Thank you to Roland Bala - Guest speaker

Mr Roland (Tasha's dad) came to speak to us yesterday.

Mr Roland is the Managing Director of Cambodia Brewery in Cambodia.
Cambodia Brewery was established in 1994 as a joint venture.

It comprises of 80% Heineken and 20% Local shareholders putting money into the business.

Mr Roland showed the Grade 4 students how the business organize themselves.
He described what each part of the business is responsible for and how they all work together to create a successful business.

He discussed marketing, sales, supply chain, finance, human resources, corporate relations and legal officers.

Mr Roland told us about production, supply, branding, and how they use systems to ensure efficiency.
He also told us how he worked for many years at BP (British Petroleum). He worked his way up to be a Managing Director.

The Grade 4 students reflected that Mr Roland was a risk taker when he decided to start the business here in Cambodia. There were challenges in the early years but he persevered.

Cambodia brewery are a big business here in Cambodia. They employ 450 people and more than 2,500 indirectly. They produce and sell 120,000 cartons each day in Cambodia.

Mr Roland showed us how their marketing teams plan and create products, branding and advertising.
They treat the product like a person. This is similar to what we do when doing personification writing.

They come up with characteristics and traits of a product and think about who they are trying to sell the product to. Then they sponsor events,  design billboards, create magazine ads and television commercials that will appeal to their market.

Thank you Mr Roland for visiting and helping us understand all the aspects of a business.
We have learned a lot about supply and demand, production, branding and advertising.
Who knew so many people are involved in creating, marketing and selling a product!