Internship Report Pascal san

I made my internship at Hiroshima.co ltd from December 2009 to February 2010.
Hiroshima.co is a beer importation Japanese firm based at Befu Fukuoka.
This firm imports beers from several countries around the world such as Belgium, Germany, France, Thailand, USA…
The firm owns a warehouse next to the Fukuoka port but has also a warehouse at the main office at Befu. I worked from Monday to Thursday, first from 11am to 6pm and then from 1pm to 7pm and Friday from 9am to 2pm.

Every day I did several different tasks.
For example some tasks were related to the clients’ orders.
When a client’s order came, I filled in an order form for the others employees and me to prepare it later.
It means that I have to write the reference of the product, the quantity, calculate the price and arrival date of the shipment at the client address.
After that I had to make the invoice for the client by filling in an invoice sheet on a computer in order to get the final price and then fax it to the client.
Some time I also had to order some beers to another firm.
I did all those tasks in Japanese. The staff was really great and helpful to me and even if some time it took a certain time to explain to me, they were really patient and did efforts to make me understand. I could understand and did what I was expected to do.
I really appreciated it and I am thankful for their patience and kindness.
I also went to the warehouse at the port and at the warehouse next to the firm when we have to prepared some order here.
There were also tasks related to suppliers.
Due to the time difference I mainly did those tasks at the end of the day. I had to call suppliers in Belgium, and Holland, in French and English, and also to send email to suppliers in Portugal, Holland, France, Belgium and Germany also in French and English.
And when mails came from suppliers, I also translated from English or French to Japanese.
I had to contact then to get information about ordered goods, new products, products’ best before date, delay, goods gathering, shipment…

During each task the staff members take the time to explain me the different steps and important points of the beers’ importation and the step of the beers’ sales in Japan. So I could see all the necessary steps, from the production of the beers at the factory in Europe or elsewhere, to their arrivals at the clients address in Japan.
I also could learn more about the importance of communication between suppliers and clients, and cultural differences.
Thanks to this internship I could improve my Japanese level and learn more about the different steps of a product importation, but also more about Japanese firm and cultural differences between European and Japanese firm.
In the future I will then be able to use the things I learned from this experience and will also be able to avoid some mistakes that some European firms did with Japanese firm.