The Supervision of Introductory Career Opportunities - Research Proposal Example

Author Note

Internships are significantly considered as the supervision of introductory career opportunities provided in partnerships between the professional organizations and academic institutions (Binder, Baguley, Crook, & Miller, 2015). It is simply an opportunity for engaging with the environment of media workplace together with the companies (P. Maertz Jr, Stoeberl, & Marks, 2014). By considering the fact, a well-structured project proposal is aimed to be developed by means of attending an internship program. This program would be conducted by Y&R ANZ agency, which is a well-known and reputed advertising agency in both New Zealand and Australia, serving several disciplines such as architecture campaign design, brand strategy, corporate design and many more (Y&R ANZ, 2017). In this context, this proposal sheds light on the basic but important aims and objectives and evaluate their significance. Moreover, this study also identifies the important stakeholders associated with the project. Besides that, a proper project schedule, budget allocation as well as resource allocation are aimed to be prepared and demonstrated. Furthermore, this proposal also identifies the risks involved in this project and portrays the way of resolving and managing those issues involved with the project execution.

2. Project Background

The rapid development of adopting more industrial work experience has been seen by the past decade in many educational institutions programs such as internships (Binder, et al., 2015). The internships can simply be termed as the supervision of introductory career opportunities given in the partnership between the professional as well as academic institutions (Sides & Mrvica, 2017). Studying theories, attending lectures or reading textbooks may not be enough for preparing the students for the work environment in real world scenario (Hurst, Thye & Wise, 2014). In addition, the students, who have specifically studied the creative industry like advertising, need to understand the work done in the advertising agency (Lohman, Austin, Borgen & Salo Wolff, 2015). However, it can be termed as the education driven tool, through which the students can be able to gain practical expertise after completing graduation (P. Maertz Jr, A. Stoeberl & Marks, 2014). Hence, being a student from advertising background, I have selected Y&R ANZ agency to complete my internship, which is based in Brisbane. It is a well-known and reputed advertising agency in both New Zealand and Australia, serving several disciplines such as brand experience design, shopper marketing, shopper, social, mobile, digital, CRM, and DM design, promotions, activations, corporate design, architecture campaign development as well as brand strategy (Y&R ANZ, 2017). Internship is a practical learning process along with the educational sources of information that has been adopted by colleges and universities (Lohman, et al., 2015). The advertising or media students have to practice their designing skills before graduating to discover their capability in the industrial work field by developing communication skills and involving with the live project works (P. Maertz Jr, A. Stoeberl & Marks, 2014). Providing students with the confidence of developing their current skills supervised by qualified employee in media and advertising industry with a long-term expertise can assure that they would be benefitted in the provisional or professional level (Hurst, Thye & Wise, 2014).

3. Project Aims and Objectives

The key aim of this project is to design and develop outline and overview of an internship program held by Y&R ANZ agency based in Brisbane. In this context, this proposal would portray the entire curriculum along with identifying the important stakeholders associated with this internship. Moreover, this study would also shed light on the resources required to effectively take part in this program. On the other hand, this study also aims at showing and evaluating all the future scopes of participating in this internship program. The post-graduation students in advertising field would attend this program and they would hold the position of creative designer, where they would learn about how to build a campaign, and how to deal with social media strategy. As a post-graduation student from the advertising and media science background, it would be an effective way for the individual to get a clear picture regarding the future career position and examining his or her current level of expertise. Moreover, through this program, the individual from the advertising background would also be able to understand, where the one should focus on more or which skills to be developed more.

4. Major Project Deliverables

In order to proceed with this project, it is important to set or identify the crucial project deliverables, which would be ultimately deployed or outlined in this project proposal. Individuals, who are from the media science or advertising background, can get an exclusive opportunity to participate in the internship program, conducted by Y&R ANZ agency. However, they have to maintain few deliverables that would be provided before the beginning of this program. First of all, the students would attend fulltime internship program, which would be carried out in 8 weeks, starting from 1st November 2017 to 30th December 2017. On the other hand, along with detailing about internship duration, advertising students are also instructed about providing their individual and respective folio along with giving individual reflective journal.

5. Project Significance

It is essential to evaluate the significance of a project before proceeding with it, as it would create the motive of executing any particular project to the individuals. As mentioned earlier, internship is nothing but a practiced process of learning associated with the educational sources of information that has been considered under universities or colleges (Sides & Mrvica, 2017). Therefore, the advertising or media students have to take the key initiative of practicing their designing skills before completing graduation for discovering their ultimate potential in the industrial workplace by involving with the live tasks as well as in live communication skills. Nevertheless, several organizations are looking distinct skills and values for interns to offer. Thus, participating in this internship program would help the advertising students in exploring and extending their capabilities more in that area from doing social and digital campaigns for creative writing. Most importantly, this project would play a great role in showing the students, how to gather huge confidence for developing their current skills supervised by the qualified employees in any reputed advertising company with a long-term expertise. This project would also ensure that the students would be benefitted at a huge extent both in the professional and provisional level.

6. Project Methodology

The project methodology that I followed was a linear one where one particular task was followed by another. Initially I prepared CV, which contains relevant information pertaining to my academic career and experiences that I have gathered in the past. Thereafter, I developed a folio of my work, which includes detailed information about the work experiences that I have acquired over the past few years. The last task that I did was to prepare a cover letter to the Y&R Company, which focuses on my motivation to work for the company as an intern.

7. Project Stakeholders

Stakeholder is such an important unit or entity for a certain projects, who generally have an interest in a given project (Eskerod & Jepsen, 2013). On the other hand, the project stakeholders may be outside or inside a company, who sponsor a specific project along with that they also have an interest or a gain over a successful project completion (Eskerod & Huemann, 2013). They simply have the authority for dictating whether a certain project is going to bring success for an organization or not (Eskerod & Vaagaasar, 2014). Stakeholders can be referred to the groups and people, whose goals should be adequately satisfied by the corporation (Shaw & Sellers, 2015). Hence, in case of this particular project or internship program, stakeholders such as employers, owners, interns as well as customers play significant roles in bring success to the execution of this program, which would ultimately ensure success in the organizational productivity and potential career path establishment of the intern.

Table 1: List of Stakeholders

Stakeholders

Satisfaction Attribute

Remarks

Clients

• Quality of the project
• Quality of client service

More improvisation on the Customer Relationship Management phase of this internship program would help in the execution of the project in becoming more successful

Employees

• Safe Work Conditions
• Healthy as well as pleasant work culture
• Scope of career development

Effective maintenance of the policies and discipline would also make the project execution successful

Owners

• Attention
• Stability
• Liquidity of Investment
• Return on Investment

More improvements would enhance the satisfaction attribute of the stakeholders

Interns

• Good Business Relations
• On time Payment

Maintaining all the stakeholder attributes as well as a strong business relationship with the interns.

(Source: Author’s Creation)

8. Project Timelines

Table 2: Project Timeline and Schedule

Task Name

Duration

Start

Finish

Predecessors

Resource Names

Advertising Internship

43 days

Wed 01-11-17

Fri 29-12-17

Initiation

3 days

Wed 01-11-17

Fri 03-11-17

Introductory session about the Internship and Significance

1 day

Wed 01-11-17

Wed 01-11-17

Advertising Team Leader, Corporate Trainers ,Marketing Team Leader, Project Manager

Group Formation

1 day

Thu 02-11-17

Thu 02-11-17

3

Corporate Trainers ,Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

Group Discussion and Extempo

1 day

Fri 03-11-17

Fri 03-11-17

4

Corporate Trainers ,Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

End of the Phase

0 days

Fri 03-11-17

Fri 03-11-17

5

Session 1: Brand Management Program

11 days

Mon 06-11-17

Mon 20-11-17

6

Brand strategy and architecture

2 days

Mon 06-11-17

Tue 07-11-17

Advertising Team Leader, Corporate Trainers, Intern as Creative Designer, Team members of advertising department

Brand experience design

3 days

Wed 08-11-17

Fri 10-11-17

8

Advertising Team Leader, Corporate Trainers, Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

Integrating the Brand with Marketing Activities and the Support Marketing Program

3 days

Mon 13-11-17

Wed 15-11-17

9

Advertising Team Leader, Corporate Trainers ,Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

Brand equity sustainability management

3 days

Thu 16-11-17

Mon 20-11-17

10

Advertising Team Leader, Corporate Trainers ,Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

End of Phase

0 days

Mon 20-11-17

Mon 20-11-17

11

Session 2: Digital Marketing Program and Social Media Marketing

3 days

Tue 21-11-17

Thu 23-11-17

12

Search Engine Optimization

1 day

Tue 21-11-17

Tue 21-11-17

Marketing Team Leader, Corporate Trainers, Team members of advertising department

Email Marketing

1 day

Wed 22-11-17

Wed 22-11-17

14

Corporate Trainers, Marketing Team Leader, Team members of advertising department

Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing strategy

1 day

Thu 23-11-17

Thu 23-11-17

15

Corporate Trainers, Marketing Team Leader, Team members of advertising department

End of Phase

0 days

Thu 23-11-17

Thu 23-11-17

16

Session 3: Customer Relationship Management

11 days

Fri 24-11-17

Fri 08-12-17

17

Understanding on CRM trends

3 days

Fri 24-11-17

Tue 28-11-17

Corporate Trainers, Customer Relation Manager, Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

CRM technology

4 days

Wed 29-11-17

Mon 04-12-17

19

Corporate Trainers, Customer Relation Manager, Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

Marketing Automation

4 days

Tue 05-12-17

Fri 08-12-17

20

Corporate Trainers, Customer Relation Manager, Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

End of Phase

0 days

Fri 08-12-17

Fri 08-12-17

21

Practical Session

15 days

Mon 11-12-17

Fri 29-12-17

22

Campaign Development

4 days

Mon 11-12-17

Thu 14-12-17

Marketing Team Leader, Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

Corporate Design

3 days

Fri 15-12-17

Tue 19-12-17

24

Advertising Team Leader, Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

CRM software utilization

4 days

Wed 20-12-17

Mon 25-12-17

25

Corporate Trainers ,Customer Relation Manager, Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

Execution of the Live Project with CRM tools, Digital marketing and brand management tools

3 days

Tue 26-12-17

Thu 28-12-17

26

Team members of advertising department, Corporate Trainers , Project Manager, Intern as Creative Designer

Assessment

1 day

Fri 29-12-17

Fri 29-12-17

27

Corporate Trainers ,Project Manager, Team members of advertising department, Intern as Creative Designer

End of Phase

0 days

Fri 29-12-17

Fri 29-12-17

28

Certificate Distribution and End of Internship

1 day

Mon 01-01-18

Mon 01-01-18

29SS

(Source: Author’s Creation)

Figure 1: Gantt Chart

(Source: Author’s Creation)

9. Resources and Budget

9.1 Project Resources

Table 3: Project Resources

Resource Name

Type

Initials

Max. Units

Std. Rate

Interns as Creative Designer

Work

I

100%

$20.00/hr

Corporate Trainers

Work

C

100%

$60.00/hr

Project Manager

Work

P

100%

$80.00/hr

Advertising Team Leader

Work

A

100%

$65.00/hr

Marketing Team Leader

Work

M

100%

$65.00/hr

Team members of Advertising Department

Work

T

100%

$65.00/hr

Customer Relation Manager

Work

C

100%

$65.00/hr

(Source: Author’s Creation)

9.2 Budget

Table 4: Budget for the Project

Particulars

Initial Cost ($)

Stipend of Interns

11760.00

Salary of Employees associated with Internship Program

21000.00

Taxes or Employer's Contributions

6000.00

Food

570.00

Medical Facilities

600.00

Facility Management

520.00

Training

400.00

Mailing expenses

300.00

Miscellaneous

200.00

Total Expenses

41350.00

(Source: Author’s Creation)

10. Risk Management

Risk identification and risk management are two of the most significant steps of preparing a project proposal, which would demonstrate any risk envisaged by the project management professional and associated with undertaking the project and plan for dealing with these issues (Carvalho & Rabechini Junior, 2015). This entire section has been segmented into two subsections, where analysis of the risks has been done along with showing the risk rating and besides that, risk management strategies have been enlightened in the other section.

10.1 Risk Analysis and Risk Rating

Table 5: Risk Analysis along with Risk Rating

Possible phases

Undesired Severity (S) (1, 2, 3)

Likelihood (L) (1, 2, 3)

Ranking (L * S)

Phase 1: Initiation stage – the incorrect and improper estimation for the internship budget

1

3

3

Phase 2: Brand Management Program – Inadequate cooperation from the interns can lead to corporate project failure.

2

3

6

Phase 3: Digital Marketing Program – Lack of proper guidance provided to the interns while working with the corporate and live project.

2

1

2

Phase 4: Customer Relationship Management – Lack of proper guidance can also lead to the failure in maintaining customer relationship management and due to which customer satisfaction rate for the company may be minimized.

2

2

4

Phase 5: Live Project Execution – Short timeline set for the project execution, would result in narrowing down the career path of the intern.

2

3

6

(Source: Author’s Creation)

10.2 Risk Management and Mitigation Plan

Table 6: Risk Mitigation Plan

Project Phases and Risk Associated with those Stages

Responsible Persons for Risk Mitigation

Risk Mitigation or Risk Contingency

Phase 1: Initiation stage – the incorrect and improper estimation for the internship budget

Project Manager and Corresponding Teams Leads working under the PM

The budgetary demands need to be updated along with the project progress

Phase 2: Brand Management Program – Inadequate cooperation from the interns can lead to corporate project failure.

Advertising Team Leader and Interns

The interns should be strictly instructed to efficiently cooperate with project managers and team leaders so that internship program can be successfully completed

Phase 3: Digital Marketing Program – Lack of proper guidance provided to the interns while working with the corporate and live project

Marketing Team Lead and Interns

Managers and trainers should show more efficiency in guiding the interns in order to enhance the success r5ate of this phase

Phase 4: Customer Relationship Management – Lack of proper guidance and short project timeline can also lead to the failure in maintaining customer relationship management and due to which customer satisfaction rate for the company may be minimized.

Customer Relation Manager and Interns

The timeline should be increased for the entire internship program in order to resolve this constraint.

Phase 5: Live Project Execution – short timeline set for the project execution would result in narrowing down the career path of the intern

Project Manager and Interns

Duration should be extended in order to deal with this particular risk to the internship program.

(Source: Author’s Creation)

11. Conclusion

The study has significantly built up a well-designed plan or proposal of an internship program for an advertising student, which would be an evidence of his practical work with a renowned advertising company such as Y&R ANZ agency in terms of completing a live project on this particular field. The entire plan for this program has shown, how this internship program would become an ultimate learning process for the post-graduation students in this field along with their educational sources of information that are considered by the universities and colleges. As a conclusion, it can be stated that the advertising or media students should effectively practise their skills before completing their graduation for discovering their potential in industrial workplace by being engaged with the real work tasks and communication skill development. This proposal has significantly outlined an effective project schedule, budget estimation as well as resource allocation, which are crucial for the successful completion of the internship program. On the other hand, along with designing the entire project plan, this study has also shed light on the key risks associated with the execution of this program. In order to identify the risks, this report has designed a risk matrix, where the essence of mitigating risks has been portrayed. Besides that, the processes of mitigating all the mentioned and recognized risks have been significantly portrayed in this paper in a tabular format.