1415T2g1 South Korea/Participant Information/Tan Jun Rong
Contents
About Jun Rong
SMU email: junrong.tan.2013@business.smu.edu.sg
Facebook: Add me!
LinkedIn: Jun Rong
Academic Year: 2
Degree: Pursuing Bachelor of Business Management
Interests: Kpop!, Harry Potter, Youtubing endlessly, playing games [not at all nowadays due to school :( ], browsing the web for interesting stuff and Samba music
Why TSM South Korea?
- What motivates you to join TSM?
6.30am: Alarm on Samsung Galaxy S4 rings, proceeds to activate the Snooze function in intervals of 5 minutes for 3 times
6.35am: Snooze alarm rings, proceeds to turn it off for another 5 minutes of rest
6.40am: Snooze alarm rings, proceeds to turn Snooze function off and grumpily accepts life
7.23am: Woke up again, searched for my mobile phone and looked at the time. Literally jumped out of bed after realizing that I had went back to sleep after turning the alarm off and overslept
7.25am: Proceeds to brush my teeth using the Oral B electric toothbrush and skipped the shower
7.30am: Out of house with bread in one hand, S4 in the other. Eating the bread while clicking my EasyTaxi app (an app which lets me book a taxi using GPS to locate where am I)
7.33am: Taxi uncle uses the face-to-face video call to check the exact location I am at
7.35am: Boarded the taxi, now checking my schedule for the day using the S Planner application, reading through school emails on the Samsung email app and catching up on lecture slides using Dropbox which synchronizes all my lecture slides and school work between my phone, my laptop and my personal computer at home. All the while trying to resist reading long messages from last night's Whatsapp groups and personal messages
8.07am: Reached SMU at last! After much fiasco, it is only the start of yet another long muggy day at SMU...
Does the above remind you of how your typical SMUgger day starts? As you can see, technology (from the small alarm app on your phone all the way to satellite dishes in space, communicating with the little device on your palm on where your location is) is embedded in my life as much as anyone of you. Thus, I believe the best way to start up a business of my own, is to embrace the art of how technology intertwines itself with our daily life, vice versa. Just imagine the bottom-line (as what the VCs always focus on) this kind of business will fetch, with the huge market of individuals whose life are already submerged with technology.
However, I know that everyone with basic business sense realizes how profitable technology businesses are too. And why is it that not everyone is jumping on the technological business bandwagon? As I have learnt in economic terms: Barriers to Entry. But what exactly are these barriers to entry? How do I know how much it takes to even produce a simple taxi-booking app like EasyTaxi? Do I need to learn coding? Gosh I have heard horror stories from my friends in IS about coding! Do I need to learn how to beautify the app using Photoshop or any other graphics editing software? Do I need to do anything to make sure that any amount of users can use my app at the same time? Do I need to take note of any bugs that might arise after users use my app, if so, how do I go about fixing all these bugs without interfering users who are currently using the app? What are the legal implications if I release a similar taxi-booking app but I name it GrabTaxi or Uber? What if I want to do something more high-tech than just apps? And what country would be the best and hopefully most forgiving if I plan to launch this business for the first time?
Thus that is my motivation to join this TSM. To put it simply, I want to
- Create my own technology-focused business
- Know what are the exact challenges and how to handle them
- Know where exactly to launch this business and why it is so
- Learn from the successful and the failures of technology-focused businesses before me
- Spread my appreciation of the fusion between technology and our lives
I believe any standard business study mission or any other study mission would not allow me to accomplish these 5 points. Thus TSM is the only way to go and I hope my motivations will be fully fulfilled thru this TSM.
- Why pick South Korea?
I chose South Korea as it is one of the most technologically advanced countries in terms of consumer electronics and that is a category of products which I feel very close to as I am one of the consumer of such electronic devices on a daily basis. To me, there is a lot that are interesting about South Korea. I have been interested in the South and North divide since my history teacher went through it in secondary school. I have watched far too many Korean Pop music videos (mostly Girls Generation!!!) and Korean dramas (on KBS and KBS MusicBank) for my own good. I have grown to appreciate the traditional way of wearing a Hanbok through watching too much of 大長今 with my grandparents. I have developed a sweet spot for Korean BBQ in my heart ever since I tasted it at Ssikkek BBQ. I believe that if I were to take this TSM to South Korea as a business trip, to just learn about how its like doing business in South Korea, then it would be a waste to me. I will want to indulge in the rich heritage and the years of culture Korea can provide for me, and that to me is the beauty of such opportunities like this TSM to South Korea.
Internship Opportunities
- What types of internship opportunities interest you?
I am interested in internship opportunities that allows me to do real work and make actual significant contributions to the company.
- Any ideal firms (based in South Korea) that you wishes to join?
Having played Maplestory (a MMORPG which features cutesy characters with big heads, fighting monsters to level up) for pretty much 1/3 of my life, I would say Nexon (the company which developed this games and offered online support for it) would be my first choice. Samsung Groups comes in second as I am very interested in how it started out as a trading company, and is well-known in the shipbuilding and construction industry later on, only to be widely recognized as an electronic company today with youth Singaporeans like myself. Samsung Group is a brand that can be said to build Korea, offering so many technological solutions to everything imaginable (from healthcare to handheld devices). I admire such a company and it would be my honor to be able to join it. Another of such company that aims to provide technological solutions to everyday lives but only on the electronic scale is LG. Thus I am interested in joining LG too. Moving along to the automobile industry, I would like to join Hyundai Motors as this is a company that helped to make cars affordable in Korea, and supported Korea with mobile transport solutions through many years. However, Hyundai's unionized workers are going on a strike this friday for 8 hours to press for higher pay and better working conditions. I am upset by this and I will be watching out for updates on the strike as it is ongoing.
Starting a business
- What types of business interest you?
Business that are creative in their products and/or processes. I feel that it is meaningless to chase after the bottom-line without having any significant impact to the society. Thus I would prefer business which can impact lives positively and can continue to give back through monetary contributions, volunteering efforts or creating products that benefit certain aspects of human life.
- What plan do you have in starting a business?
My plan is to have a general technology business that aims to make life better in any way possible.
Thinking from a student's point of view, one of the idea I have is to tackle the seat-hogging problem in the SMU library. My pitch will go something like this:
Have you ever walked into the SMU library and kept on walking for a good 15mins before you find a seat or just give up and go home to study?
Have you ever been to a carpark where there are overhead lights that indicate from afar whether a particular parking slot has been occupied by a car?
If your answer to both of the questions are yes, then I have the perfect solution for u.
Transferring the technology we have in these overhead light sensor systems, we can have a system that can be installed to the top of every seat in the library. This system will have a heat sensor which detects the body heat of a person who is occupying the seat. The lights will then flash red, signaling from afar that the seat is occupied.
Once the person leaves the seat, the lights will remain red for an adjustable timing (lets set in as 15 minutes in this case). After 15 mins, the light will turn green, signaling to seat-finders like you and me that the seat is empty and can be occupied! This will then refrain seat-hoggers from hogging the seat for more than 15mins.
What this means for you as SMU student is that
1. It saves you time from finding seats in the library
2. It prevents other students from hogging the seats
What this means for u as a potential business partner of mine is that
1. There is a huge market potential for this system.
Figures presented below are rough estimates
| Library | Number of seats |
| SMU | 1500 |
| NTU (8 libraries) | 8 X 1000 |
| NTU (7 libraries) | 7 X 1000 |
and not forgetting our 24 public libraries.
I do recognize that the above idea is a little too far-fetched as of now, but the technology involved (heat sensor and lights) is not an implausible one as it is used very much today. However, this example can showcase the direction of where I want to aim my business towards, which is to get technology to add value to people's lives. If I can tackle everyday problems, however minor it is, using technology, then I will find a way to do it, given the constraints of how advanced our technology is, prices etc.
Past Experiences
- Describe your past experience (entrepreneurship, or works in start ups etc)
I have a stint at EmitAsia(S) Pte Ltd as a Sales and Marketing Executive after my 'A' levels and before my National Service. Working in a small company, I literally have to do a lot more than what my role specifies. When the magazines are delivered to us I have to carry them up 1 flight of stairs to the office, unpack them and allocate them to stockpiles according to the area they will be sent to. When I have made orders through direct sales or telemarketing, I have to key in the administrative details on my own and report the correct finances to the finance department. When we do road shows or fairs in schools, I have to reach there early using my own transport and lay out the marketing collateral and set up the booth on my own. As such, I believe I have worked in an old company, but have taken the workload comparable to that in start-ups.
I was the Business Development Executive of JJ Enterprise (Jurong Junior College Entrepreneurship club) whereby I have to develop the business direction of Auxilion Club, which is a LAN (Local-Area Networked) computer gaming club. We handled real money as students who patronized the club will have to pay money to our club, which in turn will pay for rental of the space to the school and rest of it will go into the club's reserves. As such, I have learnt how to operate a small computer gaming business on my own and allocate work efficiently to my other team mates.
