INTERNSHIP REPORT

RED & WHITE INTERNATIONAL

&

KULARA WATER

Guilhem VIAL

ECE - Promotion 2016

Red & White International / Kulara

From 6th of January to 4th of April 2014

« NOW, EVERY CAMBODIAN CAN DRINK HEALTHY, NATURAL MINERAL WATER »

Table of Contents

Thanks .................................................................................................................................. 1

Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 2

Part 1 : The company in its environment ............................................................................... 4

Part 2 : My missions and the roles I took ............................................................................... 6

I) First steps in the worldwide wine business .............................................................. 7

II) Level up : Becoming the Brand Ambassador of Eau Kulen...................................... 9

Part 3 : Questioning and Analyzing.......................................................................................13

Part 4 : Cultural Differences .................................................................................................15

Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................19

ANNEXES ............................................................................................................................21

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Thanks to …

I would like thanks my parents, who give me the opportunity to do this studies and so, indirectly,

the opportunity to discover this country and this culture by doing this internship.

Of course, I would like to thanks Nicolas Olivry and the Red & White International team, who

taught me a lot of things about the way of doing business and basically, how to work, to be in

a company.

Thank you to the international internship’s office of the ECE which was very available to answer

my questions and gave me a lot of tips all along this journey.

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Introduction

In the context of my studies, I had to do a three months internship in a foreign country. So I

was looking for a good internship and a good country. I’m very interested by the wine business

and the wine in general. So I wanted to do my internship in this sector to learn more about the

marketing tools, strategies and habits of this market. Then, I was very attracted by the Asia,

not by a special place but I really wanted to discover this continent.

By my network, I knew that a French businessman has created his own company in Cambodia.

A marketing company which offer to communicate for big wine’s producers all around the

world. I’ve heard that at this time, the company got one head office in Singapore, one operative

unit in China and a representative office in Cambodia. So it sounds very interesting for me and

in May 2013, I decided to apply to get an internship in the head office of Singapore.

Unfortunately, the company was not able to offer me an internship of three months in the head

office because they don’t use to offer less than 6 months internship and also because they

were already full in Singapore. But after one month, the CEO, M. Olivry emails me again to

offer me an internship of three months in Cambodia mainly focused on the a mineral water

local brand called “Kulara Water”. So, even if it was not what I expected first, after

consideration, I accepted the offer. Mainly because all I’ve heard and ridden about Cambodia

was very interesting and also because the mineral water is a very interesting product and

market to develop in Cambodia.

To summarize, I prepared my first trip Alone, in Asia, during Three months. I think these are

the main difficulties I’ve found in my internship. First, I had to change my way of think,

understand a new culture and adapt myself to this country. This, I had to do it alone, with no

parents here to take care, no friends etc… And of course, it’s not holidays in a five stars hotel

during three weeks, no. Three months of living in the Khmer1 lifestyle.

1 Khmer = Cambodian/Cambodians

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In the company, the first difficulty was to increase my English level. Even if my level was not

too bad, I didn’t spoke English fluently and I found some difficulties the first month to

understand, and speak easily with my colleagues. That’s why the first times my missions were

not too complicated, to give my time to be more comfortable.

Later on, I discovered how works a small business. I learnt how you have to be in a company.

How you have to works and this internship was an invaluable experience for it. I learnt a lot of

habits and skills and first times, I recognized, it was hard to organize myself.

So, the goals I had before I arrived in Cambodia were to prove to myself that I can organize

my life and shows that I’m able to work in a company and have some responsibilities. I wanted

to find my limits in terms of autonomy, efficiency and in general, in my personal and

professional life. Furthermore, like I wrote it above, I’m really fond of wine and this internship

was a good opportunity to increase my knowledge about the wine’s new world2, the worldwide

wine business and the taste of foreign wines.

Notwithstanding with this report, the aim is to introduce you the mineral & drinking3 water

market in Asia, what is the role of my company in this sector and basically, what was my role

during this 3 months. Because, even if I worked sometimes for wine producers, my main

mission was to worked with Kulara Water, to developed this brand as the reference one for the

natural mineral water of Cambodia.

Let us cut straight to the chase and first, have a look on what is the history of Red & White to

understand better how I started to work with them and therefore, with Kulara Water.

2 In the wine market, we consider that Europe is the old world and that America, South Africa and Asia composed the new world. 3 Drinking water are very cheap waters with no mineral inside. It’s not good for health to drink this kind of water during a long term.

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Part 1 : The company in its environment

Red & White international is a “Marketing Solutions Provider” company for wine and spirits

producers. Like consultants, it means that they work as an extension, sometimes as the

marketing department itself of them clients. These clients come from France, Italy, Chile,

Argentina, South Africa, Australia and they all want to work worldwide, especially on the Asian

market. To provide good results to his clients, with its staff of around 20 peoples, R&W is

implemented in 3 countries in Asia : Singapore, China and Cambodia. R&W is absolutely not

an importer, but it work with through Asia and pacific. Since 2002, the company is now well

established and got a very good network with a lot of partners.

The goal of the company is to help its clients to get new opportunities on new markets. R&W

use to analyze the target market, identify what the client’s needs are, give them adapted

solutions and takes care of the good realization of each operations. Therefore, we can consider

that R&W is working through all the Asian continent as a marketing consultant for worldwide

wine producers. So, the main markets of the company are localized in the developed part of

Asia (China, Japan, Singapore mainly) and it concerns the wine promotion in global markets

as far as in luxury markets. Moreover, the company has recently decided to work with a local

producer of mineral water in Cambodia called Kulara Water because of the interest they have

in the product, the network they have and also because of the experience they have in doing

marketing in Asia.

Historically, the headquarters of R&W were in Singapore but recently, they decided to move in

Cambodia to reach new customers and new markets. Cambodia is located between Thailand,

Laos and Vietnam. So it’s a good place to be if you want to reach this part Asia because

Cambodia is in the middle place. Furthermore, because of its history, Cambodia is a very

young country in that after the end of the bloody Khmer rouges regime4 at the beginning of the

80’s, all had to be built again just as in France for example, after the WW2. So we can consider

that Cambodia is a land of opportunities. The market is young, and nowadays, with the

increasing of international business, Cambodia is a very interested place to do business.

4 Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouges regime (inspired of the Mao’s communist regime in China) leaded by Pol Pot, is responsible of the death of 1.7 million Cambodians peoples.

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In one hand, Cambodia is not as developed as others big Asian countries regarding its political,

juridical and economic sectors. Concretely : the messy infrastructures, the nonexistent

administrative proceedings or the still corrupted government are probably the main limits of

this “young” country. Even if in a way it could be attractive firstly, this lack of organization could

prevents you to reach your goals. So you need to previously have a good knowledge of how

to do business in Asia if you want to go through these difficulties in Cambodia.

In another hand, Cambodia needs to get technology and modern working methods. It means

that peoples from already developed countries, with modern knowledge of marketing,

management etc … Are very welcome in Cambodia. Like I’ve written above, it’s the land of

opportunity.

By the way, that’s why R&W decided to be more focused on this country. During the past 20

years, Cambodia has known a tremendous evolution. In Phnom Penh, the capital where R&W

is established since 2010, now you have plenty of five star hotels, a couple of huge skyscrapers

which host big international firms, luxuries restaurants and in general, the emergence of a new

rich class which is fond of wines. A lot of wine producers who are already implemented in

China, Japan or Singapore are now more and more interested in this emergent country. That’s

why R&W decided to move its headquarters to Phnom Penh, to be the closest they can to

where it goes.

In addition, it’s a story of circumstances as well. The opportunity to work with the first mineral

water of Cambodia, “Eau Kulen” is the opportunity to take part to a business success story.

Indeed, as what happened in Thailand or in Vietnam, work with the first mineral water of

Cambodia is a chance that could bring success, experience and also money to the company.

The fact which is interesting is that Eau Kulen is a very young product and that all has to be

done. There is lot of work to do concerning this product and that’s why my missions were so

interesting.

Regarding what I’ve done for the company, I think that it could be interesting to take a look at

the strategy that R&W run concerning Eau Kulen. Through the SWOT and the PESTEL5, which

are two interesting tools to understand quickly the situation of a product on a market, we see

that the conditions are all gathered to allow this project to be a success story. Please refer to

the annexes to have more details.

5 Cf. Annex 1 and 2

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Part 2 : My missions and the roles I took

Red & White International Organogram

All I’ve done during my internship can be divided in two parts :

I) My first steps in the company, from January to the middle of February, mainly

focused on the wine business and preparing the following months for Kulara

II) The second part, from the middle of February until the end, the active part of my

internship, totally focused on the Eau Kulen project.

CEO

Nicolas OLIVRY

Marketing Senior Coordinator (Singapore)

Matthieu CULOT

Marketing Chef Executor

Justin WRIGHT

Marketing Senior Coordinator

Loïc AMIOT

Project Manager

Guilhem VIAL

Marketing Senior Administrator

Thida THOU

Marketing Chef Operator (China)

Johnatan LAMENT

Marketing Senior Coordinator

(China)Olivia LU

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I) First steps in the worldwide wine business

I realized 3 main tasks during this first part of my internship.

Firstly, I have updated a lot of documents. Each year you have to start again this exercise to

check the new vintages, the new prices and so, update the files corresponding with new data.

I have mainly worked on the price lists6 and the testing notes7 for several producers. It’s always

the same job : you have to call the producer, ask them to send you the latest documents and

reformat it to the format decided by R&W to have the same documents for each producers. It’s

not a hard job but it takes sometimes a bit of time to collect all the information and also, you

have to be careful to do not make mistakes on the final document. You have to change each

dates, titles, description, content in general so you have to be very rigorous. It was a good first

job to improve my English (especially to write in English) and to be more comfortable with all

the marketing tools and to remember all the clients we have as well. Until the end of my

internship, I used to update one or two documents every day.

I’ve also worked on the 2014 Korean Wine Challenge organized by the Wine Review8 which

will takes place at Seoul from the 9th of June to the 20th of June 2014. This wine challenge in

particular is very important for our European customers who want to be better known in Asia.

Depending on the reward they will get, they could have a full page, a half-page, a quarter page

etc. in the Wine Review. So I’ve contacted all our clients to ask them if this year they wanted

to participate and If yes that I needed the list of the wines they wanted to present at the event.

Five of our clients answered positively and I’ve filled the registration form for them as well as

most of the administrative stuffs. My colleagues had done the rest.

Finally, I’ve organized a testing in a very famous restaurant of Phnom Penh for one of our

French client : Lavau9. Organize this event was absolutely fantastic. My boss told me that

Lavau wanted to take the benefits of our position in Cambodia to penetrate this market. The

Asian wine market, especially in Cambodia is a very young market and the wines they drink,

even the way they drink it (restaurants served red wine with ices) had to be taken in

consideration. That’s why we have realized this event in a selected restaurant with selected

peoples because these wines have to be carefully treated.

6 Cf. Annex 3 7 Cf. Annex 4 8 A very famous Wine magazine in Asia 9 Lavau is a French producer of several wines in the Rhone Valley

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Source : Invitation I realized and I sent to our guests

It takes me three days to organize the event. I firstly used the database of the company to

prepare a guests list of potential clients. I’ve sent more than 80 mails to Food & Beverage

managers of prestigious Hotels and Restaurants of Phnom Penh. I’ve even contacted General

Managers when the F&B was not available. Waiting the answers, I’ve contacted Tim, the chef

of the Common Tiger, one of the most famous restaurant of Phnom Penh, to organize the

event with him. Then, I received a couple of positive answers but I had to call all the persons

who didn’t answer. It takes me almost a day but finally, after many speech in English, French

even Spanish I got my final guest list. The D-day, I arrived 2 hours before at the event to taste

all the wines, set all the displays and to check all the details with the staff.

Even if it started slowly, more than twenty peoples came and the event was a success. It was

also the opportunity for me to develop my network. I met managers from 5 stars hotels as the

Sofitel or from luxuries restaurant and I’ve collected the name cards of everybody. This event

is one of the good memories I have of my internship.

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II) Level up : Becoming the Brand Ambassador of Eau Kulen

I started my activity of Brand Ambassador for Eau Kulen at the end of February but before that,

I’ve realized a couple of task to prepare the groundwork. So it’s important to understand that

I’ve worked for Red & White during all these three months, but the last one, I’ve spent a lot of

time with Kulara Water (which is a client of R&W) to realize special missions as well.

I started in January with a survey in all the Lucky Supermarket10 of Phnom Penh. The aim of

this survey was to check if all the outlets respected the Minimum Recommended Selling Price

(MRSP) we imposed them to sell Eau Kulen. It’s very important to check it because with the

system of FOC goods11 we have, some of the outlets just don’t respect this condition and we

have to watch out for this. So it took me one day to visit the 7 outlets of Phnom Penh with a

tuk-tuk (famous moto/taxi in Asia). In each outlet, I needed first to go to the front desk to get a

name card to be able to take photos and notes about the prices and the displays. Lucky

Supermarket is a big retailer, very professional so no big surprises at the end of the survey. All

the prices were most of the time right (except for the smallest one which sold each bottles 5

cents under the MRSP). This survey was my first experience on the groundwork as a Brand

Ambassador. It was very exciting to arrive in the outlet, say “Hello, my name is Guilhem from

Kulara Water” to the manager, give him my name cards and started the survey.

When I was not on the ground but in the office, I took care of the Sales analysis12. It means

that at the beginning of each month, after we received the sales results of the past month from

Geolink, which is the exclusive supplier of Eau Kulen to each kind of outlet (warehouses,

restaurants, retailers, modern trades etc…), I had to reformat the data and to summarize them

for my boss. It was not a hard job but it could takes almost 4 hours to put in order all the data.

Furthermore, I had to realize four Top 10 clients of each category of outlet as well. This job

was the longest … But at the end of the internship I was pretty efficient to do it.

At the beginning of February, we have also organized two trade lunch in two famous

restaurants of Phnom Penh to introduce Eau Kulen to managers of several luxuries hotels and

restaurants. I have just took care of the final organization of the events which were very useful

to increase the brand awareness with these famous hotels and restaurants.

10 Lucky is the only chain of supermarket of Cambodia. It’s the equivalent of Carrefour City in Europe. 11 FOC= Free Of Charges = Given for free. Regarding the amount of cases one outlet order, we use to give them for free one, two, three etc. cases to help them to promote Eau Kulen. But some of them use the FOC goods in a bad (local) way by reducing the selling price to be more competitive and sell more products instead of doing a margin and sell the product in the good (modern) way. 12 Cf. Annex 5

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Source : The Jacques Marcille’s presentation of Eau Kulen during the Trade Lunch at Topaz

Restaurant - 04/02/2014

These events were organized in the same way. Nicolas Olivry used to start by welcome

everybody and to do a quick presentation of the day. After that, the Doctor Jacques Marcille

from Eau Kulen realizes a general presentation of Eau Kulen, insisting on all the benefits of a

mineral water and what are the main differences between mineral and drinking waters. Then,

the lunch where sometimes you can hear conversations about a potential partnership …

My main mission, which makes me very busy from January to the end of my internship, was

to realize the Media Planning13 of Eau Kulen for 2014. A Media Planning summarize, like a

schedule, what you will do in terms of advertisement with whom, when etc… It’s a very detailed

document. In fact, this job was the biggest I’ve done so far.

My boss told me that TV and Radio were under the responsibility of Kulara Water but

concerning the newspapers and the magazines, which are the most developed media in this

kind of emergent country, we have to take care of it. The other part of the marketing took care

of the signboards and tuk-tuk advertising campaigns. I’ve engaged most of my time to realize

this media plan which is more than just a “planning” because you have to think about everything

and to do everything by yourself if you want to get results. It’s not only a schedule …

13 Cf. Annex 6

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So, I realized this document by following different steps :

First, I’ve looked for all the interesting magazines and newspapers of Cambodia (and

sometimes Asia as well). I made a list of them and I organized meetings with each of them,

the sales and marketing manager mostly, to introduce them the product, give them an idea of

what we want to do in terms of advertising regarding our budget and talk about a potential

partnership.

When I had collected all the information, I’ve made a PowerPoint with the help of the R&W

staff to present to Kulara Water what is the land of possibilities for our advertising campaign.

We discussed about what they want to do, with whom and when they gave us the green light,

we were able to go to the next step.

The next step, was to realize the final document which is in the annexes. I submitted it to Kulara

and after them approbation, I contacted back each of our partners to negotiate the best price

they can offer us and to prepare all the agreements …

Source : The “Apsara” model of Print Ads we mainly used for the 2014 campaign.

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Meanwhile, I was also in touch with Kulara and design agencies to create new artworks for the

2014 campaign. The goal was to create enough artworks, to target different customers (general

clients, pregnant ladies and young mothers, old peoples, sport peoples) in the corresponding

magazine. The most famous artwork we met, coming from the TV spot, is the Apsara you can

see before. An Apsara, is a traditional dancer of Cambodia half-woman, half-god. It’s a very

strong image for Cambodian peoples, that’s why we decided to use it mainly for our campaign.

Finally, after a long series of negotiation, when we collected all the agreements (signed by

each parts), all the artworks and when all the conditions were established, we were able to

start our campaign. We sent the artworks to the periodicals and because of them deadlines,

we missed the month of January and almost February as well. But ultimately, I’m proud of what

we’ve done because doing business with Khmer peoples is not easy at all for a foreign

company. After I left the company, we started to receive some samples from each periodicals

and I will remember this feeling of pride that you have when you see your work, what you have

done concretely, it’s very gratifying !

My last main missions were to realize different visits in several Modern Trades and HORECA14

with someone from the Geolink Staff. I had two goals : first, try to get new clients and then,

train the Geolink staff to sell the product. Indeed, Geolink is more a logistic company than a

commercial company, that’s why my mission was also to show them how to do a good

presentation and how to convince the client to buy the product. I realized 4 days of visits : 1

day for the MT and 3 days for the HORECA. The process was the same for both : Established

a list and a schedule of the visits with strategic targets by calling them and then, organize the

day with the Geolink staff. It was also important for me to have someone who speaks Khmer

and English with me because sometimes, even the managers don’t speak English. Sometimes,

it was the Geolink staff who ran the meetings but always in the way I taught him. The

presentation used to takes 20 minutes respected always the same process :

Overall Presentation The benefits of Eau Kulen Potential partnership ? Negotiation

It was very pleasant to run these meetings and again it was the opportunity for me to develop

my network as well. It was the apogee of my role of Brand Ambassador. Even if the Geolink

staff was not always efficient, they have improved their skills after presenting many times the

product. I’ve seen them make some progress and it is encouraging future.

A report15 after each visits was done to summarize them.

14 HOtels, REstaurant, CAtering 15 Cf. Annex 7

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Part 3 : Questioning and Analyzing

Concerning the strategy the companies use, it’s inspired by Kulara Water and R&W because

they are working together. So it’s sometimes hard to identify who is doing what. For a better

understanding, you should consider that in this case, R&W and Kulara Water are the same

company. I prefer to analyze this partnership that the strategy of R&W alone or the strategy of

Kulara Water alone. It’s more meaningful.

So first, according to me it’s because of the innovation of this product that this business run

well. Eau Kulen is the first mineral water of Cambodia ! Only with this you have a huge

competitive advantage. They have two mains competitors : Evian and Vittel from France. Eau

Kulen is as good as these waters but three times less expansive. Moreover, the drinking waters

as Minere from Thailand or La Vie from Vietnam, very popular in Cambodia, are selling around

the same price as Eau Kulen and they are just drinking waters. For your reference, you will

see the following comparative table which summarize all the information.

NATURAL MINERAL WATERS

MINERALS

BICARBONATE CALCIUM MAGNESIUM POTASSIUM SODIUM FLUOR Average Selling Price In

Cambodia for One Bottle of 1,5L in USD

WHO recomanded

quantities (in mlg/L)

Less than 1300

20 to 80 10 to 30 0,5 to 1,0 Less than 200

0,7 to 2.0

EAU KULEN (Khmer)

409 43 16 0,8 73 0,8 $ 0,80

EVIAN (France) 357 78 24 1 5 N/A $ 2,50

MINERE (Thailand)

219 22 7 1,6 115 0,5 $ 0,70

LA VIE (Vietnam) 302 16 5 3 95 0,2 $ 0,70

ACQUA PANNA (Italy)

108 30 7 9 6 0,1 N/A

FIJI (Fiji) 146 17 13 4,9 18 0,3 N/A

Source : Comparative table I’ve made with the information provided by the Doctor Jacques

Marcille, in charge of the Eau Kulen project.

The main mission is to open the people’s mind and make them understand that now they can

drink a mineral water from their own country, for a cheaper price.

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Nevertheless; the success of Eau Kulen is also due to the special partnership between Kulara

Water which know well the Cambodian lifestyle and R&W which know well a lot of marketing

technics and how to sell a product worldwide. The teams are composed in both company by a

multicultural staff which is a good point to do efficient business. It’s when local and foreign

ideas crossed their ways that you can to get the best to do business.

I think that the strategy we use is good also because of the context. To give you an idea, in

France, mineral water is available in bottle since 1960. The context In France, in 1960, was

great. It was and it’s still easy to buy a bottle of natural mineral water with an accessible price

for everybody. Natural mineral water in Cambodia, is now available with an accessible price

for everybody. Two years ago it was not the case. You have to know that a meal in Cambodia

cost between $ 0.5 till $ 2 if you want to eat in a restaurant. This is the reality for 70% of the

population. This population cannot buy one bottle of mineral water for $ 2.5, it represents five

meals ! This is the target of Eau Kulen.

The strategy is also to insist on that now, Cambodians can also be very proud to have their

own mineral water. At least, it was my job to help them to understand that they should. For me,

it’s a proof of the evolution of them country. Now they have their own mineral water. Affordable

for everybody and produced in their country. They don’t need someone to provide them mineral

water from a foreign country. They are more independent. This argument I used to use was

very efficient and also very true. Eau Kulen is a real proof of the tremendous evolution of this

country during the past fifteen years

There is one main limit for me, it’s the lack of efficiency of the supplier Geolink. I’ve worked a

lot with them and most of the time it was hard to get good results. It’s not only with them, it’s

hard to work with the Khmers in general but Geolink was especially inefficient sometimes. In

Cambodia, you have to work two times harder to get the same result than in usual.

Notwithstanding, the inexistent infrastructures are also a limit. You can do all the marketing

you wants, you will never get the same results as if you were doing business in a developed

country.

To finish, I would say that it’s a very special to analyze this product, this market, these

companies and their strategies because of the context again. I have the feeling that I’ve

travelled back in the past and at the same time, that I’ve discovered a very modern way of

doing business. This paradox was one of the thing which makes this experience extraordinary.

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Part 4 : Cultural Differences

Cambodia represents the preserved part of Asia. The Asian continent is still divided in a rich

part with Japan, China or Singapore and in a preserved part with countries like Cambodia,

Laos, or Vietnam (Thailand is an exception).

For my first time in Asia, I’ve spent three months in such different culture regarding ours that

first times, I was totally lost. To illustrate my experience, I used the 7 dimensions of the culturist

and sociologist, the professor Trompenaars16 to highlight the cultural differences between

Cambodia and France and basically, between Europe and Asia.

This study allow us to answer to 7 questions concerning the cultural differences :

Do we function in a group or as individuals? (Individualism vs. Collectivism)

What is more important, society’s rules or personal relationships? (Universalism vs.

Particularism)

Do we display our emotions or keep our feelings to ourselves? (Neutral vs. Emotional)

How much we separate our private and professional lives ? (Specific vs. Diffuse)

Do we have to prove ourselves to receive status or is it given to us ? (Achievement

vs. Ascription)

Do we do things one at a time or several things at once? (Sequential vs. Synchronic)

Do we control our environment or are we controlled by it? (Internal vs. External control)

With answering these questions which concerns the everyday life’s dilemma, we will try to

highlight the culture’s deep values. It’s the goal of the study of the professor Trompenaars and

it’s my goal as well.

16 The professor Trompenaars, an old student of the famous culturist the professor Hofstede, have done researches on 30 000 peoples through over 40 countries to establish with his associate, Charles Hampden-Turner, the 7 dimensions culture model.

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Foreword :

When I will speak about the Cambodian culture, I will refer to the traditional Khmer culture

which is still dominating the country. Nevertheless, Cambodia knows a big evolution and the

mentalities are changing fast. Especially when you analyze the emergent rich part of the

population which is too much occidentalized. If I had to compare them to the French culture,

we will see that there is a lot of similarities between them. That’s why I will not refer to this part

of the population in this section.

1) Do we function in a group or as individuals? (Individualism vs. Collectivism)

Before my trip, I was thinking that France was a hybrid model of Individualism and Collectivism

and that it was hard to answer properly to this question. Now, regarding the Cambodian culture,

France is clearly an Individualism country. In Cambodia, a large part of the population stay at

the parents’ house until 30 years old, every weekends you go out with your family and all you

relatives (cousins, uncle, aunt …). Moreover, peoples use to help strangers, not for free all the

time but Cambodian peoples are very solidary. This characteristic was very pleasant at work

because Cambodians use to work (when they work) together, with helping each other.

2) What is more important, society’s rules or personal relationships? (Universalism

vs. Particularism)

This answer comes naturally after the previous answer. France is clearly Universalist, the

society rules everything whereas Cambodia is Particularist and the personal relationships are

above all. Cambodia is a country of tolerance, open to the other and focused on relationships

mainly because of the Buddhism culture. It’s a no materialist culture. It could be a bit

problematic sometimes in the work because peoples are very sensitive and they can change

their opinion in one second, or don’t come to an important meeting because they forget they

had a very important family lunch (it happened to me).

3) Do we display our emotions or keep our feelings to ourselves? (Neutral vs.

Emotional)

All the answers are linked and it’s already a proof that these cultures are totally opposites.

Cambodian culture is completely leaded by the emotions and the feelings while France is more

neutral and the emotions are put in the background. Again it can be problematic when you

work because peoples are unstable and for example, it’s very difficult to establish a long term

partnership with a Khmer company.

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4) How much we separate our private and professional lives ? (Specific vs. Diffuse)

In France we are very specific and most of the time we try to separate our private and

professional lives. Of course not in Cambodia. It’s always a family affair and all the

“businesses” (even if sometimes it’s just a rice plantation) are managed by the members of the

family. Even in the company where I’ve been, Red And White, I know that the Marketing Senior

Administrator, Thida THOU, has to go to her sister’s shop every weekend to take care of it.

5) Do we have to prove ourselves to receive status or is it given to us ? (Achievement

vs. Ascription)

Here, it’s a bit complicated. It’s a question of context again. France is a country when

achievement is the rule. Of course there is still some inequalities but because of the system,

regarding to the Cambodians’ one, we can consider that whoever you are, you have a chance

to be successful. In Cambodia, peoples would like to have the same system but unfortunately,

they are valued for who they are, and not on what they do. If you are lucky, born in a rich family

you will know the success. If not, you don’t.

6) Do we do things one at a time or several things at once? (Sequential vs.

Synchronic)

Even if nowadays, French peoples tend to be more synchronic, they still use to do things one

at a time and time is very important. The deadlines in work have to be respected. During my

internship in R&W it was the same because of the multicultural staff, dominated by the

European way of work. In Cambodia, they are very synchronic and sometimes they clearly

have some difficulties to manage all these things at the same time. They are absolutely not

punctual and they almost never respect the deadlines so of course, it’s sometimes hard to

work with them for this.

7) Do we control our environment or are we controlled by it? (Internal vs. External

control) For this question only, I refer to the modern Cambodian culture.

Regarding the previous answers, it’s not easy to answer to this question. In France, you are

able to control your environment but some peoples are now more and more controlled by the

dictates of the society where they use to live. Notwithstanding, you are still free to do what you

want and you are normally able to think and say what you want as well.

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In Cambodia, you could firstly think that all is easy and that you can do what you want. I’m

thinking about all the tourists who came and go to the shooting range to play with a rocket

launcher and all these kind of stupid activities (when it’s not worst, the sexual tourism). But

these examples only goes for tourists and expatriates. For Khmer peoples, the society rules

everything and you are what peoples asked you to be. There is a huge importance of the image

and peoples are strictly divided in categories, according to the goods they have, the clothes

they wear and the money they earn.

I will end this part with this history. I said “Strictly” when I was talking about the division of the

modern Cambodian culture in categories because I remember that during a trade lunch we

organized for Eau Kulen, at the end of it, I wanted to speak with a waiter to explain to him some

stuff concerning mineral water. After 5 minutes of classic argumentation, this guy thanks me 3

times for the time I used to explain him the benefits of Eau Kulen. I came back several times

in this restaurant only as a customer and this guy was always thanking me so much each time

I used to speak with him. One day, after a long dinner with friends in the same restaurant, we

invited the waiter to join us in a bar we used to go in Phnom Penh. The guy told us this, “Thank

you, thank so much for the invitation, thank you so much for being my friend. I’m sorry, I cannot

follow you, I’m not allowed to go in this bar. But thank you so much for being my friend”

W decided to stay with him to understand why he can’t follow us. He explains us how it goes

for rich and poor peoples in Cambodia. That there are some bars made for rich peoples and

others for poor peoples. We stayed together and we have spoken all night long about the

differences between France and Cambodia. This guy helped me to understand a lot of things

and for me, to meet him was an invaluable thing.

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Conclusion

This internship was an invaluable experience on the professional side as much as the personal

side.

To summarize, I consider that the goals I have are reached and more than this. I’ve made my

first real experience in a company, in a new environment, alone and totally lost. Of course I

knew some difficult moments (as I supposed I will know), I knew success and fails but it was

in both case, a huge motivation. I improved my skills, how to work in a company but above all,

how to be in a company. I’ve increased my knowledge of the wine business and the way of

doing international business. I’m especially better in commercials activities, marketing, event

planning and management. I discovered how to work on a young market in an emergent

country with my experience with Eau Kulen. This experience also taught me to trust in me and

give me some useful habits for the future. I learnt to be autonomic, organized and how to work

efficiently under stress. And last but not least, I have also improved my English which is now

almost enough good to allow me to do business worldwide.

This internship was also a personal experience that I will never forget. It first helps me to open

my mind and makes me want to travel and discover more and more cultures as well. Cambodia

changed my way of thinking and helps me to step back on my life. Now, I see no limits, no

problems. There is a solution for everything. I think that this is what this internship taught me :

Always go through the difficulties, whatever they are. No matter if I’m successful or not, there

is always a way to escape. I know it sounds a bit shallow, but it’s a reality for me. Before this

internship, I was not ready enough to do anything. Either on the professional side or the

personal one, know I feel that I’m better prepared against the difficulties which are coming.

Basically, this internship is also a big argument now on my CV. Because like my boss told me

: “We didn’t ask you to come, to make photocopies” and it’s true. I really improved my skills

during these three months, more than ever. Furthermore, I haven’t chosen the easiest way to

do my internship. I’ve made almost 10 000 km to go to a country and a continent I’ve never

been before. To live in basics conditions during three months and working for a small company,

where you have a lot of work to do to be efficient. I learnt how they do international business,

especially in wine sector in Asia which is a new and very important market in this sector. All

these characteristics will work in my favor and correspond to my professional project.

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By the way, this internship is the beginning of a long time process. I would like to understand

all the different part of the wine business. I started here with the international business

approach which was the step one of the process.

I’ve chosen to go to Roma in Italy in September 2014 to discover this part Europe which always

attracted me. This is the step two. I will spent there 4 months in the university and my goal,

more than be successful at the exams, is to discover the wine business of Italy which is the

second after France in Europe. I’ve planned to find part-time job in a winery or something else

to pay my studies and discover the wine business.

Next year, in 2015, I will apply to get an internship in a famous French wine producer. This is

the step three. I’ve developed my network and I met the chairman of Cheval Blanc, which is

one of the most famous wine of Bordeaux (and of the world). So I will carefully prepare my

candidature for this, probably when I will come back from Italy.

Step four, is to do my fifth year of studies in a wine business formation. I haven’t choose yet

which one but there is a lot of them in France, and also abroad … I will think about it in times.

To conclude, my project is quite simple : Work with the best, understand how they do, to be

able to do the same in the future. This amazing internship taught me a lot of things and I’m

pretty proud of done it. Now, I will try to continue to do the best choice for my future.

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ANNEXES NB : I’m the author of all the documents in the annexes.

Annex 1 : SWOT of R&W with Eau Kulen

Annex 2 : PESTEL of R&W with Eau Kulen

Annex 3 : Salin Price List

Annex 4 : Testing Note of 2011 Julienas, Beaujolais

Annex 5 : Eau Kulen’s Sales Analysis

Annex 6 : Media Planning of Eau Kulen for 2014

Annex 7 : Visits Report of the HORECA