Hello, my name is Eiko Taki and I joined to here ASUNOVA since last August.

Actually, I am not the Intern student, but part time worker supporting office and head quarter division. Since some of the members posted the daily work already, let me introduce what I am thinking through past months in ASUNOVA.

First of all, I would like to introduce about my working background.

I started my career at the apparel importing company, simply because I love the fashion. After 3 years, I moved to another company which is German tableware and glass maker. I worked there about 5 years and it brought me a lot of joy of working, learning, and communicating with colleagues both of in Japan and in Europe, and many clients. Since I have interested in dining and design, and also the products don’t be changed as fast as fashion industry, I could work at each product taking my time. Now, maybe you have a question why I joined ASUNOVA, because it seemed that it is difficult to find the relations between these past two companies and the present ASUNOVA as a venture company.

I happen to meet the chance to join ASUNOVA. Telling the truth, it was little bit hard to get used to ASUNOVA, since here the things move and change day by day, also my work was seemed like that it was totally different from what I did before. But after some weeks, my mind changed, that was I myself have to find and approach the relations. For example, I can make and check the presentation file for clients of ASUNOVA, and here I can make good use of the experiences that I made the presentation for the buyer at the previous company. I try to make the good environment that the players and interns can enjoy and concentrate each works, and that is what I learned from colleague at another company.

What I want to say, it is good to find the work or your space on very professional and limited area, but it is also good experience to put yourself into different area. It is yourself, who guide and let you think “what is the working, what I am working for…” There you can find another side of yourself, and have a chance to learn or even get the chance to read the book which you have ever read before.

If you have a chance to join ASUNOVA no matter as intern or fulltime member or even part time member, you are lucky, because everyone has the equal chance and opportunity for working and experience. Here in the office I often see the members discuss and try to find the solution, try to make the things better. Of course, the managers of each division give them the advice to let them think. I am glad to see the members try and progress day by day.

Though, I have already experienced some works before, I feel that I progress step by step through the works in ASUNOVA. Before I joined here, I thought that to work at Venture Company, I needed to be good at figures, needed to be more and more aggressive, needed to have spectacular working or education background. But now I think that these are my obsessive ideas. I mean, the most important thing is holding the same purpose, the same dream as a team and feeling the excitement and speed that we are growing and challenging!!

So, don’t be afraid to join venture company, nor you will miss one of the best opportunity, I swear.

Hi everyone!

So I’m back from our round of recruitment talks in Singapore with Maki, as some of you might have already read on our Facebook page (which we’re on virtually 24-7, so there you go, yet another communication channel just for you guys). We made our rounds this year at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), where taking round after rapid fire round of questions from a sea of fresh young faces was an unforgettable experience that was, strangely, both humbling and uplifting at the same time. Alas, fair youth, to where have thou flown? This is not a cry for help.

Many thanks to everyone who came down, we were very glad to have met and spoken with all of you. It was so, so heartening to meet so many of you who had the same aspirations and ideas as us. Can’t wait to take those conversations further (yep, this is your cue to submit your application for an interview)!

We hope the sessions were useful for those who turned up, but for those who didn’t make it, feel free to leave a comment under this post if you’d like a copy of our recruitment talk slides. Or if you just want to say hi

Allow me to also thank Claire and Lydia from the NUS Business School Career Services, and Bibi and Mei from the NTU Career & Attachment Office for helping us out with our inaugural round of recruitment talks in Singapore, and for generally being the sweetest, kindest people ever.

Once again, for those who missed our talks at NUS and NTU, we’re currently looking to hire full-time members in the following positions:

Marketing Director Trainee
Business Development Director Trainee 
Systems Engineering Director Trainee 

Detailed descriptions of each of the above jobs can be found in our recruitment talk slides.

To reiterate what was said during our information sessions, these are travel-intensive jobs with major responsibilities and opportunities that will blow your mind, so only the truly adventurous may apply. Perks, on top of the (very) constant travelling, include a fun and dynamic team, as well as ready access to xiaolongbao / sushi / dim sum / roti prata / all of the above (delete where appropriate).

In response to a common question from many of you, Japanese language ability is not at all required, but we insist that you be bilingual, i.e. effectively fluent in English and at least one other language.

And the second most common question – do we take interns? Yes, we are also open to interns, although we do not yet have a structured internship programme and vacancies depend very much on our needs at the point of receiving your application. Do write to us anyway if you’re interested.

The application deadline for Asunova’s Global Hiring this year is 17 February 2012. Hit us up with your applications here right now!

Hello, everyone! It is my first time to meet you here in this blog. First, let me introduce myself. I am Wen-Ling Wu from Taiwan, and everybody calls me lingling. I have been in Japan to study in Waseda University since last April and joined Asunova as an intern last September. This my first intern job in Japan and I found it really challenging and interesting.

I still remember when I first got into Asunova office, I was surprised at the casual and relax working environment in Asunova. Everybody was focusing on his/her job but he/she gave me a big smile and said Good Moring to me when I came in the office. We don’t have to wear formal suit to work and there is even a closet to hang on our coats. I like the tables in working area, which are really different from other offices. The tables are clean and neat so that you won’t find any scattered documents. We don’t have office cubicles and fixed seat(just as how Microsoft do!) so that we could choose any place in the office to work at, and the open space design gives us opportunities to talk to people who sit around me whenever we want. There is also meeting area that besides holding meeting, we often have lunch together in. Moreover, We have sofa and small round table near the window that we could spend time with coffee and work there. Sometimes I even forget I was in my office and think that I was in a coffee shop near my home. There is also a shelf full of books in office that we could rent book home for free.

The atmosphere here is really great. We help each other when we get problems and you wouldn’t find any bureaucracy system here. We have interns, full time workers and of course executive managers but you could feel that everybody is equal here. Managers teach us patiently and often make me think about how to improve better. We set goals and schedules every day right after we walk into the office and write daily report to reflect today’s work before we leave the office . Following the principle of PDCA(plan, do, check, act), we carefully set short, medium long-term goals and try our best to accomplish them. We always think about how to do it better after we finish projects.

I love my work not only because it teaches me a lot but also because of the friendly atmosphere here. I really appreciate that I could work in Asunova and meet the wonderful people here

]]> http://blog.asunova.com/?feed=rss2&p=397 0 http://blog.asunova.com/?p=386 http://blog.asunova.com/?p=386#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:10:35 +0000 admin http://blog.asunova.com/?p=386 洲楊
所在地：香港

還記得一次來上海已是廿多年前的事了。還沒進小學校園的我，對這陌生的大城市充滿好奇。雖然兩個小眼球整天東張西望，卻始終不敢放開奶奶的手。又驚又喜 – 就是我對上海的第一個感受。

第二次來上海是我踏進大學前一年的暑假。背著背包再次來到這個似曾相識的城市裡，我自己一個人走到外灘，去了豫園。雖然沒了小時候的害怕，但是卻對這城市的變化嘖嘖稱奇。讚歎 – 是我對上海的第二個感受。

外滩夜景

2011年的今天，因為加入了ASUNOVA這個大家庭，我再次來到上海。當了兩次過客的我，終於有機會細心感受真正的上海生活。除了每天上下班以外，尋找美食成了我生活的一個重要部分。從街頭巷尾，我可以找到的不只是一碗麵，幾個小籠包，能真正感受到的是濃濃的“上海味”。感動 – 就是我對上海的最新感受。

記得剛進公司的時候有一位前輩跟我說：“教育是一個從心而發的行業。要做好教育，就得懂得如何感動別人；要學會如何感動別人，就要先有被感動的經驗；想要有被感動的經驗,就先要有一顆能被感動的心。”

原來，感動能來得如此簡單。

鮮牆房 / 最愛北京填鴨

名前: 有田
現在位置: 上海

Photo by kuwait kites team（http://www.flickr.com/photos/46862617@N02/）

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Happy New Year. This is Arita and I am in charge of this first blog post of the new year. In the year 2011, many things happened not only in Japan, but also in Asunova. During those times, we who run this group, often have to confront the question “What is Asunova’s mission?” seriously, so I would like to share some of my ideas.

The Story of Starting Asunova

When we founded this company, there was a period of time when we seriously thought about some questions such as “what should the company Asunova do?” and “what is the reason for our existence?”

In Japan, it is said that doing business related to education is not that simple, so we always considered how to live on. Maybe we should appreciate that time that we think about the stuff because it may be the reason we live on to nowadays. At the beginning, we really worried about what the company’s name should be. Ultimately, we chose words from origin of ASIA(ASU)+NOVA in another word “the place for tomorrow” and “extend tomorrow ” in Japanese, and started our business from that point.

Mission: Cultivate Asia

After we decided on the name, the domain of business was also almost decided. It is Education×Asia. We decided on that we had to have a fancy and big mission, if any at all. Knowing that the budget from the country does not come not easily and we should set the field of business clearly, we gradually sped up towards our goals, step by step.

And it was the mission Asunova made. About half a year after I left my previous job at Recruit the mission “Regenerating Asia via Education”  occurred to me. It did not have to be building schools immediately but it always had to revolve around “Educating Asia”. Someday, we should be the people who cultivate Asia.

At the time starting the business, the mission on my name card read “To start a school by the end of 2011″. From last year,  that mission came true and we could finally say that we “opened a school”, and that was one of the concrete steps we took towards our mission of “cultivating Asia”.

Because of the mission we have, we want to work with staff who share our aspirations and ideas. We are not a place which people have to wear suits to every day and there is almost no organizational hierarchy in Asunova. I am also not the eldest in terms of the age. Older members (in terms of age) are respected, while retaining the freedom for any member at all to speak up when he or she disagrees. This is the most basic of Asunova’s principles and also one we want to keep following.

Asunova in 2012

Regenerating Asia via Education. Delivering the best education to ASIA.

In year 2012, we want to continue to value the mission “changing people’s careers, and changing their lives” to enlarge our business. The first place we’re going to would be Shanghai, and then the countries of ASEAN afterwards. We will be expanding our activities to 2 to 3 countries this year, and a few new areas of study. We are looking to hire people from Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and so on, so we are looking forward to meeting new partners and doing our best to reach our goal of becoming Asia’s No.1 education enterprise.

Wishing everyone abundant opportunity to meet new people and experience new things in 2012. Have a good year!

Sau một tiếng phỏng vấn, tôi được nhận làm thực tập sinh tại công ty, và từ đây tôi bắt đầu trải nghiệm  môi trường làm việc của một công ty Nhật Bản, học tập cách lập kế hoạch, thực hiện và quản lý dự án.

ASUNOVA trong tôi là môi trường làm việc của những người trẻ tuổi giàu ước mơ, hoài bão. Tuổi đời trung bình của ban lãnh đạo, nhân viên và thực tập sinh tại ASUNOVA không quá 30, thực sự là một công ty trẻ. Thế nhưng nhìn vào thành tích, kinh nghiệm cũng như xuất phát điểm của các thành viên công ty, không thể phủ nhận việc ASUNOVA có một đội ngũ nhân sự thực sự giàu năng lực. Họ đều tốt nghiệp các trường đại học danh tiếng của Nhật Bản, Trung Quốc, Singapore, có kinh nghiệm làm việc trong môi trường quốc tế và thông thạo nhiều hơn hai ngôn ngữ giao tiếp quốc tế. Chính sự đa dạng này tạo nên môi trường làm việc rất thú vị tại công ty, tôi được gặp gỡ đồng nghiệp đến từ nhiều quốc gia khác nhau, trao đổi văn hóa thông tin, học cách kinh doanh và rèn luyện bản thân để trở thành một doanh nhân, một nhà quản lý.

ASUNOVA trong mắt tôi là nơi bạn thực hiện giấc mơ của mình, nhận lấy thách thức để học nhiều điều quý giá mà trường học không dạy bạn. Hãy thử tưởng tượng nếu bạn mới bắt đầu học kinh tế, chưa có kinh nghiệm làm việc nhiều, bạn sẽ xoay sở ra sao nếu được giao tạo dựng và quản lý một dự án. Ý tưởng dự án của bạn được đưa ra sau khi hiểu rõ về các nguồn lực, tiềm năng của lĩnh vực hoạt động của công ty. Bạn có một tháng độc lập xây dựng ý tưởng, nghiên cứu thị trường tiềm năng, lập danh sách đối tác (và đối thủ), tiếp cận đối tác và thuyết phục họ cùng tham gia dự án của công ty. Bạn có thể làm được điều đó?

Nếu bạn đam mê kinh doanh, có khả năng phân tích nhạy bén để nhìn thấy thế mạnh của công ty, của bản thân mình, có một ý tưởng rõ ràng và cách thức tiếp cận đúng đắn, bạn có thể làm được! Tôi thấy mình tự tin, mạnh mẽ và độc lập trong suy nghĩ cũng như quyết định hơn rất nhiều từ khi làm việc ở ASUNOVA. Tôi luôn hiểu cái công ty cần ở mình là câu trả lời và hành động chứ không phải câu hỏi và sự phụ thuộc vào giải pháp của ban lãnh đạo. Tạo cho mình suy nghĩ đây là dự án của mình, và luôn nhớ mình đang tiến hành hoạt động kinh doanh thực sự, hãy làm hết sức mình để khẳng định bản thân, để đúc rút kinh nghiệm và đặt những bước tiến đầu tiên trên con đường trở thành một doanh nhân thành đạt.

Tôi đã và đang đặt những hòn gạch cho tương lai của mình tại đây và tôi nhận được sự hỗ trợ to lớn từ ban lãnh đạo, từ các đồng nghiệp người nước ngoài. Bạn cũng có thể có cơ hội như tôi, tại ASUNOVA Nhật Bản.

Only few more days till the end of 2011. How is your 2011 so far?
For me, the time flies faster than ever since I was born XX years ago.

Many projects proceeded and most importantly, new members  joined from Tokyo, HK, Shanghai, Singapore,Vietnam and Taiwan.  : )

For myself, visited so many places within Japan and also within Asia.
Many of my clients/partners brought me to great restaurants anywhere I visit.
This working style has not really changed from when I was working in finance industry.

To conclude the year 2011, I am spending these precious weeks in exciting place, Shanghai.
Yes, I had 上海蟹 at the restaurant where former US president; Mr. Clinton loved.

The lovely Shanghai skyline

and… I had a surprised BD party from Shanghai and Tokyo office members together.
BD songs via Skype from both teams, gorgeous white roses bouquet (rarely find white roses in Tokyo) and sweet BD cake.

Birthday bouquet!

To introduce myself, I was born and brought up in Singapore, educated in Singapore, UK and Tokyo.
After graduated from university, my career started in the field of finance as a stock analyst in Japanese Research Institute and Goldman Sachs.
As I always wanted to deal projects related to exciting Asia market, I decided to set up venture company with the start up members.

The coming year 2012 will be another big challenging year for Asunova.
We will be launching many new projects, so that the members will be moving around one places to another. How exciting!

Wish everyone for a fruitful year 2012.

This first experience in sales was key for me to convince Asunova that I would prove immediately useful. As an intern, I have been praised for my ability to build and leverage lasting relationships with clients to generate sales. In charge of a project aiming at entering the Chinese market, my potential customers were at first unconvinced by the services I was offering them. I was still on track to achieve my target of a 10% closing rate, but I felt as if we could still do better. I then endeavored to reach these clients again, organizing in depth conferences to better understand their demands, business outlook and strategy. Tailoring our products to their requirements using our new knowledge allowed me to more than triple my sales ratio and to build a business relationship with 83.5% of my prospects. The process really helped me better learning what a sales should do and developed my people skills. And during this, all my colleagues and supervisors really helped a lot by teaching me, giving me the chance to challenge and grow. This fabulous experience is very important to my whole career path, and  I really appreciate every minute working here!

View from the office balcony at night. Yes, we have a balcony.

So, don’t hesitate, just apply. Hope you would enjoy working here as much as I do.

Hello from the Shanghai office!

And hello to sunshine! Finally some benevolent weather after a week of sunshine deprivation and piling on an inhuman number of layers (two coats and two mufflers at once, can anyone beat that) every time I venture into the freezing outside world.  I made it to the office in half my usual time today thanks to the return of some limb function. I kid, I kid.

This will be the first in a series of posts by Asunova members in a rotation of different languages to reach out to our blog readers outside Japan. We will be taking turns to document our daily undertakings and what Asunova is all about. Stay tuned, I promise it will be exciting.

My name is Felicia, and I am Asunova’s first member from Singapore. I joined the Tokyo office right after my graduation from the National University of Singapore Business School this year. I spent a month in the coziest office ever in downtown Tokyo, where an exotic blend of voices speed-conversing in at least three different languages at any one time, a great big bookshelf, and cacao banana splits are part of my typical work day. Yes, our Chief Alliance Officer Maki is also a raw desserts extraordinaire.

Documentation of said talent.

Making merry in the Tokyo office.

I’ll be here for the next couple of months to help the Shanghai team out with their biggest project ever. Everything is moving so fast. It’s really all very exhilarating.

It’s another busy day today here. The morning was spent, along with my usual breakfast of Tea Eggs and extra thick milk tea (hello hypertension, too), finishing up a couple of very exciting project plans that I’ll be telling you more about if all goes well. Some more reports to skim through, a video conference with an overseas partner, our weekly operations meeting with the Tokyo office in a while, and then we’re done with the work day. Technology, Asunova loves you.

All that’s left to do now, is to wean myself off my xiaolongbao addiction…

A gratuitous picture of xiaolongbao sitting pretty. Photo by sliceofpattie.blogspot.com