To be filled in by the student

□ Non Confidential □ Confidential

Title : Internship Report

Program: SUP DE CO - 3A - Grenoble (2013 - 2016)

Academic Year: 2014-2015

Dissertation / Project / Internship Report: Parcours Long en Entreprise 2A 2014-

2015

Student Name: Cheng Xin

School Tutor / Evaluator Name: Sauret Isabelle

To fill in for Internship only:

Company Name: HUAWEI Technology France
Town: Paris
Country: France
Position occupied during internship: Project Financial Controller

Summary:

Keywords: (cf. Thesaurus du Management):

TELECOMMUNICATION
BUDGETARY CONTROL
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents
INTRODUCTION __________________________________________________________________________________________ 1
THE INTRODUCTION TO HUAWEI _______________________________________________________________________________1
THE ORGANIZATION OF HUAWEI COMPANY ___________________________________________________________________2
WHAT IS PFC ______________________________________________________________________________________________________2
a. PFC’s Vision and Role _______________________________________________________________________________________2
b. Organization of Sales Project _______________________________________________________________________________3
c. Organization of Delivery Project ___________________________________________________________________________4
Tasks, Projects Roles and Activities ____________________________________________________________________ 5
Responsibility _____________________________________________________________________________________________________5
a. Participation of Business Target Planning _________________________________________________________________5
b. Management and Achievement ____________________________________________________________________________5
c. Compliance __________________________________________________________________________________________________5
d. Financial Support ___________________________________________________________________________________________6
Project budget preparation process _____________________________________________________________________________8
project roles AND ACTIVITIES ___________________________________________________________________________________9
a. As project budget planner __________________________________________________________________________________9
b. As trigger bill crosscheck ledger keeper _________________________________________________________________ 11
c. As AR assistant ____________________________________________________________________________________________ 12
Personal development targets _________________________________________________________________________________ 13

Reflection ________________________________________________________________________________________________ 14
Reflection as project budget planner __________________________________________________________________________ 14
Reflection as the ledger keeper ________________________________________________________________________________ 18
Reflection as AR assistant ______________________________________________________________________________________ 19
INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION
THE INTRODUCTION TO HUAWEI
HUAWEI Technologies Co., Ltd. is a tech-communication company whose
headquarter is located in Sheng Zhen, China. The main revenue of HUAWEI
comes from telecommunication operators’ business, which are comprised of
fixed network, wireless network and carrier software and core network.
Meanwhile HUAWEI also provides devices and services for enterprises and
consumers including enterprise networking, vertical industries solution,
WLAN, unified communication and collaboration etc. HUAWEI’s
technologies are applied over 170 countries, and there are one third of the
world adopting the some form of HUAWEI’s technologies.
With only 21,000 RMB which is about 2,625 euros as the registered capital,
HUAWEI was founded in 1987. In 2004, the total sale of HUAWEI was near
2,882 billion RMB. After twenty years development, it now becomes one of
Fortune TOP 500 companies and the biggest supplier in China. Despite of its
leading position in Chinese market, HUAWEI is now becoming a formidable
competitor to the companies like Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, and Cisco.
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

THE ORGANIZATION OF HUAWEI COMPANY

CEO

Corporate
Legal Affairs
Development
Dept
Dept

Human Reserver Pool

Resource Dept

Product and Strategy and Sales and Operation and

Finance
Solution Marketing Service Delivery

sales financing
and treasury

accounting

sales and
delivery
financing PFC
finance
management

WHAT IS PFC

a. PFC’s Vision and Role

Project financial controller AKA PFC likes the CFO of a project and the
important partner of project managers. As the controller of the project’s
financial situation, PFCs are responsible for the consistency between the
operation result and expectation. Meanwhile, as the important role of
project core management team, PFCs build professional PFC management
team for improving the performance of profit and cash flow in the project,
controlling the operation risk, and supporting company’s steady
development by providing the financial support to the project managers.
During the six months working as a PFC assistant, I realized that PFC is the
bridge between the financial department and the operation and delivery
department. They are not only the financial specialists who know well about
how the project runs, but also the project managers who are capable of

Page 2
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

making financial reports. By managing the project, PFCs gather the data
from the operation and delivery department, such as transportation cost
from supply chain and the cost of goods sold from purchase department, and
then delivery these information to the account department, which ensure
the reliable operating situation will be reflected on the monthly or annual
financial reports timely. Meanwhile, PFCs have to cooperate with the
accounting department to make and approve the proper budgets to each
projects. Because of PFC’s multi-functional role, they are the busiest people
in the company. For example, my supervisor ZHAO Jian, the leader of PFC, is
always at meeting. Although the workload is extremely intensive, I still feel it
is a meaningful job. The graph below shows the position of PFC in the
organization of sales and delivery project.

b. Organization of Sales Project

Project
Director

Project
Management Consultant
Sponsor

Commercial Service Product

Account Team Support Team
Team Solution Team Solution Team

Bidding
Manager

Project
Financial
Controller

Supply Chain

Page 3
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

c. Organization of Delivery Project

Project
Management
Office

Project
Director

Project Control Purchase

Manager Management

Contract
Supply Chain
Manager

Project financil Account

controller Management

Page 4
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

Tasks, Projects Roles and Activities

RESPONSIBILITY
The responsibilities of PFC are consist of four major parts: participation of
business target planning, management and achievement, compliance and
financial support.

a. Participation of Business Target Planning

 Involved in the presales feasibility assessment,
 Provided financial solution,
 Prepared financial estimation for bidding and contract decision
making
 Integrated the reasonable budget with business plan

b. Management and Achievement

 Project accounting and analysis the operating situation
 Managed the revenue, cost, inventory, accounts receivable and account
payable
 Made and uploaded the rolling forecast monthly based on business
planning
 Project operation risk management and warning, monitored the
various operation data and financial metrics
 Project cash planning and management

c. Compliance
 Obeyed local legal, ensured the local law and regulation compliance
 Ensured the data quality and project revenue/cost recognition are in
compliance with group accounting policies.

Page 5
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

 Ensured compliance of internal standard operating procedures and

cooperation with internal audit

d. Financial Support
 Managed project payment out flow including cash in advance,
payment to vendor, reimbursement etc.
 Created the awareness and implementation of financial policy and
procedure
 Supported the collection of payment

Page 6
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

Tasks in Project business cycle

The PFC’s daily work is closely related with the whole business cycle of
project. There are four major phases in a project cycle.

•Cost estimation •Delivery strategy

•Financial solution and •Business plan
advice •Budget preparation and
•Estimate financial evaluation
reports •Authorizatiom

Biding Initiation
phase phase

Closure Implement
phase phase
•Final Financial report •Accounting for the
•Accounts receivable and project
assets clearance •Data prepared and
•Dispute management report
•Project rolling forecast

Page 7
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

During the biding phase, PFCs prepare the cost estimation and provide
financial solutions and advices for supporting the bidding solution design.
Meanwhile, based on the historical data, PFCs issue the various analysis
reports such as P&L, cash flow statement, and operation capital
performance.
During the project initiation phase, one of its major content is feasibility
assessment including several steps which are developing delivery strategy,
budget preparation and evaluation, purchase contract evaluation, signature
and authorization management, finance rule’s preparation and publication.
When implementing the project, PFCs are responsible for the accounting
data review and stimulation, management track list such as subcontract PO
track list, prepare rolling forecast and participate the routine meetings with
project management, money collection, cash planning and management,
inventory management, benchmark budget changing and evaluation, and
business investigation.
At the end of project lifecycle, PFC’s main tasks are issuing the final
accounting report and AR balance or dispute management. They are also
responsible for the benchmark update, evaluation and publish.

PROJECT BUDGET PREPARATION PROCESS

Project budget preparation is the most significant work of PFC, the role
which consumed the most of time and energy. This is the process involving
the cooperation between multiple departments. Here are the steps of project
budget preparation process belonged to PFC’s responsibilities.
1) Establish the relationship between the delivery project and the
estimation.

Page 8
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

2) Obtain revenue splitting information from the revenue and cost

recognition process
3) Consolidate project budget
4) Receive and check budget decision making comment
5) Sign the project financial letter
6) Upload and release the budget and project financial letter
The process aims to standardize business operation such as project budget
preparation, budget adjustment and change, business decision making, and
approval. It urges the roles in the project team to fulfill their PFM
responsibilities, manage the project budget to delivered at a reasonable low
cost in a timely, accurate, and proper manner, and control the delivery and
measure the performance based on the project budget. The process reflects
that the budget keeps consistent in estimation and the budget restrain the
project operation.

PROJECT ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

My assignment will be divided into three parts. The first and most important
role is project budget planner. One of assignments is the routine work
maintenances as trigger bill crosscheck ledger keeper and the other
assignment is to assist AR accountant. I will discuss all my three roles
separately below.

a. As project budget planner

So how I grew up to a project budget planner, a project financial controller
of six D level projects, from a junior PFC assistant. It took me several months
to familiar with the all chart of accounting items in profit and liability report

Page 9
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

and understand the meaning of each asset or liability accounts. Thanks to

my supervisor’s instruction and patience, I could know the whole product
structures of HUAWEI. These knowledge is helpful for my later coming work
and make me a capable budget project of handling the six project budgets
planning.
During the early stage of my internship, my main assignment was preparing
variance project budget materials and updating monthly rolling forecasts
before the deadline. As a PFC intern, my major responsibility was assisting
PFCs on their routine work, which is management of the project budget and
cost controlling. Based on the budget preparation process and PFC working
calendar, the works ought to be completed timely and precisely. Otherwise
the delay or mistakes will influence the KPI and the financial metrics. And
the progress of project will be affected finally. At the beginning of each
month, the last month’s accounting data was published on the IPFM
information platform prior to 10th of each month. After the latest data was
submitted, I downloaded and filled these historical data in the P&L template.
Meanwhile I collected all the forecasts of recent month from each PFCs. After
that I updated the monthly rolling forecast with latest historical data and
recent forecast, and then published the new forecast on the IPFM. By filling
the data in the Profit and liability report, I not only gradually familiar with a
chart of account but also now the product structure of HUAWEI France.
After all the works were done, I would submit a report on the financial
metrics which reflects the variance between the actual data and forecast and
the coverage of financial report uploading situation.
During the earlier phase of internship, the thing I could do is simple and
trivial. After several months training, I was familiar about the whole project
budget preparation process. Thanks to my colleague Charlie to offer the
chance, I was responsible for planning six level D projects’ budgets. The

Page 10
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

thing I have done was not only the small pieces of the budget planning
process. I could view the project budget planning as a whole one instead of
as some fragmentation works. During project’s initiation, its implement and
its close, I participated in the every phases of budget preparation and
approval. This experience is very meaningful to my competency
development, in both professional skills and communication skills.
Due to the rigorous competitive of French telecommunication market, the
project management team encountered over-budget problem with
increasing costs and reductive orders. For solving the problem, project
management office decided to control the cost more precisely, especially the
labor cost of consultant and self-employed staffs. My supervisor offered me
a challenge, which needs higher requirement on my capability. In order to
improve the cost control, this task aims to statistic the labor cost of all
project in the past two months and analysis the variances between the
actual labor cost and the provision cost. The priority were collecting all the
data from variances departments and making a report with reliable data
supporting. As this work was newly established, there was no template
which I could refer to. My original ideas are required for designing a new
ledger which could present a concise and clear information to the user.

b. As trigger bill crosscheck ledger keeper

Besides of preparing various material needed by budget making and
approval, recording the daily PAC trigger information in the crosscheck
ledger is including in my daily works. As some delivery project was
combined devices and install service, which is complicated to recognize the
revenue. When clients received the devices and equipment, HUAWEI would
recognize the 100% of equipment revenue and 30% of service revenue.
While the installment and debug were completed and the service was
accepted by client, the trigger specialist will receive the acceptant letter, PAC

Page 11
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

and trigger the bill in order to recognize the rest revenue. The information
database was really huge. To deal with such mass of data, it is necessary to
have an excellent EXECL skill and circumspection.

c. As AR assistant
The project roles I fulfilled was not only a PFC assistant, but also I was an AR
assistant. Without accomplished the works assigned by PFCs, I have to
support the AR accountant’s work by downloading the relevant invoices or
any other supporting documents for sending reminding email to clients.
Therefore how to arrange my work’s priority is the emerging problem,
which is the part I need to improve. On the other side, it is a really good
opportunities to learn how to write a business letter in French.

Page 12
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT TARGETS

My personal developments are related with entire internship. From the job
which I have done, not only I achieved the professional acknowledges, but
also the competencies of different aspects were trained and developed.
Meanwhile with my supervisor’s guidance, my capacities of solving problem
and handling stress were improved. Here are my personal development
corresponding with the each roles.

•competency of working under pressure

•financial skills
•communication skills
project budget •data gathering skills
planner •IT skills

•communication skills
•problem solving and analysing skills
•EXCEL skills
ledger keeper

•business email writiing skills

AR assistant

Page 13
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

Reflection
This chapter reflects my experiences and feeling about the 6 months
internship in HUAWEI. I will discuss more details on how I achieve my
personal development targets and what I learned from being a project
budget planner, ledger keeper and AR assistant. And I will talk about the
difficulties encountering during my work and how I deal with these
problems.
Meanwhile this part will involve the discussion and analysis about the issues
apart from working content, such as the team building activities in the
financial group, the colleague’s relationship and working atmosphere, the
company’s culture, and the confidential security of HUAWEI.

REFLECTION AS PROJECT BUDGET PLANNER

Working as project budget planner is the most rewarding experience during

my internship. My professional skills were developed and my capability of
dealing problem and the stress was improved.
At the beginning, I had a high expectation about the working content.
Planning the budget for a project and controlling the project cost seems a
really interesting challenge for me. After knowing my responsibilities deeply,
I realize being a project budget planner is definitely not easy thing to do. My
work was consist of trivial matters. Carefulness and patience are necessarily
required as a project budget planner.
At the first few weeks, my main assignment was reading abundance of
materials about project financial operation guides or manual and the

Page 14
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

introduction about the company structure and the budget preparation

process. All the knowledge was quite useful in my following next work.
However these those guidance and theories were difficult to understand and
remember without applied in the practice. Taking notes is a good way for
solving the problem. For remember more information, I took notes and
asked my colleagues while there was something beyond my understanding.
But still, only reading and taking notes are not quite enough. There are still a
lot of knowledge I do not remember ever I already learned about it before.
When I was implementing a work, the knowledge applied to this work could
be easy to remember and I would have a deeper understanding about it. In
this way, I realized that learning will become more effectively and efficiency
by combining practice and theories together. And those theories or
knowledge will keeping in my mind firmly when they were applied and
practiced repeatedly.
The practice makes perfect seems to be a significant rule of adapting to the
new work quickly. Meanwhile communicating with colleagues effectively is
also important when you were involved in a new task.
When my colleague Charles asked me to do him a favor for preparing the
budgets for a new set up budget, I took it as a chance of examining what I
have learned and I also felt the responsibility on my shoulder. As Charles
was new signed to charging of the project budget planning and was lack of
relevant experience. I consult more about the operating details and the
project financial situations from the PFC who working on the project for few
years. It turns out choose the right person to assist could save a lot of time
and energy to solve the problem. The PFC provided me the useful
information which simplify my works. Thanks to the detailed data gathering
and deeper understand about the project, the project budget made by me
could be successfully approved by the project management office. And the

Page 15
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

new version budget based on the coming month was issued and updated
timely based on the timeline of project operating process.
After I accomplished my work, I took credit on my working efficiency and
self-motivated working attitude. At the same time, I had a more thorough
understanding about the whole budget planning process and the roles of
PFC.
This task we are going to talk about was in the area which I never tried
before. To static the labor cost in different project and analysis the variances
between the actual cost and provision cost, both financial knowledge and
EXCEL skill are necessary. Unlike the aforementioned works which have
template could be followed, this work was new established. My supervisor
only told me what information he want to get from my work, but don’t tell
me how to get it. To provide my supervisor the information he want, I
should make a report which is clear and concise.
At beginning, I was so confused and did not know how to begin my work.
There is no rule to follow and my supervisor authorize me the right to solve
the problem in my own way. As lacking of experiences, there are some places
which I could do better
First of all, the communication with my supervisor and colleagues is not
enough during the initial stage. I didn’t thoroughly understand the demand
of these information users. Even when I was analyzing the variance between
different costs, I still have a litter bit confused about the relationship of the
actual cost and the provision label cost. However I did not response my
questions to my supervisor immediately. Because of the misunderstanding, I
started my work at wrong direction.
Meanwhile the information resources provided by project management
offices had some problem. These databases were low quality with tons of

Page 16
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

mistakes. At first I attempt to figure out the mess by myself. Because the
ledgers were lack of key information like some consultants’ working hours
were missing and even some project names was messed up, it finally turns
out it is mission impossible without the assistant from my supervisor and
the colleagues in project management offices. Because of the
misunderstanding and the low-quality information resource, I spend much
time and effort on the useless work while I started to realize it is necessary
to communicate with others.
After I encountered the difficulties, I try to communicate the problems with
the staff who keep these ledgers. However the staff felt the inquiries were
disturbing her while I ask her a favor for rechecking the mistakes and
explaining confuses adding the workload for her. Effective communication
and the ability of how to comprehending quickly are quite significant for
that kind of situation which could save time and work. Despite of the bad
attitude she has, I finally got the key information from the staff by several
times of enquiries.
The other effect which reducing my working efficiency is my personal
emotion. Because of the unfavorable communication with PMO staff and the
staff’s attitude, I felt frustrate about my work. My negative emotion became
worse after I realize how much time I wasted and I almost archived nothing
so far. With the deadline was closing, the pressure under my shoulder make
me want to quit. Thank to my supervisor’s encouragement, I could get rid of
these negative mind and try to move on again.
Because of these useless work I have done, I was failed to meet the deadline.
My supervisor shows quite tolerated for the delay, but one thing he was
unsatisfied about me was I give the promise to finish the job too soon
without evaluating my capability exactly. I overestimated my working ability
and underestimated the difficult of the task. I thought I could accomplish the

Page 17
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

task in time, but the difficulties and complexities of the task were far beyond
my capability which I could deal with.
These blindingly self-confident makes me feel that I could do it all by my-
self. Without communicating with my supervisor and coworkers, I waste a
lot of times and ultimately caused the task delay.
I know there is a room for me to improve. And If I have a second chance I
definitely will do a better job. I don’t want to be the one who give up easily.
Although I got the praise for my self-learning ability. After this task, I realize
my failure was caused by the underestimate the workload and the inefficient
communication.
Here are a few steps to improve my work: firstly set the agenda or the task
list before beginning the work. During the working, send the project director
a regular brief report which contains the work completed and the problems
I am facing. Based on the director’s feedback, adjust the workload and
update the working schedule.

REFLECTION AS THE LEDGER KEEPER

As the cross-checking ledger keeper, what I learned from this role is more
related to the technical skills, like how to use EXCEL to analysis the ratio of
accuracy and timely. Thanks to my other tutor, YE Huiming, she taught me
from an EXCEL beginner turn into an EXCEL expert. The formula vlookup is
a very useful tool to find out the variances between the two columns. These
skill set will not only useful for my current job, but also will become a huge
advantage for my future job hunting.
Meanwhile, I also learn to be more sophisticate in the office. I have to work
with someone I don’t like. At first I felt really uncomfortable when I working
with her. And that kind of emotion really affect my working efficiency. Then I

Page 18
 TASKS, PROJECTS ROLES AND ACTIVITIES

realize it is really unprofessional to bring the personal emotion into your

work. So I try to get rider of this passive and negative altitudes and be more
objective to treat my works.

REFLECTION AS AR ASSISTANT
Being an AR assistant makes me know how important to identify the
priority of the work before the works.
Especially you are under the multi-tasks pressure, it is critical that you have
a clear mind about what you should do first and which task you can do later.
I still remember how embarrass I was when I didn’t finish sending emails on
time, the AR accountant come to my desk and blame me in front of my
colleagues.
To improve my work, I learned to identify the priority by two dimensions:
the importance and urgency. I would priority the thing which is important
and urgent and finished it as soon as possible. Beside the priority, it is also
important to clarify the scope of you tasks. I also need to learn how to say no
to the request which is actually beyond my responsibility. If I cannot refuse
to any requirements, my workload will be extremely heavy. Because the
people who give me tasks, they don’t know how much tasks you need to do
for the moment. At the same time, the efficient communication is also the
critical point.

Page 19