【NCCJ News】Students from the Norwegian School of Economics: Internship at NCCJ, Laerdal Medical and Stokke
In 2019, the NCCJ signed an internship agreement with the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH). NHH currently has a student exchange program with multiple Japanese universities and regularly sends students to Japan. In an effort to make the Japanese exchange semester even more relevant and educational, NHH seeks to provide its students with an opportunity to gain valuable work experience through their new «Internship Abroad Program». The program enables students to work as interns for companies outside Norway prior to, or during, their exchange semester.
This summer and autumn NHH had four students working as interns in Tokyo. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, all students were able to complete their internships. Below is a brief report on what the interns did during their internships.
William Ebert Nedal, Internship at the NCCJ
Following my exchange semester in Japan, I was an intern at the Norwegian Chamber of Commerce (NCCJ) for five weeks. During my internship, I collaborated with Erik Enstad, another intern at NCCJ, on a project designed to increase engagement among the Chambers members. During the project, I was mainly tasked with optimising the web design of the current NCCJ website. Consequently, my tasks during the internship were focused on optimising usability and user experience by implementing best practices, increasing the call to action on the website and strengthening search engine optimisation. As I had no considerable expertise in website design, I was excited to initiate the project and gain valuable practical knowledge within the field. The project had a steep learning curve as it was somewhat challenging to create a viable action plan with clear and measurable goals to realize our vision of increased engagement within the chamber due to my lack of experience in the field. Nevertheless, through autonomous learning and trial and error, Erik and I managed to realize our vision. The 3% increase in unique visitors and the 33% increase in visits to the website during the internship period serve as substantial evidence to support this claim.
Furthermore, I had the opportunity to support the organization and execution of the annual NCCJ Prawn Party arranged at the Norwegian Embassy in Tokyo. The event became a huge success, and over 80 of the Chambers members attended in what turned out to be a victorious Prawn Party after a long intermission of 3 years due to the pandemic. During the event, I had the opportunity to interact with several prominent figures in the Norway-Japan business community, and I established new friendships with the trainees at the Norwegian Embassy in Japan. The latter experience was precious in my accumulation of valuable insight into Japanese culture and society during the internship.
In conclusion, the internship was rewarding as I obtained valuable new practical knowledge and international work experience, which I am confident will be of substantial future value to my career. Hence, I am genuinely grateful for the opportunity provided by the NCCJ and the well-orchestrated arrangement by Simen Assen, General Manager at the Norwegian Chamber of Commerce in Japan.
Sofie Lindberg, Internship at Stokke
This summer I spent five weeks as an intern at Stokke Japan in Tokyo. During my time there I completed various assignments, but my main task was to work with the marketing team to create the marketing campaign for a product that Stokke is planning to release in Japan later this year. With guidance and assistance from the team, I worked on different parts of the campaign, including researching the competitors and their products, analyzing the consumers and their values to help determine the target consumers for the product, and working on creating and adapting a marketing strategy for the product’s release in Japan. These tasks were both interesting and educational, as they allowed me to apply and improve the knowledge I have acquired through my studies, while also helping me gain a better understanding of how the theoretical frameworks and models of marketing are applied in real situations.
I am beyond thankful for the opportunities, creative freedom, trust, and support I received during my time working as an intern at Stokke. I gained a lot of experience, skills, and invaluable insight about the company, its philosophy and values, and the children’s product and furniture market in Japan and globally, which I was previously relatively unfamiliar with. I am confident that the knowledge and abilities I gained through this internship will be vital to me in the future and throughout my career.
Sander Sollie, Internship at Laerdal Medical Japan
My time as an intern at Laerdal Medical has been a great opportunity to gain work experience and get to know the Japanese business culture. As an intern, I had various tasks including doing a survey about digital transformation directed toward the employees of Laerdal Medical Japan and preparing and give a presentation about Norwegian digital transformation. I was free to solve the presentation as I wanted. This was valuable for me to understand Japanese culture, and for the Japanese employees to better understand the Norwegian approach to digital transformation and the decisions made in the company.
The main task, however, I solved together with the other intern Erik Svartaas. The project consisted of planning and executing an event to teach CPR to members of NCCJ. Laerdal Medical Japan had never hosted an event like this before, and we got total freedom in the process. The independence and learning on the job resulted in a steep learning curve and provided a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Working on a real-life project and creating a campaign from scratch without the boundaries set by the university was very valuable and is an experience I am sure has prepared me for future work.
We were also lucky enough to be invited to several events hosted by the Norwegian Embassy and the NCCJ where we got the opportunity to meet parts of the Japan-Norway business community. These experiences together with working with the kind employees of Laerdal Medical, I have achieved a better understanding of the Japanese business culture which will help me to better understand cultural differences in the workplace. The internship has met all my expectations and the positive company culture of Laerdal Medical has made me greatly appreciate my time here.
Erik Svartås, Internship at Laerdal Medical Japan
My co-intern Sander Sollie and I were introduced to Laerdal Medical and put to complete a select few tasks and projects under the supervision of Svend Haakon Kristensen. Some tasks were well described with regards to goal as well as method, while a couple others challenged our independency and self-starting skills. The most challenging and methodically ambiguous project was our awareness campaign for World Restart a Heart Day—its goal being to educate NCCJ members on CPR administration. How we should do this was up to us, although we received helpful guidance when we had questions. This sense of independency and really creating our own campaign out in the real world – not within the boundaries of an educational institution - is certainly a good experience that helps to prepare one for a career.
During my internship at Laerdal Medical, running from August through October, I have been able to experience what I knew about Japanese business culture in practice. Having already learned Japanese and become familiar with Japanese culture, this has been an interesting and helpful experience. At this point I had been going back and forth to Japan for 8 years. However, life at a Japanese workplace is one of the few significant social situations I had yet to take part in. The extent to which we can experience Japanese business culture doing an internship for a month is of course limited, but this intrigued me to see more of it.
In short, I feel that this internship has made me more familiar with work outside the university and has strengthened my understanding of social dynamics at Japanese workplaces. I have considered work in Japan ever since I learned Japanese, and my introduction to NCCJ and this internship has been a positive contribution in my consideration.
NCCJ wants to thank all the 4 students from NHH for their enthusiasm, professionalism and hard work during their interships. We are looking forward to welcoming new students from NHH in the future and to continue our successful and mutually beneficial collaboration.