Internship Experience: FMM (Week 1)

I have undergoing my practical training at Federation of Malaysia Manufacturers (FMM) Perak branch. Commonly people will think that name of “federation” always belong to a society or similar else, but actually it is not, this organization may run their operation like a society, but it is an organization which registered their existence under commission of company (COC), not commission of society (COS), and of course, a profit oriented organization.

The main role of FMM is to be the advisor (mostly the representative of member manufacturers) of both local member manufacturers and government (both central and state), hence, there are lots of meetings carried out between the above parties to solve or discuss problems, which FMM become the middle man between them. Besides, FMM will organize lots of talks, seminars, forums and else for their member manufacturers and public as well, and the participants fees would be one of the main income sources aside from member fees and annual membership fees. Another important income source for FMM is generated from their subsidiary company, FMM Institute (FMMI), where FMMI main business activity is offering courses and trainings to both FMM members and non members, and my job scope is mostly assisting FMMI function and operation.

FMM income also contributed by form selling, e.g. certificate of origin (CO) form (FMM given the authority by MITI to issue certificate which proven that a manufacturer’s exported products was at least 70% locally value created).

This is what I heard from the assistant manager during the orientation in my first day of practical training. My job scopes during the internship period, mentioned by the assistant manager, are:
1) Assist in promotion of Branch events/seminars by way of telemarketing
2) Assist in administrative duties of the branch i.e. updating of records, filing, and preparation of letters
3) Assist in sourcing out new ideas for seminars/program via government agencies webpage and newspaper
4) Assist in updating/improving the branch’s website

During this first week, I had been doing proofreading, arranging and sort documents, data key in kind of boring routine stuff… but luckily this is not the only tasks I am doing. I had been asked by my senior to help out in seeking information regarding to Perak Amanjaya Development Plan through internet (I had only know this grand plan since then, never noticed it before though a Perakian), I had also attending two meetings, which one of them was the meeting between TNB Perak and member manufacturers, another was the 1st meeting of FMM ICT resources committee, which in both meetings I required to listen and record the whole minutes, thought it is easy? Nope, absolutely not, for there are lots of technical terms and jargons throughout the meetings, which make me difficult to understand what they are discussing…sigh…I told my seniors about this and they comfort me that this is what they experienced earlier too, and convince me that this is a very good experience to learn, and I self-identify with what they said.

Well, this is what I had experienced during my 1st week practical training, sharing more in coming post.