LAZADA INTERNSHIP REPORT

HO CHI MINH CITY - INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY


Student name: Nguyen Thi Anh Tuyet

ID: BABAWE12088

Instructor: Mr. Phan Truong Quoc
Internship information
Starts at: October 3rd, 2016
Ends at: December 30th, 2017
No. of internship days: 90
Position: Commercial Intern – Category FMCG – Line Health & Beauty
Company: Lazada Vietnam, trade name: Recess Company Ltd.

I.

Executive summary of the internship
Summary of the company
Launched in 2012, Lazada Group has grown to become the leading online shopping and selling
destination in Southeast Asia. The company has about 5,500 employees in the region, with operations
in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and a team in Hong Kong
that drives cross-border marketplace activities. Lazada also operates technology hubs in Ho Chi Minh
City and in Moscow. Lazada’s strong performance has earned the support of key investors such as
Alibaba Group, Temasek Holdings and Rocket Internet. Working at Lazada means to be part of the
team that is steering the exciting E-Commerce revolution in Southeast Asia.

INTERNSHIP REPORT

Summary of the internship program

The Internship Program is designed for fresh graduates of different majors, who are eager to bring the
SEMESTER
2016-2017
academic knowledge
and apply it in1the
business working environment. The applied position was
Commercial intern, line FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), category HB (Health & Beauty).
Main activities carried out by a commmercial intern during the internship are:
• Send content templates, call to explain required input and follow up
• Coach sellers on content guidelines (descriptions, images)
• Prepare and update overviews of content pipeline, backlogs and progress
• Be the central coordinator and work with our sales department, content department, data team
• Seeking and Updating Supplier Database regularly.
• Updating all information of products to related departments following the standard procedure.
• Researching and analyzing about competitors in online and offline market.
• Planning, implementing and optimizing various internal projects.
• Support Buyer and Key Account Manager for others job related to merchandising.
The position requires:
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• High self-motivation and willing to learn
• Dedicated highly responsible, hard and smart working
• Pro-active and ability to work under pressure and tight deadline
• Good communication and interpersonal skills
• Good knowledge of English language and of Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel)
• Enthusiasm for e-commerce and its opportunities
Internship Duration: 3 months. Working hours: 9a.m – 6p.m

Description of the company

Full title and brief history

II.

Lazada Vietnam, international trade name
Recess Company Limidted is a member
of Lazada group
Main office allocation: Floor 15 Empress
Tower, 138-142 Hai Ba Trưng St., Da Kao
wd., district 1, Ho Chi Minh city
Ho Chi Minh warehouse: M14 st., Tan
Binh industrial park, Binh Tan district.

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Hanoi warehouse and office: 838 Bach
Dang st., Thanh Luong ward, Hai Ba Trung

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district.
Employees: Over 1000
Web link: www.lazada.vn
Main events:
November 2012: Set up a Tech Hub in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to focus on technology

infrastructure and product development which is critical to develop a superior online shopping
experience
December 2012: Sparked a shopping frenzy with the first Lazada Online Revolution campaign on
12th December in all five countries, signalling the online shopping revolution that is coming to
Southeast Asia
In May 2013, introduced Lazada Express to supplement third-party logistics partners in providing
last-mile delivery service, expanding Lazada’s geographical reach and further improve customer
experience
June 2013, Launched Android mobile application, tapping into the growing mobile wave in the
region
July 2013: Started rolling out Lazada Marketplace, offering comprehensive support to sellers to grow
their business through eCommerce
November 2013: Extended Lazada’s Online Revolution campaign to a month long, from 11th
November to 12th December, following the success of the previous year’s campaign
April 2016: Entered an agreement for Alibaba to acquire a controlling stake in Lazada, validating the
potential of eCommerce in Southeast Asia and the role that Lazada plays in it.
Type of ownership: Limited Liability Company
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Business sectors.
Lazada’s assortment have come up to over 1 million products, divided into 4 big categories ranging
from Electronics, Home, Fast Moving Consumer Goods, to Fashion and Accessories. Products can be
reached through 2 platforms, desktop and mobile app. Eventually, payments are made via online
channels or on delivery.
In Vietnam market, thanks to LEX (Lazada Express) subsidiary company, products are shipped
nationwide.

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However, actual stocks are operated and managed differently due to their business sector,
marketplace (MP) goods or retail goods.
Ecommerce marketpace
Lazada provides a marketplace solution, connecting merchants with final consumers through one
simple channel – lazada website. This is a service sector in which main activites are providing tools
for merchants to serve their consumers. These tools include marketing solutions, suppliers’ accounts,
management information technology, promotion, logistics, etc.
online retailer.
Lazada also acts as a retail distributor for specific brands and sellers. Main activities are buying,
promoting, selling, etc. to final consumers.

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Customer Relationships
For Marketplace sector, customers are both consumers and suppliers. A huge assortment of products
come from merchants who sell their products on Lazada website. Merchants co-manage their
products with Lazada by using web tools provided by Lazada. They start the relationship by an FBL
(Fulfillment by Lazada) agreement, have their ready-to-sell inventories packed and shipped fully by
Lazada.
For Retail sector, customers are final consumers from all segments. Nevertheless, only internet users
with full identity can be the direct buyers. Brand/seller partners’ products, despite the smaller
assortment, are managed more strictly and must go through a complex procedure from agreements to
Quality Control (QC) process. They operate business with Lazada under consignment or as a retail
distributor. Under the term of Consignment, stocks may be refunded to brands/sellers. Otherwise,
Lazada can choose to buy and sell brands’ products as an Online Retailer.
Fullfilment by Lazada

merchants

Partnership
Consignment
brands/sellers
Purchase Outright

Lazada’s strong brands partnership

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Electronics

Intel, Lenovo, Huawei, Apple, Microsoft, ...

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Home

philips, bosche, Robinsons Appliances, Daikin,...

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FMCG

Unilever, P&G, Beiersdorf, Tesco, L'Oreal Paris,
Mamy Poko,...
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Fashion & Accessories

Invicta, Planet Sports, Penshoppe, New Look,...

Affiliate marketing. Beside the 2 main business sectors, Lazada also provide Affiliate Marketing
business opportunity for all web content owners. Commission is 8% for normal content owners.
However, partners with high performance, partners of Lazada’s strategic brands, may be pomoted for
higher commision level up to 15%

Lazada Vietnam Organisation structure.

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CEO
Alexandre Darby

Truong Duy Linh
Le Vinh Son

General Counsel

Director of Product

Pham Thong
Chief Marketing officer

Online Marketing

Tran Vu Quang
Chief Commercial Officer

Gerald Glauerdt Chief
Operations Officer

Tran Ngoc Tran Chief People Le Thanh Binh Chief Finance
Officer

Officer

Tech Hub
Customer Experience (CX)

(Regional)

HR
Pierre Cahuzac Chief

Logistics

Marketplace officer

Tax

(CMPO)

Office Admin

Supply Chain

Electronics

Management

IT Support

Accounting

Partnership

FMCG

Finance Controller
Customer Service

Fashion
PR and Branding
Lifestyle

Strategy and Planning

Commercial Hanoi
Merchandising/campaign

Pricing (reporting to
Regional & Alex)

Marketing. Marketing department chart

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Commercial. Commercial department chart
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Data generating and analyzing

BI

Performance report

Create and administer sites engines for maximum reach

SEO

Content developer

strategic: acquire strategic partners whith deals/promotions to hunt for new campaigns and NMV

Partnership

Retail: Generate marketing revenue and NMV fro brands and sellers

Maximize positive coverage, e.g. articles, press, ...
PR & Branding

Handle crisis
build brand equity throug TVC, activations,...

Campaign planning and execution

Campaign & Mobile

Grow app users and sale contribution on mobile

manage advertisments n online marketing channels

Online marketing

Grow NCs and NMV with efficient spending

Roles and responsibilities
SEM & GDN

Social
Local display

mobile
campaign

Affiliate
online marketing

campaign & mobile

PR & Branding

Strategic partnership

retail partnership

SEO

BI

Chief Marketing Officer


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Products & Operations. Products & Op. Department chart
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improve payment term
manage cash fows

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monthly targets have been aggressive. Lazada has gradually been moving the weight to non-EL categories.
Track NMV everyday

Give the most updated status of SKUs (sourcable? purchasable? which category to be improved?)

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Strong partnership building equals to strong power to move forward, a good lever to increase revenue without much costing

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always concentrate on price competitiveness upon competitors

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connect departments and make end-to-end processes smoother

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Reduce cost, increase margins, manage burn, ...

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lazada profit has been negative. Profit is one of the most important KPIs in the future.

MP/Retail operations

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Working Capital
NMV
Profit Contribution
Pricing
Partnerships
ATP

Be the best business partner for sellers

Sellers

Make selling on Lazada easy, efortless, and afordable
provide education, training, tools for sellers to sell more

Growing assortment means increasing the opportunity for customer to reach products

Assortment

Roles and responsibilities
Seller Services

Camera

Media & Voucher
Seller Experience

Elecronics
Consumer
Electronics Hanoi
Nonelectronics Hanoi

Commercial Hanoi

Computer Laptop
Mobile Tablet

Electronics

Outdoors
Automotive
Home & Living
Home Appliances

Lifestyle

Groceries

Sports &

Vendor Acquisitions HN

Sunglasses

Toys, Kids, Babies

Watches &

Health & Beauty

Clothing

FMCG

Fashion

Vendor Acquisitions HCMC
BI Teamleader

manegement
Vendor performance

BI & Pricing

Marketplace

Chief Commercial Officer


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* OVPM: Operational Vendor Performance
* PSC: Partner Support Center
* BPO: Business Process Outsourcing
operational forecasting and planning to ensure that business capacity coping with growth in orderings, (transporting equipment, warehouse space,
etc.)

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overall operational performance management (lead time, cost per order benchmarking and improvement project, etc.)
co-working with CS dept., analysing customer feedback and improve customer satisfaction

management order fulfillment in both Haniand HCMC warehouses: make sure products are inbunded, labelled, stored correctly
picking, packing, handover to delivery partners for faset delivery to customers.
execute the return processing if a cusomer wasn't happy with te products
manage the delivery partners (external 3PLs as well as internal LEX)

create new content (new released products on the website, images, text, videos,retouching and data uploads)
procurement & replenishment for retail and FBL items to be inbounded at warehouse
manage merchants relationship: fulfillment and operational performance management (marketplace dropshipping, these items are not inbounded into

Supply
Supply chain
chain

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Strategy
Strategy &
& Planning
Planning
Logistics
Logistics
management
management

warehouse)

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process and answer customers inquiries via calls, emails, social media channels

Customer
Customer service
service

Order verifications (address and payment check)
BPO (external call center partner), performance management

Roles and responsibilities:
BPO* & Performance management

projects & program management

Customer satisfaction

OVPM*
Outbound & returns)

operational forecasting and planning

vendor operations: PSC*,

inventories management,
Fulfillment (Inbound,

Order management

Content & production

cost improvement

networks)
inbound (Calls, Email, Social

Transport

Customer Service

Logistics

Sourcing
Supply Chain Management

performance management
Strategy and Planning

Chief Operating Officer


Customer Experience.
“Customer experience is the sum-totality of how customers engage with your company and brand, not just
in a snashot in time, but throughout the entire cycle of being a customer”.
(Hardvard Business Review)

CX activities
Within company

With customers

Workshop for new employees, different teams,
BPO,…
• CX ambassador programs
• CX Monthly newsletter
• Other projects
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• CX surveys
Customer focus group
• NPS* calls

*NPS: Net Promoter Score, the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.
Finance. Finance department chart
Chief Financial officer (CFO)

Financial Controller

Accounting Manager

Tax Manager

KPI report

Financial accounts

tax issues

Budgeting

SAP

Internal compliance control

Cash Flow planning and forecast

Audit Plan

Business Partnering

IFRS Reports

MP Finance

Roles and responsibilities
1.

High levels of Finance dept. responsibility (60% to 90%): Covers the core process type activities –
accounting, transaction progressing, financial information, tax, cash management.
levels of finance dept. responsibility (40% to 59%): Covers general management and control,

2. Medium

strategy and risk management, i.e. business partnering of CFO.
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3. Lower

levels of finance dept. responsibility (less 39%): outsourcing and shared services where finance

dept. add vaue to business overall, i.e. investment appraisal, dept financing.
Company performance
Lazada in numbers
1. Platform: > 1 USD billion of annual GMV
* Gross merchandise volume or GMV is a term used in online retailing to indicate a total sales
dollar value for merchandise sold through a particular marketplace over a certain time frame
2. Marketshare

Over 36% of Vietnam Online E-Commerce market (2015)
3. Logistics (Lazada’s group)
> 75 Logistics Partners
34 last-mile delivery hubs
10 fulfillment centers.
* Source: Company data (April 2016)
4. Number of suppliers: > 5000
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Sales record Online revolution 11-11 2016

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Converging mega trends
• Large population base: 93.5 million, Vietnam population 2016
• Growth in young population: over 34% in SEA countries
*Young population is defined as between 15-34
*SEA: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Phillipines and Vietnam
• Growth in South East Asia e-Commerce Market
At the end of 2017, it is suggested that growth rate in SEAsia e-Commmerce market of Lazada
group will be 2.5 times as much as in 2014.

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III.

Internship activities & the functional department
Internship activities
The intern position requires specialist knowledge that characterized by not only the E-Commerce
based business but also the qualities of Health & Beauty market sector. Throughout the internship, the
level of accountabilities increased accordingly with the managers’ confidence in my observed skills,
knowledge, and working attitude.

• Filling data for creating SKU (Stock-Keeping Unit). A stock keeping unit (SKU) is a product and
service identification code for a store or product, often portrayed as a machine-readable bar code that
helps track the item for inventory. Every department works separately on an SKU depend on the type
of information they need. That is why all the data must be precise and consistant from the beginning.
Otherwise, the coordination between functional departments shall be corrupted, leading to
malfunction and low performance of that product. A commercial intern also helps boost visibility of
these SKUs in ranks that approved by the Line Manager, export lists of SKUs or specific information
stored in systems required by KAMs in the shortest amount of time.
• Upgrade product contents and visuality. This activity affects directly to the performance and
competitiveness of a product. Such interesting job requires specific skills varied from content writing,
photoshop, some sense of aesthetic and understanding of the products. The content should be
fascinating, but not to be exaggerated. There are cases that customers received wrong products or
ones different from the description, which hinder a bad shopping experience. There hardly can be an
absolute control over this issue. The 1st reason is, most of the information are provided by the
suppliers, who sometimes gloss over the defects or overstate their products. The 2nd reason is that all
products are packed then shipped by other functional staffs. The best way to diminish unexpected
consequences were to compare various sources of information, work closely with suppliers, and
respond to Customer Relationship Department instantly when defects shown up.
• Always keep up with warehouse activities. All types of stock must be fulfilled, packed and delivered by
Lazada. Furthermore, Stocks inbounded must meet the standard in terms: patterns and description on
real products must match what shown on website, packages must be whole and undamaged. My role
was to revise on time all the errors or mismatch between what stored in system with the actual
inventories. That would help stock buyers from Commercial deppartment keep pace with warehouse

Quality Control (QC) process.
• Following up deadlines of activities that are aligned closely with business partners & finish all the
delegated tasks on time to make sure campaigns would be executed on schedule. This is the hardest
and yet the most interesting activity. As for category Health & Beauty, products from big brands such
as Unilever, Laneige, L’Oreal Paris, Shiseido, etc. shall be promoted coordinately with marketing
campaigns from the other parties. In the other hand, those brands will put aside mechanics
exclusively for Lazada to run specific campaigns. In this case, as an assistant of the team, my job was
to follow up legal documents and other paper works, push both internal staffs and the brand partners
to progress, then report to managers daily.
Functions and activities of Health & Beauty team
Health & Beauty is a category belonging to Commercial department, line FMCG, along with category
Groceries and Toys, Kid & Baby. HB team manages every aspect of Health & Beauty products. The
team currently includes four KAMs (Key Account Managers) and one LCM (Local Categories
Manager), holding similar functions with other categorial teams in line.
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Negotiate directly with suppliers (brands/sellers/merchants) in terms of selling quantity,
assortment, promotion, profit share, dealines.
Be the smallest division to report to higher levels of manager and act upon delivered targets.
Be the contact point between all departments in the company and suppliers to execute a project
or campaign. They help suppliers handle all the required documents with Legal dept, clarify all
the negotiated promotion to Marketing and budget to Financing depts, handle every inbound
issue with Operating dept, report sales analysis to the head of Commercial Dept…
Almost all activities of KAMs such as mailing, calling, meetings, analysing sales reports, create
platfoms on excel, checking database, rely to the technology infrastructure. Thus, they have to
work closely with the IT dept to make sure the management information system runs
effectively. More importantly, all the technology tools must be available to execute their
promotion campaigns.

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Health & Beauty team peformance evaluation
Health and beauty sales records have always been “green” in every campaign, a color shown in sales
tracking system when a category hits targets. Every KAM (Key Account Manager) has high multitasking skill, managerial skill as well as interpersonal skill. All of them are also very young people
with high IT skills. Those are some of the most competitive advantages of Lazada’s labor force.
However, Health & Beauty has hardly been among the top recognized categories for several factors.
Health & Beauty products have high price sensitivity. The team has to keep low profit though
monthly sales always hit targets, especially in big campaigns for the specific characteristics of Health
& Beauty market (high promotion budgets, high discount rate due to the competitive business
environment).
Some major prolems to the team’s performance
External problems. Specific characteristics of the business:
Buying buy Health & Beauty goods directly from stores is a long-term habit for most of Asian
countries. The team’s most impactful strategy has been to pump budget for trial sets,
discounts, social marketing, back margin on profits for suppliers to push their assortment and
investment in Lazada.
• Suppliers play a strategic role, escpecially for Marketplace business sector. Lazada has always
put great effort on suppliers training processes. Suppliers who are lack of intention and
contributing attitude usually cause a lot of backlogs, time-consumption on paper works, stock
inbound and product quality issues.
Internal problems.
• The team of 5 KAMs is currently co-managing over 200 partnering accounts. The number is
increasing every quarter. While the overwhelming loads of works have is causing greater and
greater stress and pressure for every employee.
• Lazada’s current operation system with over 1000 employees has not been able to transform

accordingly to the new wave of business partners as well as consumers. The problems have
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reavealed clearly in 2016 in terms of late deliveries, failed deliveries, fails to response
consumers’ feedbacks, bad cooperating experience with suppliers.
Employees’ multi-national background is an advantage, but also a great interceptor when it
comes to analytical, technical and IT issues, especially when 80% of tech hub’s engineers are
not Vietnamese.

IV. An assessment of the internship
Skills and qualifications gained from the internship
Qualifications. The internship in just a short time has helped me gain significant qualifications that I
had never experienced from school. First is the will toward time-management. The stress and pressure
from a real-world business where time is the most precious resource has forced me to change most of
my negative habits, manage my time to fit with the team’s schedule. Second is the drive for selfimprovement, the desire to perform tasks better day by day and not accept a mediocre result. Third is
the quality of commitment, getting-thing-done mindset, doing whatever it takes to bring out the most
satisfied result despite the former methods. Fourth is critical thinking, the initiative and activeness. I
learn that it is compulsory to fully understand the tasks and procedures before laying hands on the
job. Repeating what has been done is fine, but sometimes spending time figure out how things work
would help process much faster and more effectively. Finally, it is the confidence that has been
gained from achieving results, bringing good value to the team’s business and being trusted.
Skills. There are also valuable business skills observed from the internship. The most remarkable is
office computing skill, escpecially excel. Moreover, almost every transaction and conversation in
Lazada is carried out by e-mail and communication apps. Hence, after a short time, I have been
pushed to fluent all the computing skills faster than from any course taken before. Another valuable

skill is communicating thanks to coworking with branding partners and suppliers, especially in
English as the company is a multicultural organization. Also, in the content making process, I inherit
some basic helpful photoshop skill.
Kinds of responsibilities undertaken during the internship period
During the internship, I was accounted for supporting KAMs (Key Account Managers) with
managing product contents, stocks and declare data required so that the team can make better
decisions in buying & selling strategies. The more precisely data is input and declared, the more
precise merchandising activities, sale report analyzing & sale forecast are to be made. Main activities
have been: input data, create product content, networking with suppliers, brand partners, merchants
(externally) and Lazada functional staffs (internally) and report the progress to KAMs.
Impact on the future career plan
The internship has proved to have a great influence on my career plan. I have come to better
recognize the type of work I prefer more than the others. My strengths and weaknesses also reveal
more obviously. I am now more confident in my own decisions, learning how to take account for
personal tasks and better off the whole team.
Correlation from the internship experience with classroom knowledge

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The internship activities also greatly visualize classroom knowledge. It has been much more
impactful to see how real people process a project beyond looking at charts and diagrams.
Remarkably, Lazada operates its office in the model of an open space. There are no walls between
departments. Every topic is open for sharing and participation. I was impressed by their monthly town
halls in which high level managers reveal business results to all employees and inform major
campaigns of the following periods. Thanks to such open environment, I have learned the daily
routines of several departments, how individuals from different functional departments form together
and execute a project. I also learn that resources allocation (staff, capital, facilities, materials, etc.) in
the real world is more complex and flexible than theoretical principles. What has impressed me the
most is that almost 80% of their employees are under 30 but very porofessional, persistent and

dynamic. Working late at night or at weekends have become a lifestyle to most of the young leaders
in such a dynamic and competitive business environment.
V. Conclusion of the reports
My internship fell into the most bustling quarter, October- December, in which happened the biggest
campaigns such as: Online revolutions 11-11 and 12-12, Online Friday 2016, Black Friday Weeks,
Christmas and New Year promotion. Here I got the chance to really experience the company’s
elasticity to the market, it’s ability to deal with low and high points. Other than that, Lazada Vietnam
is still a very young enterprise which is transforming itself dynamically. In addition, E-Commerce is
going to be the most competitive business in the near future. In the competition with big names from
domestic entities such as Adayroi.vn, Tiki.vn, chotot.vn, more tranformation, innovation and,
improvement is to be made. Such business sectors are thirsty for young and passionate labor force
from both managerial and technical backgrounds. The internship has not only given real experiences
and knowledge but also, more importantly, the vision of opportunities and challenges for my
managerial career.

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VI. References
Lazada New Employee Orientation handbook
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APPENDICES
Executive summary of the Internship
Summary of the company
Summary of the internship program
II.
Company description

Full title and brief history
Main events
Type of ownership
Business sector
Ecommerce marketpace and online retailer
Customer Relationships
Lazada strong brand partnership
Affiliate Marketing
Lazada regional organisational structure
Marketing
Commercial
Products and Operations
Customer experience
Finance
Company performance
Lazada in numbers
Sales record Online revolution 11-11 2016
Converging mega trend
III. Internship activities & the related functional department
IV. Assessment of the internship
Skills and qualifications gained from the internship
Responsibilities undertakeduring the internship period
Impact on the future career plan
Correlation from the internship experience with classroom knowledge
V.
Conclusion of the report
VI. Suplementary materials
Internship confirmation
Internship evaluation form
VII. References

I.

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