27 November 2014:
An introduction
We are a group of university students representing SIM University for the SG50 Competition on “Local Champions, Global Leaders”. Our group members are Jasmine Christian, Ng Pui Ling, Ng Mei Ying Amaris, Kelvin Kho Hock Meng and Yu Zheng Hong Leon (left to right in the photo below). All of us are currently full-time students, pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Marketing.
There are several reasons why we are participating in this competition. We wish to play an active role in the celebration of a momentous year that marks Singapore’s 50th year of independence. Since it is a major milestone for Singapore to have made it so far, we strongly believe that Singaporeans should come together to reflect and commemorate our country’s journey. Other than that, we would also like to use this opportunity to display and improve our marketing abilities, to gain experience for future projects.
The company that we are assigned to is PSA Corporation Ltd (PSA). PSA was founded back in 1964, hence making it a year older than Singapore. It was formerly known as Port of Singapore Authority but after corporatizing in 1997, the company’s name stopped being an acronym and became PSA Corporation Ltd. The port operator that has been running ever since our country became independent is indeed a cornerstone in Singapore's history. As one of the world’s leading port groups, PSA functions across the globe in continents like Asia, Europe and the Americas. Known as a port that never sleeps, PSA operates 24 hours a day and handles more than 90 thousand container transfers. It also accounts for one-seventh of the total transhipment for containers in the world. With its connections with 600 ports around the world, there are sailings to major ports daily.
There are staff who have been in the company for decades and had invited their family and relatives to work alongside them. The connection between the different generations working in PSA shows how the pioneer generation has helped establish Singapore as a leading port in the world for the past 50 years, and how the next generation is going to help further their hard work.
Through this competition, our team hope to learn more about Singapore’s history and how corporates play a part in building our nation. We also want to gain recognition, along with exposure as we work together with the corporate to promote the SG50 competition. This is a valuable experience for us and can be used as a foundation for our future work life.
To learn more about the company beyond what their information package provided, we met up with people from PSA to gain more information for our research. This was followed by a series of interviews with the employees to understand the work culture in PSA. The main focus is on their brand story, as we take note of their historical milestones and their generational workforce. We would like to thank Mr Daniel Lim, Mr Jeffrey Sim and Mr Mike Sargent from PSA for providing us the information we need along the way in this competition. We are also thankful for the guidance that Dr Yap and Prof Leong from SIM University have provided us in this competition.
We will be displaying PSA’s remarkable contribution to Singaporeans through various methods and platforms to promote their brand story. By gathering public awareness on important values of the company, we hope to bring attention to who they are, what they do and how they should be considered the “building blocks” of our nation.
