Declaration

I Nabisaalu Linda Kizza, hereby declare that this report is my original research work compiled and has

never been submitted to any organization for the fulfillment of internship requirements and other requisites.

Signature……………………… Date………………………………………..

Nabisaalu Linda Kizza

REG No: 11/U/9810/EVE

Acknowledgement

All the praises are for the almighty, God who bestowed me with the ability and potential to complete this

Internship. I also pay my gratitude to the Almighty for enabling me to complete this Internship Report within

due course of time.

Words are very few to express enormous humble obligations to my affectionate Parents for their prayers

and strong determination to enabling me to achieve this job.

I take this opportunity to record my deep sense of gratitude and appreciation to my Internship supervisor

Mr. Kiwala Yusuf, Department of Accounting and Finance, for his constant encouragement and inspiring

guidance with his Wisdom.

I also appreciate the cordial co-operation from all my concern Managers in the different departments like

Nadigobe Denis, in the Purchasing Department, Paul Kireta the Training Manager, Mbazira Joseph

Assistant Credit Manager, Lukiya Denis Cost Control Manager+for providing me requisite information and

knowledge for compilation of my complete Internship.

Approval

This project report has been submitted for examination with approval of the following supervisor.

Signed………………………………………………………………

Date…………………………………………………………………

KIWALA YUSUF,

Department of Accounting and Finance

College of Business and Management Sciences

Dedication

This piece of work is dedicated to our parents who worked tirelessly in supporting us both financially and

morally.

Executive Summary

The report is based on the internship carried out at Sheraton Hotel and Resorts. Kampala's only

international hotel brand, the Sheraton Kampala Hotel is ideally located in the heart of the city and

welcomes travelers with a relaxed ambience and a dazzling array of upscale amenities. During my period

at the hotel, departments like accounting, finance, marketing and procurement, provided me with

anopportunity to relate what has been covered in class and what is applicable in the field in an operational

environment. The purpose of the program is to fulfill the core equipment for the award of a Bachelor Degree

in Commerce to get a practical aspect of the theoretical work studied at the university and to understand

the operations in the business sector and to enable students gain experience in different tasks.

During my internship period a number of approaches and exposure methods were used which included:

hands on, through reading relevant materials, and also questions and answer approaches.

I was assigned to different departments which include the accounts department, banquet department,

Cost Control Department, and Stores and this helped me interact with different people, clients on

addition to helping me acquire information and gaining the benefits of customer care. I gained knowledge

on how to enter and analyze data using different accounting packages in finance solution, Excel and

Access.

In conclusion, this was an opportunity to develop and enhance skills and competencies in my career field

which I actually achieved.

Table of contents

List of figures

List of tables

List of abbreviation

Chapter One

Introduction

This internship report is based on my experience as an intern at Sheraton Hotel and Resorts.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the results of my internship. I was able to use my knowledge and apply it a

real organization. I was able to see some differences in functioning that resulted from my efforts. Due to the

character of the internship and the short time period spent at the Sheraton Hotel and Resorts, long-term

recommendation would require more work and time, but I took this experience as an opportunity to explore

into the economic world.

Background of the Field Attachment

Kampala's only international hotel brand the Sheraton Kampala Hotel is ideally located in the heart of the

city and welcomes travelers with a relaxed ambience and a dazzling array of upscale amenities. This Five

Star Hotel has restaurants and leisure facilities in Kampala and some of them include; a well-equipped

Health Club that features a cardiovascular gymnasium and outdoor pool for you to enjoy or relax, a

Paradise Grill Restaurant, that serves themed lunches and dinners offering international cuisine and as the

evening falls families, friends or colleagues enjoy delicious meals at the Equator Lounge, which opens

daily. In addition it offers spacious environment to organize meetings or conferences in Kampala like the

Grand Ballroom with options to host up to 500 guests. During the internship period I was assigned with the

tasks related to the preparation of invoices such as delivery notes, credit notes on addition to stamping

them, receiving of goods in the receiving department and preparing of source documents in the cost control

department during the transfer of goods internally. I have prepared this internship report.

1.3 Objectives of the Field attachment

To attain exposure in the professional worldand obtain/acquire knowledge.

To fulfill the requirements of the university.

To impart theoretical skills into practical work and gain business work experience.

To relate with different categories of people in a working environment and gain exposure to the

demand and challenges of the work place.

1.4 Background of the Organization of field attachment

Sheraton Kampala Hotel was built by an Israeli Company in 1967 and established by act of parliament as

Apollo Hotel and 100% government owned. In 1971 it was renamed Kampala International Hotel, then

closed down in 1980 due to political instability. In 1987, Energo Project Construction Company renovated

the hotel and this was done under a barter trade arrangement with Yugoslavia Company in exchange of

Soya beans. In October 1987, thegovernment signed a contract with ITT Sheraton Corporation to manage

the Hotel for a period of 10 years. In 1990 the appointed theboard ofdirectors of Apollo Corporation to act

as a liaison between the management and the government. In March 1998, the company was incorporated

with a limited liability – Apollo Hotel Corporation Ltd. In March 2001 MidrocEthopia TLC pre –qualified to

purchase the shares of Apollo Hotel Corporation Ltd.

The Apollo Hotel Corporation trading as Sheraton Kampala Hotel under took a 20million dollar renovation

project of Sheraton Kampala Hotel in October 2002 by a number of contractors ; Mugoya Construction, Sip

project managers, StauchVosters Architects , HAD Interior Designers ,Mechanical and Structural Engineer

and Electrical Engineer RWP from South Africa. The renovation is being carried out in sectional

completions, ensuring that the Hotel is still functional while renovations are underway.

Guest rooms have been renovated while new Presidential Suites, additional junior Suites, Park square

Suites and a shopping Arcade. New Food and Beverages outlets, Park square and Victoria restaurants

have been built. The hotel also unveiled its newly refurbished and extended lobby which displays a calm

and sophisticated setting with a water fountain.

Back –of-the –house administration sections are being upgraded to include a fully equipped training

department. Thefirst floor has been converted to a state-of-the-art conference centre equipped with the

latest technology and comfortable setting.

The Hotel unveiled its newly refurbished 55 guest rooms, which includes one presidential room,6 junior

suites and 3 connecting suites; the rest are typical superior rooms.On the 10th floor SPG club louge was

launched, Paradise Grill and Terrace, Masaba lounge now known as Seven Hills and Equator Bar which

was famously known as Rhino bar pub were also refurbished. The second phase of renovation ended in

August 2007 just in time to host the Common wealth conference.

1.4.1 Vision

To be a world class brand hotel of choice in East and Central Africa.

1.4.2 Mission Statement

To considerably exceed our guests expectations in the provision of highest standard of hotel

products and services, by creating an environment that embraces diversity of all our stakeholders

through a culture where associates and owners can thrive and win.

1.4.3 Goals and Objectives

1.5 Organizational Culture

Sheraton Hotel and Resorts has got an organizational culture which includes values, beliefs and practice. It

has three core values which are; Warmth, Connected and Community. The Hotel believes in demonstrating

empathy, being courteous and working as a family (Team).

They put values into practice like showing warmth where there is 10ft and 5ft rule hence with the 10ft rule

warmth is shown by smiling at someone in front of you and at 5ft warmth is shown by greeting that

someone. At Sheraton by believe in service profit chain which has got four stages as illustrated below;

Figure 1.0

1.6 Gender in the Organization

1.7 The Structure of the Organization

Figure 1.1

1.8 Main Activities of the Organization

Chapter Two

Title in an Organization

While at Sheraton Hotel and Resorts i worked as a Trainee in the Accounts department and was rotated as

per the schedule as was assigned by my supervisor

Duties and Responsibilities

Ibegan my internship program on 9thJune, 2008 with Sheraton Kampala Hotel. The internship was to last for

two (2) months and as a result my internship came to an end on 8 thSeptember, 2008.In somewhat more

concrete terms, Sheraton Kampala Hotel provides the world community with timely and credible, services

The Finance and accounting department that I was involved in hadrange of different tasks and smaller

explorations that I performed during my period of internship. I will present four major areas identified as

sticking out as the central themes around which most of my work at Sheraton Kampala Hotel was

organized. As will become clear in the course of reading, these four areasare closely interrelated and

overlapping and are presented here one by one merely for purpose of clarity and coherence.

Supervision levels and relationship with the supervisor

One of the most significant aspects of this internship was being surrounded by a network of people like Mr.

Kiwala Yusuf, Nandigoba Denis and many others whose main mission was to see me through achieve

the desired goals by inspiring, informing, providing me with the necessary skills and opinions that I had

never before considered, and on addition to helping me to develop new ways of thinking about the same

problems I had previously been thinking about.

I have come to see that one of the fundamental keys to acquiring relevant knowledge is through hard work

and creating a good relationship with people around me.

I realized that at any time you don’t know much about a process or a topic, there is no reason to forsake. I

didn’t know much about Finance and accounting (unless the general knowledge) and I’m still not a

professional, but now I’m able to understand the general coherences and bring them contently together. It

was particularly interesting form to see how a product development process is realized, what kind of project

management is necessary and what difficulties can happen in a real project.

Work team and its Compositions

As organizations continues to change in part due to globalization of business and advancements , the way

in which team composition strategies are implemented must keep up, therefore below is a table showing

the team members and the roles that they played:

Person Department Title Roles

Working relationships among team members

I studied the perceptions team members had of their leaders’ style and how the leaders described their own

style. In particular, I was interested in the extent to which the leaders practiced relationship-oriented and

task-oriented skills and set cooperative or competitive goals and this came to my knowledge that team

Members have current and up to date knowledge of hotel products, services, pricing and policies, as well

as knowledge of the local area, and are continuously trained to learn and understand policies and

practices.

Authority levels to the student

Guidelines on the circumstances under which temporary or relief staff were employed and designated a

managerial staff member at appropriate level to approve the request for additional resources and the rates

payable.

To ensure actual attendance, the temporary staff (Intern) was required to report duty to a designated

Officer/department (e.g. the hotel’s Administration Office) before they present themselves at the service

unit for work. Attendance records of temporary staff members were kept and certified by their immediate

supervisors

Chapter Three

LEVELS OF ACCOMPLISHMENT OF DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

NEW KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS GAINED IN EACH OF THE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

MOST INTERESTING EXPERIENCES

When I first arrived, it was unclear to me exactly what my duties were to be. This was because my terms of

reference (TOR) didn’t indicate exactly what I was to work on. Through my senior supervisor Kiwala Yusuf

my immediate supervisor Nandigoba Denis and other colleagues within Sheraton Kampala Hotel, I was

able to quickly understand what my work involvedand to what extend I was to do it. The following were

some of the motivations that mademy work easier and enjoyable:

Working as a team with the rest of staff the members wassomething that I truly treasured then since it was

through them that I found it more enjoyable and easy to deal with my assignments

Working on projects that I believed would eventually provide a clear understanding with the work that I was

assigned. This gave me themorale to work even harder in order to meet deadlines.

Being given a chance to learn and use state of the world spatial decision makingtools such as ArcGIS 9.2

was phenomenal.

CHALLENGES FACED AND HOW THEY ARE MANAGED

Although I received co-operation from the concerned supervisors, they were not always able to give me

much time, as they were busy with their works. Time is an important issue in Report writing.

As I have been given a specific deadline for submission, observation and learning all the functions of my

training within 2 months was really tough. Besides, all the comments made, conclusions reached and

suggestions for possible improvement provided are purely based on my level of understanding, knowledge

and my way of interpreting a particular statement.

Because of the lack of information, I have to make some assumptions that may cause few errors or

personal mistakes in the report. In spite of all these limitations, I have tried to put the best effort as far as

was possible

BENEFITS DERIVED FROM THE FIELD ATTACHMENT

In retrospective, I can say that I benefited from the internship programme than I thought I would in a

number of ways;

Career-wise, the internship programme undoubtedly enriched my curriculumvitae (CV). Also,

having gotten a chance to interact with most staff, I have hadan insight on how to shape my career

The internship programme gave me a chance not only to work with Sheraton Staff but also a

chance to learn from the best accounting experts theworld could probably provide. This would

reflect much onto my experience.

Working with people from different parts of the world was a rare chance that youcan’t easily get

from any other Hotel organization in Uganda. Therefore to me this wasanother opportunity to make

friends and share ideas.

The training helped me to impart the theoretical knowledge to practical since it was involved in the

practical work in the business environment.

The training enabled me to learn how to stock various stock items in the most appropriate fashion,

binning and racking them by the best methods, and placing them in such a way that any item or

material in the Store can be located quickly and easily when it is required.

During the training, i managed to learn the preparation of financial statement like cash book and

income statements, balance sheet in compliance to the international accounting standards.

To conclude, I can state that my internship at the Sheraton Hotel and Resorts was a rewardingexperience

and provided me with some new perspectives that I did not comeacross during my studies back at the

college. I also have to stress that my colleagues at the Sheraton Hotel contributed greatly to making my

stay there a veryenjoyable one. Particularly, working together with Patrick M’mayi was a true pleasure and

his faith in my abilities was a real source of motivation to date

ADEQUACY IN UNIVERSITY’S PREPARING THE STUDENT

PREPAREDNESS OF THE AGENCY

Chapter Four

4.0 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

4.1 Conclusion

Sheraton Hotel and Resorts is one of the leading Hotels in Uganda The system, the management style, the

policies and decentralized decision making environment is really remarkable. This report is basically an

attempt to identify the areas which need to be improved.

The overall analysis is indicating that the company’s progress has mainly attained through dedication of

employees. The effectiveness of its management, their willingness to take advantage of opportunities and

face challenges of changing economic picture, this all contributes to the very much improved and sound

position of company. This is really appreciable for the devotion and hard work of all the employees of the

company on addition to motivating me to continue working diligently as well as to further my studies in

order to contribute greatly to the development of my country

Recommendations for Improvements are:

Client and supplier teams involved in trial projects should be provided with professional development,

experiential learning and hands on training to ensure that they adopt the intelligent client attributes and

operate in collaborative culture

At present facility of bonus is given only to production staff but such incentives should also be given to

Head office Staff.

• Special incentives should also be given to Head on Eid and on other special days should be given to the

workers.

• Medical facilities are given in mill but such facilities should also be given to management.

• Different training courses should be arranged for the up lifting and improving the quality of work for

employees

• There is also a problem of work overload for the employees and it should be control properly so that the

employees are motivated.

• Employees should be paid extra for the work which they done after working hours.

Recommendation: Write clear job description for staff and areas of

responsibility for each Department.

The most efficient way to avoid overlapping within Departments and to

ensure that each staff member does his or her job is to document clear job responsibilities

for the staff and to develop specific areas of responsibility for each Department. By

providing these written documents, staff will have a clear understanding of their duties

and responsibilities.

It is important not only to provide these documents but to make sure that each

Department and staff member knows and understands exactly what other Departments

and colleagues do. After writing and distributing the job descriptions, clarifying authority

of each Department, the Art Center’s management staff needs to have meetings to make

sure that everybody knows and understands what the responsibilities and authorities are.