels versus Different Rating", xlab="Hotels Rating",ylab="Number of Hotels",ylim=c(0,35), col=c("darkblue","red","purple"), names.arg=c("3 Star", "4 Star", "5 Star")) To create a new variable with name as Revenue: Revenue <- data$Margin*data$Sold To plot graph of Revenue versus Rating: plot(main="Scatter Plot of Revenue versus Hotels Rating", data$Rating, Revenue, type='p', col="blue") To plot graph of Revenue versus Difference Rate with Agoda: plot(main="Scatter Plot of Revenue versus Difference Rate with Agoda", data$Difference, Revenue, type="p", col="purple") To test the Pearson correlation between Revenue and Difference Rate with Agoda: cor.test(data$Difference, Revenue) To test whether there is statistical significance evidence to conclude that the Revenue is affected by the Rating factor: anova(lm(revenue ~ data$Rating))

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Appendix C: Series of Photos in LivingSocial

The reception desk of LivingSocial.

The meeting situation in Sales Department.

Photo with my director of sales in Escapes Mr. Ng Kim Yong.

Photo with my manager of Escapes Ms. Lim Wei Ching.

Photo with my colleague Ms. Jane.

The Escapes team in the Sales Department.

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Photo with Ms. Caryn from HR Department.

Photo with Ms. Pui Lum from HR Department.

Photo with Ms. May and Ms. Janice from Operation.

Photo with Ms. Rinny from Customer Service.

Operating Department office.

Photos with Ms. Mimi, Mr. Richard and Ms. Vivien from media planner. 22

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