The field trips are the ideal opportunities for the students of the Master of Business Administration Program of the Vietnam Japan University to understand how to operate their businesses in reality. The visit to the UNIQLO Dong Khoi store in District 1 Ho Chi Minh City on October 13, 2020, is an enjoyable and useful experience that students will hardly forget.
Like many other famous fashion brands such as GU, Theory… UNIQLO is a well-known brand of Fast Retailing Group. On October 13, we were present at headquarter of Fast Retailing in Vietnam. Being warmly welcomed by Mr. Sasakura – Human Resources Director at UNIQLO Vietnam, we were eager and excited to participate in activities in the company tour. First, Mr. Sasakura introduced the Fast Retailing Group’s information, including its history, products, and achievements, especially the famous fashion brand UNIQLO, which has become famous in Vietnam with top quality, comfortable feeling to the user. We have gained new knowledge about retail industry. In particular, we were impressed by the creativity and sophistication in each product when Mr. Sasakura shared the production process to create a product. Behind the wonderful products, there are not only modern machinery and equipment but also so the creativity and dedication of many people who have the same desire and dream to make life better with the familiar and daily used LifeWear products.
The director also shared with us that many employees develop an individual career with company development. Each employee started from the staff position and then developed to become one of the company managers by making an endless effort, working hard, learning life long from others, being creative, thinking as the “business owner”. This sharing is very valuable for us to think about our career paths and to understand the importance of lifelong learning skills, continuous creativity, and improvement at work. We work not only for ourselves but also for society, future generations, and others. Our knowledge and skills gained under the liberal education philosophy held by the Vietnam Japan University help us to have confidence in working at globally dynamic companies.
After that, we had a chance to visit the UNIQLO Dong Khoi store, about 100 meters far from the office. The space in the store always brings customers the feeling of the beauty of simplicity, elegance, and comfort. Moreover, the students were extremely excited when Mr. Yomogida, general store manager, and Ms. Ha – store manager of the UNIQLO Dong Khoi store, shared useful information on how to arrange and manage daily, weekly, monthly tasks for about 160 employees. In particular, we learned how marketing knowledge had been applied in practice. For example, to make customers easily grasp information about products, prices, we need to use POSM (Point of Sales Material) such as banners, posters, standees, … to introduce the unique selling point of the product, the information of the price, the sales promotion, the technology… Besides, we also understand the reason why UNIQLO can keep the global standard is that they have global training programs to develop people with global standards and have the policy to help employees to develop their careers.
We realize that UNIQLO is a challenging working environment but also an opportunity for enthusiastic people who dare to challenge themselves to develop continuously because they will be supported by company policies, managers, and coworkers. We also see its great customer service and customer-centric mindset in each activity from the store layout, the enthusiastic and friendly support from the sales staff, clothes mix-match patterns based on listening to customers’ opinions… This is probably one of the reasons why UNIQLO has become the beloved fashion brand in many countries and on the way to becoming the No. 1 fashion brand in the world.
At the end of the visit, we had a chance to use the famous UNIQLO products, which are meaningful gifts from UNIQLO. Each member of the student group expresses his thanks for UNIQLO Vietnam’s enthusiastic, warm and thoughtful reception. Moreover, we look forward to having the opportunity to study, work, and cooperate more with the company to create great fashion products together for everyone. We hope to have an experience of feeling “Change clothes – Change conventional wisdom – Change the world”.