I want to learn more as there is so much more that can be learned here. Other than that, work goes on as usual for booking duties. 

First, Original Bill of Lading, Seaway Bill and Telex Release. Each of these BL types are checked in a similar process but released in a different manner. BL can be issued to customers in three types, draft, copy and original. BL draft is sent to customer’s email automatically once their booking has been confirmed.

Customers would then need to approve of the said draft in Hapag-Lloyd’s website as the documents could only be released once the vessel has sailed. For today, I would be shadowing and jotting down notes from my guiding staff. 

Basically, Seaway Bill or SWB for short is a type of bill of lading document released to customers as proof of contract carriage and receipt of goods. In terms of ownership, only OBL holds that kind of endorsement responsibility.

However, SWB releases are much faster to be done compared to OBL and SWB releases do not require the presenting of any physical documents. 

The third party logistics provider or freight forwarding agent that are contracted with their client (shipper) would have to pick up the said printed documents and those documents would have to be at the port of discharge country (POD), which is Germany for the cargo to be released to the consignee. 

After my interview which lasted over half hour with the Cargo Operations manager and Senior Human Resources manager, I felt somewhat pleased because even if I do not succeed for the position, at the very least I had the chance to interview for a position within the company and obtain a very valuable interview experience. They said they would be informing me of the results by next week. 

OBL printed at destination saves time in obtaining and releasing the shipper’s cargo. Of course, a certain extra fee is included and this is only viable if there are representatives of the shipper to release their cargo at the port of the destination country.

At the end of the presentation, feedback and commenting session was given by the executives of our presentations. Also, we were awarded of our internship certificate for the completion of internship at the company. Finally a photo taking session to end the event at 5 p.m.

Example, if there is a shipment from China to Indonesia,  with a telex release instead of physically sending the original document like OBL printed at origin or destination, , Hapag-Lloyd sends a message to its Indonesia office which is the port of destination, instructing them to release the cargo without needing the original document. This speeds up the process and reduces the hassle of handling physical paperwork.

LCL bookings contain only cargo and need to be loaded into a container. For the equipment you need to create a Consolidated booking and link the LCL booking to the equipment booking.

For Hapag-Lloyd, FIS2 provides real-time information about where each container is, the status of the shipment, and any potential issues that might arise during transit. It helps ensure that goods are delivered on time, manage booking processes, and handle the logistics involved in shipping large volumes of freight.

This system is crucial for maintaining smooth operations and providing reliable service to customers who depend on Hapag-Lloyd to transport their goods internationally as it is used by departments like customer service and operations.

8.30 a.m - 5.30 p.m, no Overtime

Break time

12.00 p.m - 2.00 p.m

Annual Leaves

4 days total

Every intern is gathered in one of Hapag-Lloyd available meeting rooms. Interns from multiple departments would share their fresh experience and voice out our opinions about settling down into the environment. 

We arrived at approximately 10 a.m. and were greeted by the WestPort representatives. We were then guided to a meeting room for a briefing and presentation session. Breakfast was kindly provided. Then at estimated 11.30 a.m., we headed out to the container yard and port for sightseeing. After that, we returned to WestPort’s office building and headed back to Hapag-Lloyd at 1 p.m. We reached back at the office around 2 p.m.

This is because Import duties are never ending as importing shipments from around the world discharging at Malaysia’s ports would have to go through Import and only Import for any type of customer and operational engagement. 

With that, I am considered lucky even though it's just a contract position. I gratefully accepted the offer as it is a stepping stone.

The internship program at Hapag-Lloyd is a good opportunity to learn basic and simple responsibilities in the day-to-day activities of a shipping industry. However, regarding employment opportunities for interns at the end of our internship period is not guaranteed for the company to accept us as permanent. This due to such employment opportunities is based on company staff headcount or number of retained employees. In other words, interns would be given the chance to work as an employee only if there is an open position for the specific or related role that we are already interning for. 

Therefore, this poses discouragement for interns as we know for certain that our futures are uncertain at the company. Knowing this, it is difficult to be motivated into our duties as our responsibilities within the company are close to none. The possibility of interns continuing at the company after our internship is not nil but disappointingly low.

Although, with all of that being said, Hapag-Lloyd is a very good company as I believe it should be the standard of how an MNC is run in terms of employee satisfaction ans well as benefits. I thank the company with everything that they have done for me and for my development.

All employees that reside in the building possess two different key cards, one for the Bousteador building access and the other for the company floor access. The building’s floors are reachable through multiple lifts that are accessible by scanning the mentioned building key card and then inputting a company’s floor number.

As I reached Hapag-Llyod’s floor, a scanning of the company key card was required to access the company floor area. Upon entering and greeted by the front desk, I was redirected into a meeting room where other interns were also waiting for the intern induction process. The induction briefing was conducted by human resources coordinators where 4 other interns attended it (three of them are also UUM interns).

There, we were handed our electronic equipment like laptops, chargers and mouse by the company IT staff. We also were guided by the said IT staff in registering our company emails, usernames and passwords. After that, the human resources coordinators gave us a tour of the company floor areas. Hapag-Lloyd has three floors in total, each placing different departments and functions. Then, the induction process was done and we all went to our own separate departments.

First day is always slow. I was introduced to my responsibilities very slowly in order to acclimate to the surrounding working environment. My workplace supervisor placed my learning and mentor-mentee ships under a senior intern from UCSI University, Tarvin. On the first day, I would just listen and jot down notes from Tarvin about the tasks and responsibilities that he has done for the past 4 months, since I would be taking over once his internship is done in the next 3 weeks, which is on the 19th.

Formally introduced myself to the Customer Service Cluster 3 staff and involved myself in the weekly team briefing. Every employee works on site or in the office for three days per week, while the other two is Work From Home (WFH). Wednesdays are compulsory for every employee to physically attend work in the office. Therefore, there would be meetings and briefing on every Wednesday and additionally on any other weekday depending on the situation. 

Since this branch of HL services Southeast Asia Region (ASE), Southeast Asia countries like MY, SG, TH, ID, and VN are under its domain of facilitation. The CS department’s employees are distributed evenly in terms of the number of locals  and multinationals.  All of the multinationals are either Thais or Vietnamese who can professionally communicate in their mother tongues and English. 

There are actually other previous processes that would take place before and after Booking Confirmation. Therefore, customers would indicate certain phrases for an action to be taken by them. Phrases like “Will gate in container before CY cutoff once SI submitted”, which in itself is a booking confirmation but contains two different elements or actions to be taken by the customer. “Gate in container” means the customer will transport a loaded container with their shipment into the container yard. “Before CY cut off” refers to the container yard cutoff that customers have to send the container  to the container yard within a given timeframe by Hapag-Lloyd. Another commonly used phrase is “Will gate in once SI submitted”, meaning that the customer will transport their loaded shipment once their Shipping Instruction (SI) has been submitted to relevant parties.

The workplace at Hapag-Lloyd employs a hybrid setting where every CS staff works from home twice a week and three days physical attendance in the office. As mentioned before, every employee is handed over their own working set of working laptops for mobility and convenience purposes.

During WFH, employees use their laptops to work. While in the office, it’s the same but the laptop would be plugged into a power port where multiple access could be gained like Wi-Fi and dual monitors. In the CS department, while a single monitor would suffice, dual monitors are the norm as CS staff refer to multiple things at once like for example communicating with other work groups, talking to customers and updating the FIS2 system at the same time.

Hapag-Lloyd has many benefits for its employees. One of them is the subsidisation of food costs through a food ordering online application that is called Smartbyte. Smartbyte provides food subsidisation through the use of a RM10 voucher that could only be redeemed once per day. The RM10 voucher is helpful to save costs especially for interns like us that have limited budgets as their services after subsidisation are very affordable. The food would be delivered to the company’s pantry, so employees would not have to concern themselves with venturing outside of the building to acquire food.

WBTs are as the name suggests. Employees can do the WBTs to learn more and gain knowledge as it is an interactive and PDF-based informal training developed by HL themselves. There are tons of training that could be done ranging from multiple topics, skill-learning and categories to choose from like customer service and IT. There is also training for the basic usage and navigation of FIS2 and Salesforce.  

With these GCCs, Hapag-Lloyd can keep things like tech support, finances, and customer service functioning efficiently, regardless of where their ships or customers are situated. Instead of managing these responsibilities in every office across the world, they centralise them in one or several GCCs, which improves efficiency and consistency. Thus, customer service agents' workload and burden is significantly reduced and they could focus on the more challenging and labor intensive cases.

My department is the customer service department. We were told that it is the biggest department compared to all other departments. In Hapag-Lloyd, there are Customer Service (CS), Operatios (OPS), Business Administration (BA), AO, RPA and Human Resource and Admin departments (HR). The customer service (CS) department comprises five different clusters with similar functions but different responsibilities. They are namely Cluster 1 through Cluster 5. My designated cluster is Cluster 3 Booking (CSB Cluster 3). In each cluster, there are three distinct groups of duties which are Booking, Documentation and Import.

In all clusters, the CS department uses two necessary softwares that integrate information and communication management capabilities, Salesforce and FIS2. Salesforce is the main source of communication platform between customers and Hapag Llyod internal bodies. FIS2 is an integrated data information module used to manage and facilitate the movement of freights and cargoes. Both of these go hand-in-hand in the CS department activities and operations.

FIS2 is predominantly used in the entirety of Hapag-Llyod business operations but Salesforce is used mainly by the CS department. FIS2 software is a module of multiple different functions. Booking confirmation uses only one function, which is ‘S8100 Booking Detail’. (pic) Booking confirmation is basically just the updating of information in the FIS2. Customers would send email at Salesforce and CS would update the confirmation in FIS2.

College of Business 

Hapag-Lloyd Internship Logbook

A232 Session 2

Name of the Organisation: 

Hapag-Lloyd Business Services (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.

Address of the Organization:

Level 20, The Bousteador, 10, Jalan PJU 7/6, Mutiara Damansara, 47800 Petaling Jaya,

Prepared for: 

Dr. Kamal Imran Mohd Sharif

Prepared by: 

Vat Chara Phong Maniesewad (281160)

Hons. Degree in Bachelor of Business

Administration of Logistics and Transport

(BBALT)

Expectations from internship

1. Learn the external and internal systems used in the company

2. The basic overall process and operational flow of the shipping industry

3. The necessary hard and soft skills required in the industry

Most important things learned after internship

1. The importance of effective communication

2. How to be meticulous in working details

3. How to learn and listen properly

If there are entries with "Work as usual", it means that there is nothing new to learn for the day and work continues as usual from the previously learned work.