A. Executive Summary
“Some people succeed in life because they are destined to, but most of them succeed because they are determined to� AIESEC is an organization which transforms an individual into a leader. It creates a leader beyond borders, a leader with limitless potential and a desire to change the face of humankind. AIESEC is all about facing challenges and finding solutions for them, SIMPLE but not easy. The challenges in OGX portfolios in New Zealand may not be small but they certainly need a simple and a thoughtful solution. Embarking on a career in marketing and business development, I am keen on seeking international opportunities to achieve ambitious goals. Having worked and travelled in Asia and Africa, I have gained skills to overcome cultural and lingual barriers, as well as my desire to pursue an international career. I enjoy a global learning environment and challenges personally and professionally. I am well organized, adept at multi-tasking numerous tasks while still having a firm grasp on specific goals. I always perform to the best of my abilities and I am keen on nourishing a similar approach in those around me. I am an enthusiastic team player, friendly, outspoken, and always to go that extra mile to ensure a task is completed to the best of my abilities. My past successes reflect a high level of motivation and the ability to rise to the occasion and meet any challenge. By selecting me AIESEC in New Zealand will benefit from my strong work ethic and contagious enthusiasm.You will find me to be energetic, confident, honest, and personable, the type of person on whom your colleagues and partners can rely on.
With the amount of potential that New Zealand has I believe we can bring this entity to a whole new different level. Since the day I came into this organization, being a MC member has always been on my checklist. Back then it was just checkbox, now it has become a part of my existence. Over the span of time, I have developed an interest in coming up with new ideas and innovative steps to attain growth in OGX. Like anything else in life that a person cares for, one has ideas that you feel would take things in a forward direction. I believe that I can get the job done.
I look forward to your positive response.
Yours sincerely Rishabh Chauhan MCVP OGX Applicant
B. Basic Information Name Nationality Email Skype Id Contact Number Current Academic Level/University Language Spoken (Level of Proficiency)
Rishabh Chauhan Indian rishabh.chauhan@aiesec.net (chauhanrishabh) +91 91769 23937 B.Tech (Electronics), SRM University India English
AIESEC Experience Position and Duration Vice President, Operations (AIESEC Chennai)
Key Responsibilities Overall management of the exchange portfolios ensuring sustainability across all programs.
Learning Points Strategic planning and implementation, Product evolution and packaging. Working in a very different and new market, coaching through virtual platform.
Jan’13-Mar’14
Nationally aligned campaigns and projects, Supporting the operations of the ICX area on a MC level Handling finance and legal affairs of the local committee. Accounting and budgeting of LC cashflow with sustainability. Matching manager for MC TN’s, Managing clients on CRM tool, Event management and delivery (Y2B last year)
National Support Team, Product Manager, BD (AIESEC in Spain)
Creating a national level event on lines of Y2B across other entities.
Product evolution and conceptualizing the event, team management through virtual platform.
Clearing outstanding worth 25,000$ with the MC and external people. Making the reserves stronger for the next upcoming years. New tools (contract, ER principles, EP selection etc.) in place to improve the current process. Documentation for Y2B in terms of reports and proposals. Sales training and development of members to pitch for the event to be held in July 2014.
Creating new national partnerships, iGIP clients, client relations training across the LC
Working at national level and driving down strategies at the local level, planning and implementing short term projects.
Increase in overall new partners across LC and MC. Conceptualizing events for sustainability
Jan’12-Dec’12 National Support Team, ICX (AIESEC Mongolia) July’12-Mar’13 Vice President, Finance and Legal (AIESEC Chennai) Jan’13-Dec’13 National Support Team, iGIP and BD Servicing Manager (AIESEC Finland)
Oct’13-Mar’13 Business Development, MC CEED, AIESEC Kenya Jan’14-Feb’14
Investment planning for the LC, financial management with auditing and budgeting for the operations in the LC. Product packaging with market research for IT clients. Supply and demand management.
Achievements Standardizing procedures and documentation for the exchange Overall quality rating of 8 and above. Assisted in starting ICX function in the LC. Matching 3 education related TN’s.
Top 5 Conference Experiences Conference National Strategic Conference (NSC), Hyderabad
Month, Year October 2012
Role Delegate
South Regional Conference, (SRC), Chennai June National Conference (JNC), Mumbai
August 2012
Facilitator
June 2013
Delegate
National Leadership Summit (NLS), Jaipur
January 2013
Delegate
National Conference, Nairobi, Kenya
February 2014
Facilitator
Key Learning Coming up with strategies for the exchange operations and making them sustainable Facilitating and inducting the new members in AIESEC Financial planning and investment, project implementation Defining key strategies for the starting of the term, setting out priorities. Training members about sales and CEM
C. Questionnaire
1) What is your personal motivation for applying to be part of AIESEC New Zealand MC team? Ever since I joined AIESEC 3 years back, I was always looking for an international experience and throughout this journey, grabbed all the opportunities which came in the way to work with teams and people from different parts of the world. There are two major reasons to apply for the MC of New Zealand. Being on the MC is always a huge personal challenge where you move out of the comfort zone and stretch yourself to the limits, since the time I have been in AIESEC the thought of facing such challenges has always been exciting to me. The second reason is the skills, experience gained through this journey can’t be compared with any other experience, especially in a country like New Zealand gives me a lot of motivation to apply for the role here.
2) What will be the unique contribution you could bring to 1415 team in AIESEC New Zealand? Being an international applicant bringing new creative and innovative ideas is something which I can bring in and use it for the position I have applied for. AIESEC in New Zealand will benefit from my strong sales and implementation skills, and the fact that I have handled this portfolio for more than 2 years gives me an extra advantage. I have learnt a lot about the different products and the way to handle teams to get the desired results.
3) What kind of leadership do you think AIESEC New Zealand requires moving forward? How have you demonstrated these qualities in your AIESEC or other experiences? (Give examples) AIESEC in New Zealand needs a type of leadership which is transformational and at the same time a situational leader who is able to connect to the team and lead them forward. Being in AIESEC for more than 3 years now I have been part of several teams which required me to change my style according to the need of the hour. During the Vice President role in my local committee the most important part was to connect to each and every individual on the team and come up with a collaborative plan to face the challenges. While handling teams in the support team, I had to change my leadership style to give more freedom to the team and ensuring the work is being tracked and ensuring regular communication with all members. With all these roles and experiences I have shaped my leadership style to be flexible and adaptive according to the situation.
Section 2: Market
1) Identify 3 key trends from any or all of the sectors listed below and explain how AIESEC can best capitalise on them. a. Businesses and Economy b. Students and Youth c. Universities
Since the last 2-3 years the number of people engaged with the various social media websites have risen exponentially and with the same thing business also has increased alongside. Many companies and organizations have been capitalizing it to raech out to people better and communicating the right message as well.
Highly Skilled Market
This probme has been there for quite some time and has been one of the major challenges in the society. Finiding jobs is getting diffucult day by day and in such scenarios AIESEC can place itself in a way which provides the necessary skills through its products and impact the young people to increase the outreach among the student population.
Social Media & IT
Unemployment
Key trends in New Zealand affecting the economy, students and universities are:
New Zealand has a high number of students with skills which are apt for the GIP program and are requied by many companies across the world. With the employment rate also not favouring it acts as a perfect opportunity to tap into this and send out students with such skills for the GIP internships.
2) How can AIESEC be more relevant in New Zealand? Here are a few steps through which we can make AIESEC more relevant in New Zealand:
Upgrading National and Local Partnerships with companies and universities to gain more credibility. Leveraging maximum from the events and forums and aligning them towards ELD programs. Ensuring financial sustainability Standardized customer engagement and retention for members.
Section 3: Organization 1) Evaluate AIESEC New Zealand’s performance over the last 3 years and explain which key trends should we look into better capitalise on? Performance evaluation of AIESEC in New Zealand over the last 3 years:
OGX
ICX
Membership
•Stagnanted performance •Decline in oGIP product. •Supply of high quality EP pool. •Conversion ratio can be improved
•Steady increase in performance •Low sales activity. •Growth in projects (GCDP) and IT sector.
•Misalignment with the ELD targets. •Tracking and engagement of the members and teams has been a problem.
Key trends from this analysis which can be used to capitalize on are:
OGX Packaging products to make it easy to sell. Branding and promotion to be visible. Focus on recruitment cycle for efficient conversion.
ICX Targetting companies in IT, SME's and small scale companies. CY-CY partnerships based on policies to avoid match breaks.
Membership Re-integrating members in the LC from exchange. Strengthning relations with the colleges and universities.
2) Analyse AIESEC NZ’s LC Development strategy (LC Linking/Coaching). What would you do to improve it? With the type of members and universities present in New Zealand there is a lot of potential for AIESEC activities to grow and scale up. The current team has seen a substantial growth in the process of developing and empowering the LC’s. Although there are still a few areas which can be improved and new methods to be introduced which can prove to be more effective at the same time easy for members to understand and get used to them. I would divide this training module into 2 parts to be taken over different platforms:
Physical Platform: This would include regular meeting with the VP’s and team members to discuss the bottlenecks and come with a plan to overcome them. It also ensures tracking and analysis of the work done and a regular touch among all members which makes it a collaborative environment to work in. Virtual Platform: Areas which can’t be covered over the former can be taken up over virtually. This would include training on Podio, .net management, media channels capitalization. One major goal which I would like to achieve during this term would be to create a virtual learning platform which enables members to gain more information and knowledge about the function and easy for anyone to access as well.
3) In your opinion, what is the role of the MC? According to me, the following are the major roles of the member committee: Creating and implementing national Strategy and Direction (Adapt and deliver global and AP strategies to the National level) Creation and execution of strategies Ensuring the implementation of processes in the LCs through leading LCVP team (coaching, education, functional meetings, conference cycle etc.) Ensuring systematic knowledge management of functional area and its transitioning Manage national conferences and events. Coaching and consultancy for LCs. Participate and contribute to the Global network.
Section 4: Role Specific
1) Perform a SWOT analysis for the current state of oGCDP and oGIP in New Zealand. SWOT Analysis of oGCDP and oGIP in New Zealand:
oGCDP
oGIP
Strength: Strong external positioning # of interested applicants CY-CY Partnership
Weakness: Low conversion ratio (raise to match) Support from back office. Only one major peak
Opportunities: Demand of EP's from NZ. Off peak realization Capitalizing from OPS, BI reports
Threats: Quality isssues during the internships Geaographical location makes it tough for students.
Strength: Presence of skilled students acroos NZ University presence across all LC's.
Opportunities: Subproduct segmentation to increase sales Showcasing expereince with marketing
Weakness: Talent capacity for handling GIP Learning and development for members.
Threats: Quality issues within the internship Difficulty in the process of matching
2) Conduct an analysis of AIESEC New Zealand's current OGX products, detailing where they are in the product life cycle and how you would grow them in the coming term. As per the analysis of New Zealand’s OGX products according to the product life cycle, I would place them in the following position: oGCDP – Growth oGIP – Introduction For oGCDP the product has been in the market for some time now and has shown good amount of progress in the last 2-3 years. However the performance in the recent past has become stagnated and the growth hasn’t been there for a while. Most of the LC’s are doing the same number of exchanges and are focussed on the summer peak cycle. To grow in this, a lot of attention needs to be given to the support from the back office in terms of marketing and TM. With the right marketing strategies the outreach and visibility can be increase many folds which will increase the impact we provide among the students of New Zealand. On the other hand with the right structure and tracking the performance of the members we can achieve our targets and have a sustainable growth. oGIP as a product is much more difficult to sell as compared to oGCDP and a lot of entities are facing a tough challenge in pioneering it. There is a sharp decline in GIP numbers since 2010 and this is mainly due to the change in the programmes. As a product its still in the introduction phase as it hasn’t been fully publicized within the student market. One of the major problem is also the skills needed by the members to have growth. Repackaging this product along with training & development for the members will give it a new phase and have positive outcomes.
3) Based on your SWOT and product analysis, what would be your 3 suggested focus areas for 1415? Please briefly explain your main focus, main activities, and desired outcomes during each time period based on the 5 cycles of AIESEC New Zealand. Key focus areas for OGX function in New Zealand: Learning and Development: This ensures that members are up to date about the product and the various processes involved in it. It can be done over both physical and virtual platforms. Regular physical meetings and summits play an important role in transferring knowledge and tracking LCVP’s and members. To make it more effective virtual platform makes it easy to cover up all the details. By introducing support teams and trainers it becomes easier to flow down new strategies and plans. External Collaboration: For OGX to get to the growing phase, we need to focus on how we can partner with external organizations or have events which directly increase the outreach and let more and more people know about the product.
With synergy from the marketing team we can spread the right message and convert most of the pipelines into raises and then finally into realization. An event (big or small) before every cycle would motivate the members as well as get great results for the LC’s. Members on eXchange: The biggest factor for all successful OGX entities across the network is they send their members on exchange and reintegrate them back into the LC’s and especially in the same function. These iXP’s (integrated experience) members always have an extra edge while selling OGX and better in the longer run as well. Even students who go on exchange should be tried and retained back into the LC and then exposed to the TLP/TMP program. 4) How do you intend to utilise the resources from the 1314 term and build on current OGX strategies? The current team of 13-14 has been able to provide a perfect platform for the next team to follow it up and scale it further to new heights. The country partners have been increased and the members have a workspace on Podio for resources and learning tools. The processes have been well defined and made easier for the members. With most of the important work being already done we can now focus on important strategies which can bring in growth with the right marketing of the products.