THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG

VNUK INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

Placement Reflective Learning Journal

A report submitted to the Department of International Business and Management in partial

fulfilment for the Internship Module

Student Name: Le Doan Minh Duc

Student ID: 16010004

Placement Workplace: King BBQ Restaurant

Institutional affiliation: VN-UK Institute for Research and Executive Education, the University of
Danang

Academic Supervisor: Dr. Tran Thien Vu and MS.c Nguyen Thuy Linh
 Table of Contents

PART 1. REFLECTIVE LEARNING JOURNALS.....................................................................7

1.1 PLACEMENT FRAMEWORK............................................................................................ 7

1.2 REGULAR HALF-MONTHLY JOURNAL ENTRIES...............................................................7
1.2.1 1st haft-month journal entry....................................................................................7
1.2.2 2nd haft-month journal entry...................................................................................7
1.2.3 3rd haft-month journal entry....................................................................................7
1.2.4 4th haft-month journal entry....................................................................................7
1.2.5 5th haft-month journal entry...................................................................................7
1.2.6 6th haft-month journal entry....................................................................................7
1.2.7 7th haft-month journal entry...................................................................................7
1.2.8 8th haft-month journal entry...................................................................................7
1.3 PLACEMENT SUMMARY.................................................................................................7
PART 1: REFLECTIVE LEARNING JOURNALS

1.1 PLACEMENT FRAMEWORK

1.2 REGULAR HALF-MONTHLY JOURNAL ENTRIES

1.2.1 1st haft-month journal entry

The field of operations of the company

The company is located at 170 2 thang 9 Road, Hai Chau District, Da Nang City. King BBQ
Restaurant was established on 25 July, 2017 which was founded by Mrs. Tran Phan Huong
Dung. It is working mainly in restaurant industry. King BBQ Restaurant currently owns 2
franchises and is continuously expanding largely with the vision of becoming the market
leader in Food & Beverage industry in Da Nang city as well as central of Vietnam. King BBQ
Restaurant has two types of franchise restaurants: King BBQ Buffet and Hotpot Story. About
the ownership, King BBQ Restaurant has three capital contributors. Initially, the company's
capital contribution was one billion Vietnam Dong. After that, they adjusted to increase the
capital to 10 billion dong on 19 March, 2018.
 1. Management structure of King BBQ Restaurant: The total number of employees of
the two restaurants King BBQ and Hotpot Story is 40 people
2. Company organizational structure

1.2.2 2nd haft-month journal entry

Franchising of the King BBQ and Hotpot Story restaurants:

King BBQ Restaurant specializes in catering service including Hotpot Story and King BBQ.
Currently, the company is trading 02 franchise brands of Red-Sun Group. This is one of the
most powerful culinary corporations in Vietnam, owning many famous culinary brands such
as Thai-Express, Hotpot Story, etc. Besides, King BBQ is the main brand of Red-sun ITI - Red
Sun International Trade Investment Joint Stock Company. This is a business mainly in the
field of restaurants, the origin of famous restaurants such as Hotpot Story, Thai-Express,
King BBQ, etc.
King BBQ Restaurant's marketing policies:
The company has advertising programs as well as marketing policies as follows:
 Teasing King BBQ Buffet
 Teasing Hotpot Story
 Mini-game of King BBQ and Hotpot Story
 Post on Facebook and Instagram of King BBQ and Hotpot Story to attract customer
Promotion events for customers to King BBQ and Hotpot Story
1.2.3 3rd haft-month journal entry

The situation of business operations of the King BBQ Restaurant:

The main function of the company now is to trade franchise brands of Red-Sun Corporation
with two main types of buffet, Hotpot Story and King BBQ with Thai, Korean-Chinese (for
hot pot) and Korean (for grill) and drinks. In addition, there are two franchise brands but not
yet implemented business as Singapore's Bread Talk and Taiwan’s Black Ball. Besides, the
company invested more than two billion dong to the Bread-talk bakery of Singapore and
invest in Blackball milk tea franchise business. Those are the menu and price of Hotpot Story
and King BBQ:

Restaurant Price
199.000 đ/each
229.000 đ/each
Hotpot Story 269.000 đ/each
319.000 đ/each
138.000 đ/each
276.000 đ/each
199.000 đ/each
King BBQ 279.000 đ/each
329.000 đ/each
Note: The special thing of the restaurant is the restaurant must prepare 2 types of food:
pre-cooked dishes on the shelves for guests to eat and un-cooked dishes served at the
table

1.2.4 4th haft-month journal entry

Marketing policies of King BBQ Restaurant.

The company has advertising programs as well as marketing policies as follows:

 Teasing King BBQ Buffet and Hotpot Story
 Mini-game of King BBQ and Hotpot Story
 Post on Facebook and Instagram of King BBQ and Hotpot Story to attract customer
 Promotion events for customers to King BBQ and Hotpot Story
1. Teasing King BBQ Buffet and Hotpot Story
 Teasing introduces the program on two Fan-page: Hotpot Story and King BBQ
o Creating logo of King BBQ Buffet and Hotpot Story
o Write content about Korean King BBQ and Hotpot Story will open in Da Nang
city.
o Attached grilled & hot pot pictures
2. Mini-Game
 Creating mini-game in two fan pages of King BBQ and Hotpot Story.
3. Promotion events for customers to King BBQ and Hotpot Story
 Promotion events of the group on 2 pages: check in to give fresh soft drink.
o For groups of 4 people, you will get 1 free buffet with the unit price.
o Check-in to get fresh soft drink.
4. Posts on Facebook and Instagram
o Post 1: General announcement about promotions, creating accents to the
price of buffet menu
o Post 2: Call customers to tag their friends and relatives and share preferential
information
o Post 3: A special dish with premium barbecue, and a premium hotpot buffet
with 100 dishes featuring Asian cuisine.
o Post 4: Video Footage ads taken from Foody.
o Post 5: Cozy space next to the superior buffet for weekends with relatives.
o Post 6: Remind customers to book a table right away because the program is
about to end.
o Opening: Information of the restaurant officially opened, restaurant opening
day
o Instagram: Branding dish, buffet line
1.2.5 5th haft-month journal entry

Customer needs when coming to the restaurants

The basic thing about customer needs when they come to the restaurant is they want to
feel welcomed. People are very much concerned about their health and expect their food to
be healthy and not contaminated. Having a clean restaurant will make a great impact on our
customers as it is deeply related to their health. Also, they need to make sure that their
dining table tools as well as furniture, restrooms. They have to hire a good chef to make the
customers get a sense of satisfaction. One more important thing is not to keep customers
waiting for a long time. For instance, at King BBQ and Hotpot Story, they always serve their
customers on time because they knew that the customers will walk away out of their
restaurants because the serving is too slow. Last but not least, about the hospitality
problem, their customers should feel valued from the moment they enter the restaurant
until the moment they depart. Just make sure that their service staffs do not bother too
much with the guests' private space as they might feel uncomfortable.

1.2.6 6th haft-month journal entry

In the second month, I researched a few problems of their company related to both
restaurants King BBQ and Hotpot Story which are the causes of low revenue and how they
solved it as below:

Product quality is depended on to the buyer and supplier so that they have to quick on
finding remedial measures, sourcing clean and fresh food with clear origin.

Service quality includes the fact that the service department has properly performed its
duties according to professional expertise. For anyone who lack of training, the restaurant
manager will train more carefully for employees about professional skills, spend time on
training soft skills as well as communicating with customers, solving problems when
encountering problems with customers.
Pricing: whether the restaurant has set the price on the menu to match the tastes of
customers or not. To solve this problem, they need to consider about the prices of several
competing restaurants thereby adjusting the price on the menu more suitable.

Customer reputation: Do customers know anything about the restaurant or not, how to
entice them to eat at their restaurant, have their marketing program been better or still
struggling with something. So they came up with some solutions such as:

 Solution #1: Improving marketing policies on social media such as Facebook,

Instagram, finding food blogger having large number of followers to advertise or
invite them to experience to increase their reputation of the restaurant so that they
will review the restaurant for their fans and many people will know to the
restaurant)
 Solution #2: Creating some special events or anniversaries for customers like Father -
Son Day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and so on.

1.2.7 7th haft-month journal entry

During doing internship at King BBQ Restaurant around two months, I have been taught
many things such as learning about how they apply marketing policies to the food market as
follow:

1. Brand positioning the restaurant

King BBQ Restaurant uses brand positioning for its King BBQ restaurant by creating a varied
menu, including dishes with typical Korean flavor, creating diverse background colors or
some posters on each set. Australian beef, fine or some Korean barbecue dishes make
diners feel comfortable when entering the restaurant
2. Packaging the product

Everything from advertising menu, poster, business card to King BBQ restaurant logo
originated from Red-Sun franchise company

3. Make a statement with USP (Unique Selling Point)

Here King BBQ restaurant uses some kinds of sauce to cover the marinated fresh and tender
Aussie or Korean meats and their own marinated secret recipe.

4. Blogging
One of the marketing policies that the company uses to promote restaurants to customers
via social networks like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. The company will create King BBQ's
own homepage to post some new or updated news about some events for customers to
easily grasp. This is your best communication channel where they can create a huge
following for their brand by starting partnering with professional food bloggers and ask
them to review or writer about your business. In this way, the restaurant will attract a large
number of diners to enjoy.
5. Social media marketing
Currently, young people mainly use Instagram instead of Facebook or Twitter because some
food bloggers often post some pictures of certain popular dishes or delicious eating places
at affordable prices. So that posting images on your personal page will help curiosity for
them, entice them to come because people like to click on the image of certain food or
drinks, even after When they come to eat, they will do a review of their restaurant.
6. Hosting events at their restaurants
In addition, they organize a number of events to attract customers like Valentine’s Day. At
that time, they will offer couples special menus or packages. This events also help in brand
awareness and spreading the word out.
1.2.8 8th haft-month journal entry

In King BBQ and Hotpot Story, there are some promotions and incentives that bring benefits
for customers as below:

 Promotion events on two fanpage of King BBQ and Hotpot Story:

 Check-in to get fresh soft drink
 Mini-game on two pages:
 6 winners of each prize will receive a free buffet: Create activities for customers
to warm-up
 Hotpot Story:
  For groups of 4 people, you will get 1 free buffet with the unit price
 King BBQ Buffet: 4 people to charge 3 people
 Check-in to get voucher:
 Voucher 199.000 VND: 100 free meals at Hotpot story and King BBQ
 Voucher 50.000 VND: 100 voucher 50.000 VND when having the bill from
269.000VND - menu at Hotpot Story and 279.000VND-menu at King BBQ.

During first month in the King BBQ Restaurant, I learn more about their incentives and price
sets of King BBQ buffet and Hotpot Story as below.

King BBQ buffet:

1. Incentive for buffet set

 From 1-19 adults

Products Incentives Date

Grilled buffet 279.000đ 5% off to 265.000 Vietnam dong Monday to Friday
Grilled buffet 329.000đ 5% off to 313.000 Vietnam dong Monday to Friday
 Above 20 adults

Products/Service Incentives Applied on

Grilled buffet 279.000đ 10% off to 251.000 Vietnam dong Monday to Friday
Grilled buffet 329.000đ 10% off to 296.000 Vietnam dong Monday to Friday
2. Incentives for birthday parties

Products/Service Incentives Applied for

All buffet sets Give away 1 mini cake (50.000đ) From 4 to 14 adults
All buffet sets Give away 1 cake (80.000đ) Above 15 adults
2.3 PLACEMENT SUMMARY

After doing internship at King BBQ Restaurant, I feel I have gained many new things from
the placement overall in term of skills, knowledge, experience, training such as: the field of
operations of King BBQ Restaurant, management structure of King BBQ Restaurant,
franchising of the King BBQ and Hotpot Story restaurants. Also, I have researched about
their marketing policies as well as advertising programs and the situation of business
operations of the King BBQ Restaurant.

During working there for internship, I have been taught about customer needs when coming
to the restaurants, about how to position brand of their restaurants by creating a varied
menu, including dishes with typical Korean flavors, creating diverse background colors or
some posters on each set. Australian beef, fine or some Korean barbecue dishes make
diners feel comfortable when entering the restaurant how they decorate everything from
advertising menus, posters and business cards to King BBQ restaurants logo originated from
Red-Sun franchise company. Moreover, I learned about how they used some kinds of unique
marinated sauce as Unique Selling Point and how the company used one of their marketing
policies to promote to customers via social networks as well as organizing hosting events at
their restaurants.

On the other side, I have learned about myself during working at their company, for
instance communicating to people in a professional setting, creating relationships between
employees and employers, taking criticism, leadership, confidence and responsibility when
working at a team and networking. I often assist others from a number of different
departments such as marketing, accounting or event departments whenever they need to
hand over documents or control the company's sales contracts with other partners. During
4-month-internship, I have gained some important skills and techniques such as
communication skills, decision-making skills, problem-solving skills as well as proficient
computer using technique. Moreover, working at King BBQ Restaurant. has taught me some
experiences such as interpersonal skills, commercial awareness, self-confidence and self-
esteem and also time management skills when doing some projects or creating events for
the restaurants. Also, my working experience has met my objectives

Honestly, when I worked with my marketing team on organizing advertising events for
restaurants, I had some problems with handling strict and bad attitude team members.
However, it took me a few times to change their behavior or do something differently that
might make my team work effectively. In conclusion, I have developed in an effective way. I
got familiarized with the company’s practices and corporate culture and learned how to
frame the responses in a good way that would be received positively. Also, I have been
taught to dress more formally and be polite to absolutely everybody I met.