Oriflame Summer Internship

 

Yesterday proceeded au Ramadan-style from 9 AM - 4.30 PM at the office, working on my project. It's really nice with an open working space. My colleagues are very open, friendly and willing to answer all my different questions - which mainly have to do with the e-profile and customer service at the moment. It feels like a very relevant topic, and I learn a lot while researching more and getting a deeper understanding of the different challenges and solutions to problems.

 

After the office, I got home and rested a bit - as I wrote before I think I drank some bad water here, wasn't really feeling 100 % yesterday... Was thinking about forcing myself to go for a run before the dinner for the Oriflame staff later at 7 PM, but went to the beach in Sidi Bou Saïd and had an afternoon swim with a friend instead. I can totally live with this work/life-balance ;-)

 

During the evening it was Staff Iftar (a feast you celebrate to finish the end of Ramadan) at Jonas' beautiful place and all of the staff except for one was there, some with their children, friends and spouses. Very nice to see everyone outside of the office, especially since I have my desk at the 3rd floor (Oriflame has a ground floor for cashiers, consultants, customer service and warehouse and the 2nd floor for the Sales Team, the 3rd floor management team among others) and don't see some of the staff a lot.

 

New week and it defnitely feels like a new era has started here, which is both good and worse. This super excited feeling I had when I just got here has calmed down a bit, and I'm now embracing the fact that I know what to do, where to go and how life is here more. I know my colleagues better and I feel and act more relaxed. I take my everyday runs, I eat more or less the same food that I like and don't get as amazed by the spectacular views, beaches and landscapes here as I did the first week, so I have to photo capture completely everything. Welcome to everyday life!

 

Went to the small supermarket where I live and bought my ordinary lemon juice, talked to the guy who usually stands where I buy my juice and actually met a friend's friend in the store (first signs of that you're start to being a local, right?) and then met up with another friend later. Felt quite tired today actually, I think I unfortunately drank some bad water yesterday, so didn't go for a run for the first time ever. Met up with a friend later and had was driving around and having a walk in Sidi Bou Saïd. 

 

 

After two weeks here I really feel that I have gotten used the way of life here in Shanghai. Time is really flying by and I feel like august is getting closer faster and faster for each day. I am really enjoying working here and I always look forward to meeting everybody in the morning. There are a lot people that i have yet to introduce to the blog. Being here has also done great things to my chinese. Even if I have considered myself to be rather fluent in Chinese, I have so much still to learn. Everyday here is like a chinese lesson for me, I learn business related words as well as everyday slang. There are a lot of abbreviations and quotes in the everyday language and there are new ones created all the time. 

 

Right now I am working on my induvidual project as well as with the online marketing team. There is a lot of excting new things coming and it is a lot of fun be part of making it happen. My own project requires looking at a lot of statistics, even if it is very interesting to analyze, it is quite a relief to be able to sit back for a while and do something else than looking at numbers. 

 

Tomorrow Marcus is going back to the Stockholm office. He has been working closely with the online marketing team, which is where I sit. It has been fun to have a swede here at the office to talk to sometimes and I will definitely miss discussing chinese food and culture from a swedish point of view. Apart from talking swedish, it is also a pity because I probably will not eat any indian food for lunch anymore, since he is one of the few ones that eats it here. The office will miss you, Marcus! 

 

 

Weekend has gone by very fast, it is already wednesday now. I have been here for exactly two weeks and it feels like time is just flying by. The weekend has been quite eventful and I finally got to do some sightseeing around the city, mainly French concession but also other districts. On saturday I also treated myself with a nice massage, the prices (compared to Stockholm) are really reasonable. I paid 308 rmb for my 90-minute session which in Sweden would cost at least 1000 sek, guess who's going back again? Saturday evening I went to a night club with a group of people, both old and new people. Clubbing in Shanghai is a must, extravagant, but so much fun! 

 

 

It's 10.46 PM in Tunis and I'm sitting and updating this blog and studying some Tunisian Arabic. I will start my lessons this week, but study Arabic (no Tunisian dialect) why I thought it would be good to get started with the Tunisian dialect as well, which is quite different from traditional Arabic in certain ways. After a couple of days of vacation and then the intro week last week, it feels exciting to finally start with my project at Oriflame and to focus more on work/studies.

 

I am really glad I got to have a soft start when I got here, and hopefully I will do an even better job now working on my project - when I both understand Oriflame and the business in Tunisia more, and don't have to focus on basic things such as where to buy my food etc..

 

My project is focused on mainly Customer Service, and I have been given certain questions that need to be answered and analyzed. I will work very independently, with weekly guiding from the management team, which will be an interesting challenge for me, but I feel excited and determined to take on. I will present my analysis in the beginning of August, and will get more tasks if I finish earlier with the one I got today - I am aiming to fulfill it way before deadline ;-)

 

 

Now I'm super tired and will soon go to bed. This week I will focus on getting as much as possible done with the project, and probably spend longer days at the office. Time to get to work! Talked to many of my friends who are having internship at banks in London, and it's the same thing there - last week was intro week, now time to deliver.

 

 

During the Saturday I went with Safa, Rami and Rami's mother to Safa's house in a city called Nabeul, about 1,5 hour away from Tunis. I haven't eaten so much food for at least over one year! Since I am doing a bit of "Ramadan light" (often not eating in the day, just drinking, before 7.40 PM), I was super hungry. Safa's whole family was there; brothers, sisters, nieces, parents... Before we could start eating a bell rang, and then it was constant eating for one hour.

 

 Dinner ready!

 

In the evening we girls/women took a walk in Nabeul center, which was crowded around 11 PM. I don't know if I have ever been so full in my entire life, and it was hard to keep my eyes open in the car on our way back to Tunis later...

 

Yesterday, Sunday, was a complete relax day. I slept long, went for a run in the morning, went swimming, Skyped with my parents and went for dinner in the evening. Took care of things that needed to be taken care of and prepared for Monday.

 

 

Sorry for bad update, this weekend has been way too eventful and interesting to have time to document, unfortuntately - why it's going to be a really good update now instead! Yeay!

 

During Thursday evening me, Safa and Rami went to Medina, the old town, with their friends. It was really interesting for me to see more Tunisians outside of Sidi Bou Saïd, which I have understood is a better area (or "the best", according to many Tunisians, mainly from Sidi Bou Saïd ;-)). Some women/girls covered their hair and some not. It was a friendly atmosphere and a lot of (in comparison to Stockholm) policemen everywhere, which made it feel even safer.

 

 

 

Hi! 

 

Hope everybody's midsummer was good! It is saturday today and I am at the office writing this post because I left my laptop here. Yesterday was midsummer and I had such a great time! In China midsummer is not a holiday so it was a normal work day here in Shanghai. I had signed up for the annual midsummer party hosted by Swedish young professionals because it is midsummer, you know? The event was at Four Seasons hotel (run by a swede) and we were out on the terasse with a very nice view of the city. What surprised me was that there were so many attending, it must have been about 100 people there at least. Dinner consisted of traditional swedish foods, my favorite was the salmon of course, but everything else was really good as well. I met some people that I knew from before, but I also got to know a lot of people during the dinner, chinese as well as swedish. My sister is here visiting too, so she tagged along. According to the chinese people I talked to, who were representatives from a company that sponored the event, the swedes are much better at partying than norweigans, haha! Yesterday night was no exception and we all ended up having a good time dancing in a local night club here in Shanghai. 

 

 

It's 9 PM here and I just finished the biggeeeeest meal I have had so far in Tunis. I am in another part of Tunis, Ariana, at Safa's boyfriend's, Rami's, house. He and his mother just cooked us a super delicious Tunisian/Persian dinner and now we're going to walk around in Medina, the old city here in Tunis. Gotta be great to move after such a meal!

 

I really like that people are so welcoming and hospital in warmer countries. It is the same in the other countries I've lived, Russia, China, Thailand and Vietnam. I'm really proud of that Sweden is such a welcoming country in many, many ways, but when it's come to really taking care of people, showing them around and inviting them to our homes, I think we could do way better! Something I always try to think about when I'm with all my international friends in Sweden, who mainly have come to our country to study.

 

This day has been great so far - I was having really informative and interesting meetings with Marc (Head of Sales (Marc), about the communication with Siwar (website), been shown around in the warehouse (people, who are called consultants because they are also advising people on the products, come to Oriflame to pay for their products, which they later sell to other people through catalogue) and in the morning I had a 1,5 h overview of the financial perspective of Oriflame in Tunisia.

 

I actually feel quite spoiled, as it all interests me and the employees are taking their time from work to actually educate me. I am completely alone with them and can ask them all the questions I want - it felt a bit like I was getting private lessons in all different fields that interest me (direct selling, for example) today!

 

 

 

Denise 

 

It is 9 a.m in the morning in the morning here and I just got to the office. Terperature will be very high today which I could really feel on my way over here, at 9 a.m it already felt like a sauna outside. Today my sister will arrive in town and I will take her to eat some soup dumplings tonight. She is only staying for the weekend, but she will be able to attend the midsummer party arranged by Young Professionals Shanghai. It should be quite fun and what other better way to spend midsummer than with Swedes? 

 

Yesterday I continued to work on my projects, there a lot of material to go through and HR will arrange for me to get an through introduction on all the different divisions here. Until then I will try to work out as many questions as possible so I can get as much information as possible to use in my projects. For lunch we had sushi, it was quite good and I ate a lot! Charlie, the IT manager, told us (foreigners) a lot about strange food in China and it reached a whole other level of weirdness as supposed to what I knew from before. China is truly one of a kind. 

 

After I got off work, Yifang and I went to dinner at her favorite french bistro, owned by a french guy. We ordered duckleg confit, a meat and cheese platter and a glass of wine each. Itwas delicious, probably the best french bistro that I have been to outside of France. The total price for the whole dinner was 300 rmb each. Considering the amount of food and the quality, I think it was a bargain. We stayed at the bistro until quite late, but we had a lot to talk about because Yifang is just like me, a swede with a chinese background. She has worked here for about 7 years now and she is loving it. We discussed living in China, differences in culture, education etc. It was interesting to get her point of view and we had similar opinions about most things. 

 

That is enough at the moment, now I need to start working on my projects. :) 

 

/Isabella 

 

 

Today has been another great day in Tunis - at the office I got to attend a meeting between Oriflame and another company, which was very interesting. Always nice to see the different tone and how business works in different countries! I also got to meet with the Head of Operations, and Logistics manager today, which was also very insightful. I really appreciate that people are so welcoming and open at the office, very eager to share their experiences and take their time.

 

 

Sitting here writing with a european soccer championship game going on, Germany vs. Northern Ireland. Tomorrow is Sweden, let's hope they will win this one! I just got back home after meeting up with some expats here in Shanghai. We sat in a bar and played some board games. It was really fun, especially a game that is called "Resistant". I never played it before, but I am glad I know about it now! It is pretty complicated to explain but in a nutshell, try to get people to believe you are one of the good guys. The best of all was that I got to know a lot of nice people from the U.S, Korea, Ireland, Germany etc. We are going to eat at restaurants together which I am just trilled about, there is so many restaurants that I want to try here! 

 

At the office today I started the day off with a meeting together with Marcus and Justine about my project. Yesterday I had prepared an overall plan over my projects and some questions that I needed answers to. We discussed statistics and Oriflame's unique business model. It is very interesting how they work with consultants and direct selling (Consultants are the people that sell the Oriflame products). Knowing more about Oriflame as a company, it really makes me proud to work here. Oriflame offers a chance for people to take control of their own lives, not by simply handing out money, but by enabling them to start their own business, selling Oriflame products. It feels good to know that you are working towards improving the lives of other people. 

 

In the afternoon I joined the online marketing team for a meeting/brainstorming about ideas around some products. It was quite entertaining to hear about the ideas that they had and also giving my own opinions about it. The meeting really gave me an insight on what the chinese people like and dislike, and it is so different from Sweden. I do not think that two months are enough for me, there is too many interesting topics!

 

Now I really need to sleep, good night!

 

/Isabella  

 

 

 

 

Today I woke up 7.30 AM, went for my now regular morning run, and then my boss Jonas picked me up at 9 AM and we drove about 10 min to the Oriflame office. Jonas started up Oriflame in Tunisia from scratch about four years ago, so both the building and the office - everything - is very new and modern.

 

 

 Hello! 

 

Monday again and today was yet another exciting day at the office. The day started with me reading up on Oriflame's online marketing. Here in China they use an app called wechat. It has an amazing amount of functions that is equivalent to at least 5-7 different apps we use in the the rest of the world, if not more. You can use it as a social platform to chat with friends, subscribe to blogs, do flight check in, play games, read news, pay for things etc. It was very interesting to read about and this is also my main focus area during my time here. :) 

 

Internet is good at the office so I was able to upload some pictures of the office, take a look! 

 

In the beginning we thought that I would do one project, but there so many things that I want to dig into so we ended up dividing it into two projects with focus on CRM: The first project is about analyzing the effects of one of the online marketing channels that Oriflame are using, and the second one is about analyzing which online marketing channel that is more effective. I got lot of statistics to run through, but I do not mind that since it is so interesting. I will keep you posted as the project progresses. 

 

 

 

It is 22.38 PM here in Tunis and the children are singing songs and playing football on the street. I just brushed my teeth and got ready for bed - tomorrow vacation is over, and it's time to get to work!

 

This day started off as great as always - I woke up 9 AM and then went out for my regular long run. The latest days I've run 20 km each day, this morning I only had time for 15 km. Sidi Bou Saïd where I live is located a bit up on a hill, and I ran back to the same beach quite below it as I ran to yesterday. During the night it was actually raining and thundering a lot, so today the water was even clearer than it usually is. The weather was also a bit cooler and actually some clouds in the sky!

 

 

Today I slept until 11 o’clock, which is very unusual for me. Although I am not surprised, ever since I came to Shanghai it has been quite hectic. In addition to that, speaking Chinese all the time takes a lot of energy since I have not used Chinese like this for quite some time now. It is slowly but steadily improving and after catching up on sleep it will not take long before my Chinese comes as natural as my English and Swedish.

 

Since it is quite cheap here to fix the hair I decided to do a straight perm. I know it is terrible for your hair, but my hair simply will not do in this humid weather. I went to a hair salon to ask how long it would take to do it, and they told me that they could do it in 1 ½ hour. Knowing my hair pretty well after 20 years of close interaction, I did not believe them, but I was not in a hurry so I went ahead with it: I ended up spending over 4 hours there. I spent the time talking to the staff working hard on my hair. It was quite funny I must say because I was clearly the tallest person there, which they just could not stop talking about. They were also very curious about me and my life in Sweden, asking me a lot of personal questions. In return I also got to ask a lot of things about them too. They took very good care of me and sent me plate after plate of Chinese food and snacks because it simply would not do to leave me starving to death. :P Next time I go there I will take a photo with them.

 

After the long day at the hair salon, I went to Nanjing Lu, the big shopping street in Shanghai. Did some walking around and there were many familiar stores, but also some that I never heard of. I got there pretty late so I did not have much time to explore in detail, I will definitely do that another time!

 

Happy Sunday everyone!

 

/Isabella

Hi again! 

 

Just got back yesterday from a great weekend with the company. We took off on thursday, the place that we visited is called 桐庐, a beautiful vaccatioin spot with amazing nature. The weather was great which made climbing mountains much more fun. It is such great exercise and the reward of getting to the top was not disapointing! I promised pictures, so here they are. 

 

On thursday, we arrived pretty late so I just rested in the hotel room, started watching a chinese comedy program that is called "Come on athletes". The program consists of chinese celebrities who are competing with professional athletes. It is so funny and I laugh like crazy everytime. The chinese celebrities are so goofy! 

 

On friday, the day started great with a tasty breakfast buffet with some chinese dishes such as wonton soup, baozi, woked vegetables and tea eggs. Soooo good! After that we went on a hiking trip up a mountain, it was so beautiful and peaceful to walk around in nature. I really should do that more often! In the evening we had a a dinner together that was really fun, all the newemployees got introduced and had to do a presentation. It was funny to listen to since everyone goofed around a lot. There was a lot of joking around and we got to answer a lot of questions about ourselves. 

 

After the dinner, we went back to the hotel, 30 minutes before the soccer game started (Sweden-Italy). Some of the people had bought crayfish from the restaurant so we all sat in the lounge and ate crayfish together. Everybody was very curious about me and they asked me a lot of questions. I went to my room right before the game started and surprise surprise, we have a lot of soccer fans in China! I ended up watching the game with six guys from the office. They thought it was really funny to watch me because I got very upset (can you blame me???). Although the game did not go the way I wanted it to, I really enjoyed watching the game together with them, it is always more fun! 

 

 

 

Today I went out for another long run and explored more in Sidi Bou Saïd. I think it's around 34 degrees, and actually not too hot in the wind. Tunis has a lot of hills, so it's great training to run up and down - and a nice view who waits for the one who is enudrant enough!

 

Sorry for no update yesterday. Everything is great here, except for that the internet could be a bit faster. I have gone crazy maybe 40 times since I got here, because it takes so long time to upload photos and even get into the page where you update this blog. Anyway, right now the internet seems to work!

 

So here is my first update about Tunisia - I was having problems taking the pictures out of my phone for more than one hour and am really tired now (it's 1.30 AM here and it's been a long day), so I'll make it a quite short one.

 

Yesterday evening I took the plane from Stockholm - Frankfurt - Tunis and arrived 11.30 PM. Taher, a colleague at Oriflame, met me at the airport and we went straight to... eat ice-cream!

 

 

The small place was literally crowded, and I can honestly tell you that it was quite surprising to see all the people, dressed in "western" clothes, showing "ordinary" much skin, and all the house music playing in the background - since it's actually Ramadan and I thought people covered themselves more in Arab countries. When I first came I had a thicker sweater on, whereupon Taher stared at me and asked "You didn't bring any summer clothes?".

 

From the ice-cream place to my apartment, which is super nice and located in Sidi Bou Said, very close to the ocean - and I feel like I'm more in Santorini than in Tunis... Got to bed 3 AM - ready for the 15 min super loud announcement (!) about that people had to stop eating now, since it's Ramadan, and fell asleep around 3.30 AM.

 

 

After a good night's sleep, this day has been very exciting, mainly thanks to Safa, my colleague at Oriflame, who has taken well care of me. We had lunch by the ocean (apparently only about 60 % of all Tunisians actually stop eating during Ramadan) with an amazing view, and were then sightseeing around before we got changed and went for dinner and tea in the evening.

 

 

 

 

So far I have had a really great first day in Tunisia and it feels great to get the chance to get settled a bit before I start my internship on Monday. I feel very fortunate that I got the chance to come here, and I get really well taken care of. I could write meters about my new impressions and all my thoughts about Tunisia that are completely wrong, but that would be... meters. For now, all you should know is that Tunis is a beautiful, safe city, and that people are super friendly (the ones I have met so far, anyway!). My internship at Oriflame couldn't have started better, even though it officially actually hasn't yet started.

 

Hope you guys liked my first update - it has taken way too long, so I will probably make them shorter in the future (or have another blog, where I'll put all the rest of my 40 photos and movie clips I took today in this beautiful city!).

 

 

 

I have finally arrived in Shanghai after a long travel from Stockholm! The flight departures from Beijing were canceled because of the weather, but luckily I was able to get a seat on a later flight which arrived in Shanghai late at night. I am fortunate to live quite close to the office so I did not have to wake up too early.

 

Yesterday was my first day at the office. I was introduced to the people working in the office, everyone here is really nice and helpful. I also got to participate in a meetiing for the heads of the regional offices. Very interesting to listen to and it gave me a good insight in Oriflame. So much to learn in a short period of time!

 

Today I met with Marcus from Sweden. He has been stationed here for about six months, but is going back soon. In Shanghai he was working in the online marketing which is what I will be working on too. On monday I will meet with Justine, the online marketing manager, to discuss further details on my project here. As for now, I am just trying to deepen my understanding of the chinese customer behavior. It is very different here in many kinds of ways which is why it is so interesting!

 

The Oriflame office is in a building called 日月光中心 (SML center) situated in the Huangpu district. Just in this building, they have about 200 restaurants to choose from. The food ranges from traditional chinese to italian pasta to american hamburgers. Today we chose Indian food which was very good. Later this afternoon we are going to 桐庐（tonglu), a vaccation spot ouside of Shanghai for teambuilding days. I am so glad to have arrived just in time for this as it gives me a great chance to get to know people even better. I will keep you posted, pictures will be uploaded soon too!

 

 

All the best!

 

/Isabella

Hello!

 

We are Isabella and Denise, two of Oriflame's 2016 Global Summer Interns. This summer you will be able to follow our journey to Shanghai, China and Tunis, Tunisia! As a brief introduction, we will start off by telling you a little bit about ourselves.

 

 

I am a student at Stockholm School of Economics who just finished her second year in the bachelor program in Business and Economics. During the whole course of my life, I have had a constant urge to explore other countries and cultures. This in turn has spurred me to travel abroad from a very young age. I have been a high school exchange student in the U.S, backpacked all over Europe, visited many places in Asia and I'm only starting! Recently I have developed a great interest for the asian beauty industry, which was the main reason for me to apply for the intenship. Funny to know is that despite my many trips to China, I have never actually stayed in Shanghai. Guess who was thrilled to find out that she was going there this summer? 

 

I also study Business & Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics and just finished my first year. After having graduated from Viktor Rydberg Gymnasium Odenplan in 2010, I did my military service as military interpreter and interrogator in Russian at the Swedish Armed Forces Interpreter Academy (Försvarets Tolkskola) 2010 - 2011 and worked for the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs at the Swedish Embassy in Moscow 2011 - 2013. That is where my interest for Oriflame started to grew, as Russia is Oriflame's largest market. After having backpacked in Southeast Asia in 2013, I decided to go to Nanning, China to learn Chinese in 2013 - 2015. In 2015 I was teaching English in Vietnam, my birth country, and studying Vietnamese. In my spare time, I like to workout, and then especially running and thaiboxing. I am super thrilled to go to Tunisia this summer, a country which for me is very unknown and distant - and think this blog is a great way for you guys to share my impressions together with me!

 

With this said, we would like to start off by wishing you all an amazing summer! Either if you are staying at home relaxing, traveling or working, for us students, the summer is a great time to learn more about new things, explore and to develop ourselves - and of course, to gather strength for upcoming year(s) at university. Hopefully this blog will give you the opportunity to both learn more about Oriflame as a company, the several possiblities Oriflame offers you as an employee or intern, and about what it is like to be a Global Summer Intern at Oriflame Cosmetics.

 

Don't forget to keep an eye on this blog during the summer! Isabella will leave to China on Monday 13/6 and Denise will fly to Tunisia on Wednesday 15/6. Stay tuned for upcoming adventures!

 

All the best,