MBA Internship Experiences

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CAREERS360

B-SCHOOL MBA Internship

Experiences

2B-SCHOOL MBA INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCES

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Contents

Contents 2

Introduction 3

Internship in Risk Management and Audit Framework 4

Internship in Research 6

Internship with Start-up 9

Internship with I.T Systems 12

Internship in Banking Sector 14

Internship as Market Analyst 17

Internship in Consumer Durable Space 20

Internship in Finance division 22

Internship in Digital Marketing 25

Internship as Market Researcher 28

Internship as Strategist 30

Links for MBA internship E-book 32



In our quest to bring all the information and student experiences that helps you in achieving your B-school dream, we present you everything you wanted to know about B-School MBA Internship Experiences. This E-Book by Careers360, is a collection of students internship experi-

ences from various IIMs and Top B-schools. Their experinces will support you in getting the mantras for a successful internship. Read this E-book to know about the qualities that the recruiters look for and what stratergy you should follow to complete your internship successfully.

Introduction



How Kamal Tej Tallam acquired knowledge in Risk Management and Audit framework?

Careers360: Where did you complete your summer internship from? What was the size of the company?Kamal Tej Tallam: I completed my Summer Internship from the World Bank (IBRD), Chennai. The organization has a human resource of 500+. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) aims to reduce poverty in middle-income countries and credit worthy poor-er countries by promoting sustainable development through loans, guarantees, risk management products, and analytical and advisory services Careers360: Please share your project summary.Kamal Tej Tallam: The details of my project are confiden-tial regarding the unit of work and nature of the project. But broadly, the project was a risk management, process review, and audit/controls framework development related.

In this special series of MBA Internship Experience, Careers360 brings insightful experiences from Man-agement students, who learned strategies and applied theories to successfully complete their internship projects.

Kamal Tej Tallam of XLRI Jamshedpur completed his Summer Internship from World Bank (IBRD), Chennai, and learned the requirement of multitude financial needs by the governments along with the understanding of how the strategies are implemented in the real world.

Kamal within his short duration of the Internship, learned about Risk management, process review and Audit con-trols framework. He also shares his experience of acquiring knowledge on how the financial instruments are developed.

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CAREER IN REAL ESTATE AND CONSTRUCTION

Careers360: Were there any key challenges that you faced while doing your internship?Kamal Tej Tallam: Making me aware of the bank process-es was the first challenge. I was expected to add-on to it. So a working knowledge of the business units was an important thing. Such things are not taught in curriculum of any course. I began by reading up lot of business unit literature and bank internal documents (process, costing, risk profiles etc.). The workings are very different from what one might think to know about banks in general (ICICI, HDFC etc.). The goals and motives are very different and hence the approach and the end result that is expected from you. Careers360: What were your key learnings while doing the project and overall learning after completion of your internship?Kamal Tej Tallam: I got a first-hand look into the projects which involved governments, bureaucrats, large scale invest-ments to support/build a nations infrastructure. There was a gamut of clever financial instruments developed, to cater to the multitude financing needs that governments may require. Understanding how they came about, how they are imple-mented in the real world was a very enriching experience.

Careers360: How did your corporate mentor at internship help you execute the project?Kamal Tej Tallam: I got extensive help from the mentor and the team. I was also provided with SPOC for any other business unit, into which I wanted to enquire about. Even small doubts very patiently attended to, and I was encour-aged to ask questions. Team was very helpful in sharing documentation, and their thoughts and learnings. Apart from my own work, I was also told about the work they carried out and challenges they faced on day to day basis. Careers360: Share a memorable incident from your internship days.Kamal Tej Tallam: There was a specific audit framework to be developed. I took it up as a thought experiment to see, if such a framework could be implemented. Over a period of 15 days, I came with ideas and took the opinions of the team in this regard, and made several revisions to the framework document. I finally presented it to my mentor for feedback. I was made to present it to the department of business unit. I wasnt expecting this kind of platform to be given early on and it was a highly informative experience. I got inputs from various members, and also presented it to a visiting panel from Washington (HQ) as part of my final presentation.



How Jayesh Surisetti captured vision of an organization and learned the ground reality of Research work

Careers360: Where did you complete your summer internship from? What was the size of the company?Jayesh Surisetti: I did my internship in Power Man-agement Institute, the learning and development centre of NTPC, Noida. One of the Maharatna Public Enterprises of India, the sheer magnitude at which NTPC Ltd. operates can be ascertain from the fact that this organization alone accounts for 27.4% of Indias total power generation.

With the mantra of People before Plant Load Factor, NTPC has a 26000-strong workforce traversed across India.

Jayesh Surisetti from IIM Raipur PGP batch of 2016 completed his Summer Internship from Power Man-agement Institute, the learning and development cen-tre of NTPC Ltd. While doing the research projects, he learned about the real grounds for conducting any research. Prior to his internship at NTPC Ltd., Jayesh has been associated with various consultancies like Random House, Pratham International, PT Education and Central Chroni-cle. He has completed his Bachelors in Business Administra-tion (Corporate Management) from Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies, Pune and has published 8 research papers in a span of 3 years. Jayesh shares his internship experience in this Careers360 interview:



Careers360: What project did you work on? What was the timeline for execution of different stages of the project?Jayesh Surisetti: I worked on two projects; the following are the project titles:l Revisiting the efficacy of the year-long induction training

programme at NTPC

l Leadership development at NTPC: A Study on sequen-tial contribution of career-long activities towards leader-ship role preparedness

Spread over a period of nine weeks, both these projects were carried out simultaneously. Roughly, the first two weeks were spent in developing an outline for the projects stating problems to be researched, deciding the methodologies and the samples, jotting down desirable outcomes etc.

The next two weeks were involved in developing the ques-tionnaires, scheduling interviews where required and dis-patching questionnaires. Over the next three weeks, data col-lection and tabulation was done along with a holistic analysis of the same. The final two weeks were allotted to preparation of reports, subsequent approvals etc. Careers360: Please share a project summary.Jayesh Surisetti: My Project on Induction Training

This NTPCs induction programme is a 52 week-long most robust and holistic programmes. This study aimed to judge the effectiveness of this training programme at four different levels mainly, reaction of the participants, learning, and the derived utility from the programme and the benefit for the company.

Project on Leadership Development

NTPC realises its strength not just from the toils of its employees, but also from the able guidance and acumen of its leadership. Predominantly a qualitative study, the primary objective of this study is to understand the perception of the existing leaders towards the current practices of leadership

development at NTPC. Using the responses, improvements or recommendations were made towards improving the cur-rent leadership scheme. Careers360: How did you execute your project?Jayesh Surisetti: I got the opportunity to visit two power plants at Dadri and Badarpur, to understand the context in which NTPC operated. Keeping this context in mind, I designed the research towards two objectives capturing the essence of the organization as it has existed, and capturing the vision of the companys future.

The projects were then executed by sending out question-naires to locations other than NCR and interviewing those within the region. By way of such interactions, the data was collected, analysed and recommendations made. Careers360: What were the key challenges that you faced while doing your internship?Jayesh Surisetti: Apart from the geographical limita-tions that were faced during the internships, there were few key challenges which I had to face. Most daunting of the tasks was to convince the people in a public sector organization to participate in the survey without incentives of any sort.

Another challenge was to work through the bureaucratic processes of an organization, which in itself could have led to delays in the overall functioning. Power Management Insti-tute, which is the training and development wing of NTPC, is in itself not like a corporate entity, thus leading to significant cultural differences. Careers360: What was your key learnings while doing the project and overall learning after completion of your internship?Jayesh Surisetti: The most important learning during the course of my internship came from my corporate mentor. She taught me how while doing research projects, research-ers tend to forget that there is a huge world out there which is supposed to be the real ground for any research. It was this guideline which will probably stick with me for the rest of my life.



Overall, I learnt two things one, the importance of prepa-ration in an organization, which can be extrapolated to any other setting and two, the key is in the details; it is the minute things which can make huge difference in any work-related situation. Careers360: While doing your internship, how were you connected with your academic mentor at your insti-tute?Jayesh Surisetti: As a part of the Summer Internship process, IIM Raipur has two important procedure interim report submissions to academic mentors and faculty vis-its. While the former was intended to benefit the overall research process, the latter was aimed at improving the rela-tions with the corporate mentor and evaluating the projects

overall. Throughout the internship, by way of email and telephone, I was in constant touch with my academic mentor. Careers360: Share a memorable incident from your internship days.Jayesh Surisetti: As a part of the Leadership Develop-ment study, I was to interview one of the Directors of NTPC, Mr. Anil Kumar Jha. Since the interview was purely to gleam out insights from the leaders experiences, Mr. Jha began sharing some of his experiences in NTPC with me. During the course of that 40-minute long interaction, I could see a vital thing the zeal of a young man hidden behind the veneer of maturity of a wise one. This interaction was some-thing valuable, worth all the travails.



How Abhineet Mittal executed key projects at a start-up company to learn career lessons

has a cost effective, scalable and innovative business model, which provides flexibility for 24x7 operations. In its initial stage the company housed approximately 100 employees. Careers360: What project did you work on? What was the timeline of the various stages of the project?Abhineet Mittal: Being in a startup company, I had an opportunity to have experience in diverse fields. But to be precise I worked on two projects i.e. digital marketing and business process improvement. Digital marketing covered various media channels which were used to help the com-pany to establish itself in the market. The company had many unstructured process which were identified using the business process improvement. Firstly, a study on various processes was done and based on that study and analysis a few recommendations were given by me. These recommen-dations were approved and implemented successfully.

Abhineet Mittal, during his internship with WeMark India developed a successful attendance system to reduce the time and efforts. He also developed a pilot project which was adapted as a base for future developments in multiple processes.

He shares his role while executing two projects- Digital Marketing and Business process Improvement during his internship. He also speaks on the challenges he faced during his summer stint at WeMark and how he worked out strate-gies to cope with those challenges. Careers360: Where did you complete your internship from? What was the size of the company?Abhineet Mittal: I did my internship from WeMark India, Delhi. It is a startup company involved in B2B busi-ness and is mainly a marketing audit company. The company

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B-SCHOOL MBA INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCES


Careers360: Please share a project summary.Abhineet Mittal: My project was basically in two parts, digital marketing and business process improvement. In digital marketing, I was responsible for making the social marketing strategy. Since I am the part of Public Relations committee of IIM Rohtak, I had a prior knowledge of work-ing on social media. I planned a strategy and established the presence of the company on the social networks.

By business process improvement I tried to structure various business processes of the company which helped the company to increase its efficiency. Moving forward with this incite I also made an attendance system to reduce the time and effort involved. Careers360: How did you execute the project? Did you also get the stipend?Abhineet Mittal: For the digital marketing I first identi-fied various media segments which could be helpful in my efforts of making the world identify the companys pres-ence. The media segments identified were Facebook, twit-ter, LinkedIn and google+. I made Facebook page, twitter and manage the blog of the company. I also researched on various tools for social media marketing and monitoring. Among them was Hoot suite which is used for social media management. Along the same lines is google analytics which is used to measure the website traffic and hence helped me to channelize my approach for media marketing.

For business process improvement, I interviewed various employees of the company with intend to understand the functioning. Based on my understanding I came up with a model describing the functioning of the various processes. This model could track the data at various levels of execu-tion and helped in inferring meaningful incites. As per the model, a pilot project was implemented on one team which was highly successful. Later this model was adapted as a base for future developments in multiple processes.

Yes, I was also given stipend for my work which was satis-factory.

Careers360: What were the key challenges faced dur-ing the internship?Abhineet Mittal: Within the short time span of my internship there were multiple challenges that came across. Few are,l Since it was a startup, it had some chaotic processes

which initially hindered my understanding of various processes.

l Few of the process were not defined during their initial stage.

l Since I had multiple opportunities , I had difficulty in finding a prefect role for myself so that I can contribute in the best possible to the company.

Careers360: What was your key learnings during and after the project?Abhineet Mittal: My Key learnings during the project are:l Time management- as a startup company we are not

limited and can try out many things; we need to prioritize and manage the time.

l I also came to know about the real time challenges in the field of social media marketing.

l Interacting with people of different temperaments.

Key learnings after the completion of internship are:l View things holisticallyl It is very satisfying to work in startups because you can

see the direct implementation of your projects and ideas and hence company also values you.

Careers360: How did your corporate mentor at internship help you execute the project?Abhineet Mittal: My mentor was a very knowledgeable and humble guide who use to share his insights and experi-ences. With his motivation I learned a lot. He was open to ideas and had an entrepreneurial approach so I was more comfortable in sharing ideas with him and implementing them. He also guided me with current corporate policies and functioning.

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He always motivated me and supported me in my creative approaches. He gave me full freedom in my work which helped me learn new approaches and also provided relevant information required for my analysis. Careers360: How was your interaction with other employees during your internship period? Would you like to come back to the company for a job?Abhineet Mittal: Being an IIM student, it was a great experience for me to have a special attention. Employees at WeMark were very cooperative, supportive and congenial in nature. They were always ready to share with me the cor-porate information which was necessary for my analysis to facilitate business process improvement. They were always all ears to my new ideas. By the time I completed my intern-ship we shared a bond of friendship and trust. I would surely like to join the company again.

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How Atit Shah acquired knowledge in the Designing of IT systems during his internship

He shares different aspects of his internship experience in this Interview:

Careers360: Where did you complete your summer internship? What was the size of the company?Atit Shah: I did my summer internship at Syntel Ltd., which aims at delivering high end solutions to its almost 2000 clients in a more efficient and innovative way. In the duration of my internship, i learned how to get insights from the customer requirements and business and then to apply innovations into operations. The company has around 25000 employees worldwide. Syntels Customers for Life philosophy made me focus on hands on experience along with business results.

How your internship experience helps you to develop something from scratch? How your summer train-ing lets you explore new possibilities and oppor-tunities? How do you best utilize an internship to acquire knowledge?

Atit Shah, a student of SIMSREE, Mumbai shares his Internship Experience at Syntel Ltd., as a Business Analyst. Prior to his summer internship, Atit has also worked as an SEO Analyst at Craftindia.com.

As a key responsible person to analysis & design a web based portal at Syntel, Atit prepared artifacts like database model diagram, business process modelling diagrams, user interface layouts and system architecture design, to success-fully develop a new portal from scratch.

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Careers360: What project did you work on? What was the timeline for execution of different stages of the project?Atit Shah: I was fortunate enough that the Company trusted me and gave me an opportunity to work on an impor-tant project, where I was a key responsible person. I was working on an internal project to design a web based portal for the company. The Analysis & Design stages of the portal were expected to be completed in 2 months. In the entire two months, the portal has to be developed from scratch and later made functional on the front end. Careers360: Please share your project summary.Atit Shah: A web based portal was required by the com-pany to manage its routine operational activities. My key responsibility was to analysis & design this web based portal. As part of the designing, I was required to prepare various artifacts like database model diagram, business process modelling diagrams, user interface layouts and system archi-tecture design. I also had to guide the developers with the development of the portal. Being a part of the Designing and Technical department, the only summary about the project was to develop a portal for a company to maintain its daily business functions. Careers360: What were the key challenges that you faced during your internship?Atit Shah: The project was quite challenging as the portal had to be made from scratch. In the Analysis stage, I had to engage with various stakeholders for understanding the existing processes, which is important to know as you have to work on the same business and functional models which the company is following.

Within a short time span of 2 months, I had to learn, under-stand, develop and deliver the project which was challenging. Also, translating the requirements fetched from the Analysis stage into various design artifacts was a challenging task. But the project was delivered to the expectations of the clients, and that is all what matters.

Careers360: What were your learnings while doing the project and experince after the completion of the project?Atit Shah: I learned a lot during my internship at Syntel, it was an experience, an opportunity and a challenge that made me have more confidence in myself. During my intern-ship the project gave me great insights on how to design IT systems along with an exposure to IT project management. After the completion of my summer internship, I was pre-pared to face the challenges and actually was more open to accept them, work hard and achieve results. Careers360: How did your corporate mentor sup-ported you to execute your internship? How did you connected with your academic mentor?Atit Shah: My corporate mentor at Syntel was very expe-rienced and cooperative. He guided me throughout the project. If I use to get stuck somewhere, he was always there to support, guide and motivate me. We had daily reviews of my work which helped me to deliver quality output within the stipulated timeframe. I used to connect with my mentor via emails on a weekly basis and use to share reviews and other outputs. Careers360: How was your interaction with other employees during your internship period? Would you like to come back to the company for a job?Atit Shah: We use to have both formal and informal inter-actions every week. My seniors and colleagues use to have this interaction so as work burden could be shared, problems could be discussed, and technical issues could be handled along with other motivational talks. The work environment was very good and supportive. I would definitely like to join the company and work towards my aim, get challenging opportunities and grow along with the organization.

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XIMB student Anubhav Srivastava on his 2 months at HSBC Chennai

Prior to joining XIMB, Anubhav did Computer Engineer-ing in Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) has worked for a year as an SAP Consultant with Deloitte Consulting in Hyderabad. His interests include international relations, quizzing and classical music. Careers360: What was your project on which you worked for the past 2 months? How did you define the timelines for executing different stages of the project?Anubhav Srivastava: My project involved finding sec-tor-wise business lending opportunities for HSBC in the SME space in Chennai. To accomplish this, I first developed an in-depth understanding of the banks policies and lend-ing proposition. I interacted with my senior colleagues and tried to understand the kind of work each of them did. I devoted roughly a week for this. Over the next 3-4 weeks, I did extensive secondary research on the plastics,

XIMB student Anubhav Srivastava did his intern-ship with renowned global banking company HSBC. Anubhav Srivastava, a Second Year student of Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) shares how it feels to work among400 employees of a top global banking company like HSBC. In this interview, he shares his meeting experiences with MDs, CEOs and CFOs of potential clients to understand their needs & the industry and to explore opportunities for HSBC.

He does not forget to tell us that the invaluable experiences were not the only take away from his summer internship, he also took home a handsome monthly stipend of Rs 45000 for the period he worked with the company. Anubhav also speaks about the challenges faced by him owing to the cultural and language barrier in the city of Chennai.

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chemical, manufacturing (mainly auto-ancillary), garments and textiles industries in Chennai and tried to develop an understanding of the business models of major players and the operating cash cycles. I understood the macroeco-nomic trends of the industry and handpicked a few clients for an in-depth study. I learnt to make working capital assess-ments and to map working capital requirements of clients to HSBCs products. The last 3 weeks were completely devoted to meeting MDs, CEOs and CFOs of potential clients to understand their needs & the industry and to explore oppor-tunities for HSBC. I also met senior executives from several trade associations and manufacturing clusters and fixed up joint events to help educate their members on the intricacies involved in complex trade transactions.

Project SummaryIn my quest to discover sector-wise business lending opportunities for HSBC in Chennai, I prepared a sector-wise report on five industrial sectors plastics, chemicals, manufacturing, garments and textiles detailing the size, segments, export market, risks, working capital requirements and top SMEs for each sector. Based on industrial reports from credit rating agencies such as ICRA, CRISIL and D&B, I was able to communicate with senior executives from around 50 companies who helped me in collecting the data. I identified gaps in requirements where HSBC could step up and offer superior services, mostly in the international trade arena. I learnt to assess the operating cash flow cycle and make working capital assessments and applied the same on a couple of live cases that were being processed. In addition, I also made a database of leading SMEs based on my primary and secondary research, both online and offline. I also struck joint educational events with industrial estates, manufacturing clusters and industrial confederations for their members.

Careers360: What was your plan to execute the pro-ject? What was the stipend amount offered to you?

Anubhav Srivastava: I started off by networking exten-sively with my colleagues. Most invaluable and practical knowledge about an organization is never found in manu-als, but in people. All my seniors were extremely helpful in teaching me the basics about the bank and its offerings. I researched extensively on industrial reports published by ICRA, CRISIL, D&B, McKinsey and also used the services offered by the web portal of Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India. I travelled extensively within Chen-nai to meet potential clients and trade associations. I also spoke over telephone to a vast number of people in different businesses. I was paid a stipend of Rs. 45,000/- per month.

Careers360: What kind of challenges did you face dur-ing your internship?Anubhav Srivastava:The biggest challenge I faced was not having a cultural and lingual understanding of conduct-ing business in Chennai. Although I had done my engineering previously in Tamil Nadu and did know basic Tamil, language was sometimes a barrier in establishing the kind of warmth needed in a business transaction with a potential client. Also, the theoretical knowledge of working capital financing, which I had learnt in my curriculum and the actual manner in which it is done, differed considerably. The actual world of banking was lot more complicated and there were many factors to be assessed, including those that required making subjective assessments. Careers360: What were your key and overall learning during and after completing your internship?Anubhav Srivastava: HSBC is one of the worlds larg-est banks, whichever way you measure and its expertise in executing complex trade transactions and global presence and potential is unmatched. Therefore, I had access to a vast treasure trove of knowledge on complex lending require-ments and payment transactions. I learnt exactly how to assess the clients needs and provide tailor made fund based/non-fund based solutions to working capital requirements. I learnt all about letters of credits, bank guarantees and other non-fund based instruments. I learnt the types of ways in which payments are made for international transactions

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and worked on a couple of live cases. But most importantly, I learnt the basic soft skills speaking to clients, understand-ing and approaching the problem from their shoes and tiding over the cultural and lingual barriers for the common goal business. Careers360: How cooperative was your corporate mentor regarding the execution of the project at your summer internship?Anubhav Srivastava: I was extremely lucky to have the best possible mentorship and guidance at each stage from my mentor. He helped me settle down on the first day and exposed me to only as much knowledge as was necessary at each stage. The complexity of products and mechanisms at a commercial bank can be overwhelming to someone who has not worked in banking before but I was glad to be gradually introduced to all concepts with live examples. My mentor guided me to online repositories, existing clients and col-leagues who helped me. My mentor also reviewed my work on a weekly basis and pushed me harder to collect more information about each industrial sector and motivated me to go alone and speak to senior executives in the industry and at trade associations. I gained immense confidence and self-belief under his guidance.

Careers360: How was your rapport with other employees during your internship schedule? If given an opportunity, would you like to come back to the organi-zation for job?Anubhav Srivastava: I had an extremely enjoyable two month stay at HSBC in Chennai. All my senior colleagues treated me well and took time out from their extremely busy schedules to guide me. We often went out for lunch. The one hour spent playing table tennis at office in the evening used to be the most enjoyable. Given a chance, I would love to return. Careers360: What are the memories during your internship period which you would like to cherish?Anubhav Srivastava: Being a part of IlluminatiX - The Media & PR Cell of XIMB, I conducted an informal interac-tion with the juniors who were about the join in the college in a months time. It was truly a refreshing and unique experi-ence to be surrounded by an enthusiastic bunch thousands of kilometers away from base camp, addressing the queries and witnessing their excitement. We had a gala time gobbling chaat and strolling around on Besant Nagar beach. Truly made me miss college and I vowed to enjoy as much I could in the last year of my MBA.

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How technology enthusiast IIFT student Ashwani Pasricha dug farmers insights for marketing analytics

Mahindra & Mahindra (Farm & equipment sector), which is a $16 billion conglomerate with the presence in sector rang-ing from farm equipment to the Aerospace industry. I did my internship in Mahindra tractor division for Mahindra Swaraj in UP west area. Careers360: What project did you work on? What was the timeline for execution of different stages of the project?Ashwani Pasricha: I worked for Mahindra Swaraj divi-sion in UP west area, primarily Meerut and Muzaffarnagar. My project was to analyze factors that affect the sale of trac-tor in this area and then to formulate strategy to re-establish Swaraj brand in those areas. The whole project was divided into 3 parts, including a market visit to Meerut, Muzaffar-nagar and analysis, cross verification and recommendation based on survey data.

Ashwani Pasricha, a student of IIFT Delhi shares his internship experiences at Mahindra & Mahindra (Farm & equipment sector) here. Prior to joining IIFT, Ashwani has worked with Tata Consultancy as a Soft-ware Engineer for about 2.5 years. A technology enthusiast, Ashwani who aims at implementing technologies of big data, cloud computing, got an opportunity to explore market for product category that is mostly targeted to farmers. In this interview he describes his exciting field experiences during his project execution and also shares how he was touched by friendliness and Atithi Devo Bhav attitude of farmers while interacting with them.

Careers360: Where did you do your summer intern-ship and what was the size of the company?Ashwani Pasricha: I did my summer internship in

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Initially, a week was devoted to questionnaire design, test runs and analysis of the data collected to reduce the gap between actual and expected outcome. Careers360: Please share your project summary.Ashwani Pasricha: After the acquisition of Swaraj trac-tor from Punjab tractor limited, Mahindra kept it as a separate brand from Mahindra & Mahindra tractors. Swaraj has a stronghold in Punjab and M&M in other regions. My project was to study the market dynamics in UP west area to re-establish Swaraj as a brand.

After initial briefing and guidance by marketing teams in that region, I was expected to go to Meerut and Muzaffar-nagar and do perception analysis of the decision makers i.e. dealers, mechanics and farmers. Based on this survey, I had to find factors that affected the sales of tractors. Later, with the help of marketing team, we chalked out a strategy to re-establish Swaraj brand keeping in mind the factors. Careers360: How did you execute the project of Mahi-ndra Swaraj in the allocated division?Ashwani Pasricha: The project began with the analysis of tractor markets at macro level and then specific to the target area. Extensive efforts were put on questionnaire design, test run on Mahindra Swarajs salespersons and the results were discussed with marketing team to reduce the gap between actual and expected outcome.

After a 4 week stint of market research in the target area, i.e. Meerut and Muzaffarnagar,analysis was done on the collected data. Based on the discussion, feedback from the marketing team and surveyed data, I started working on the strategy for the overall objective. Two different reports were presented to the management, one based on the industry analysis and macro-level factors and other based on the actual surveyed data and micro-level factors.

Careers360: What were the key challenges that you faced while doing your internship?Ashwani Pasricha: Since my task required a survey of dealers, mechanics, and farmers, i.e. decision makers of tractor sales, finding farmers in Kharif season in a market like Meerut, where the main cultivated crop is Sugarcane and Rice (Both Kharif crops), was very difficult as most of the farmers were in their field sowing the crops. Though, it contained some extra efforts to complete surveys in this style, friendliness and Atithi Devo Bhav attitude of farmers scored above everything. Careers360: What were your key learnings while doing the project and overall learning after completion of your internship?Ashwani Pasricha: One of the major learning from this internship was understanding the requirements and percep-tion of people. Theyre not much interested in traditional models like Porters five forces or BCG matrix. The only concerns are the survey findings, data analysis, customers conversations and insights.

Also, though extensive research and test runs were con-ducted along with questionnaire designing, actual learning was done on the field. The main focus was first on question-naire design and then on analysis of the gathered data. Before analysis, there was a proof reading session of the gathered data by comparing it with the historical data and then moving forward to the analysis. Careers360: How did your corporate mentor at internship help you execute the project?Ashwani Pasricha: My mentor had rich experience in Farm & Equipment sector since he was working in this field for the last 20 years. As the project was very crucial, he shared his insights, experience and expected great results from me.

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Because of the peak Kharif season, there were days when the number of responses gathered was below expectation, but my mentor motivated me, gave me quick tips and helped me in achieving my targets. Careers360: How was your interaction with other employees during your internship period?Ashwani Pasricha: The whole marketing team, involved in this project were always available on-call. To get proper insights, I also analysed the strategy of other areas where Mahindra Swaraj is already established. For that, it was required to talk to the marketing team of other areas who were corporative and shared their insights, data and various reports of their area. In my entire internship period there was not a moment when I wanted a support and was not given.

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How Soochna Sahu learned the importance of collaborations during her Internship at Godrej & Boyce

deliverables were made clear at the beginning of the project.

The first month was spent in developing the questionnaire and interacting with the respondents. Next month was used for proper tabulation and analysis of the data. In the last 15 days, final reports were made for the presentations to the senior management. In between, I was also involved in managerial activities related to the project, training of respondents and a new product launch for the dealers. Careers360: Please share a project summary.Soochna Sahu: My task was to meet the secondary sales force team consumer which is durables team of Godrej and its competitors LG, Samsung and Whirlpool placed at the shop floor. The next step was to interact, observe and understand them in order to understand the secondary sales force management system in Godrej. This was done

An ex engineer with Tata Consultancy Services, Sooch-na Sahu who is currently pursuing her PGDM at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai cam-pus, underwent her summer training at Godrej & Boyce in the Sales division. During her internship she worked on the project on Consumer Durable Space. Read this interview to know how she coped up with the challenges of working in the Sales division and learned about the importance of col-laboration required across divisions. Careers360: What project did you work on? What was the timeline for execution of different stages of the project?Soochna Sahu: I worked on a project in the sales & marketing domain. The project title was: Secondary Field Force Management in Consumer Durable Space.The project was spread across a span of 2.5 months. The timeline of the

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through a carefully formulated questionnaire, which covered all the criteria of the system. The project also expected me to identify the problem in the prevailing system so as to give a proposal for improvement. The market research was to be carried out in 3 different places Bhubaneswar, Kolkata and Durgapur on 160 consumer durable customer advisors. I studied the placement of consumer durables in a dealer counter and customer handling by customer advisors. I also conducted below the line (BTL) promotional activities for Godrej durables and organized a new product launch for the dealers.

Careers360: How did you execute the project?Soochna Sahu: I got the opportunity to visit as many as 25 dealer counters in Bhubaneswar, Kolkata and Durgapur. I did a survey on the consumer durable customer advisors at these counters to understand the practices and problems of the secondary field force management system. Careers360: What were the key challenges that you faced while doing your internship?Soochna Sahu: Sales and market research job involves a lot of travelling and convincing skills. A major challenge faced during the internship was travelling to various areas which I had never visited. Another daunting task was to per-suade the customer advisors to participate in the survey and provide accurate data.

Careers360: What was your key learnings while doing the project and overall learning after completion of your internship?Soochna Sahu: Sales works in collaboration with differ-ent departments, so did I. Working across different depart-ments was a learning itself. I got hands on experience of working in the sales domain of the FMCD industry and thus know the industry in and out.

Because I had a chance to interview new hires for customer advisor post, I found that though they were not that qualified academically but had apt knowledge about the industry. I also learnt the art of being patient while serving a customer. Careers360: Share a memorable incident from your internship days.Soochna Sahu: A life changing moment was when I decided to a write an article for the in-house magazine of Godrej. The article was about a customer advice who is physically challenged but never let that be an obstacle in his work. An interview with him taught me a thousand lessons for life and gave me an inspiration which was enough to work hard to achieve my goals in life. He proved that human spirit and endeavor can overcome any physical disability and help achieve great heights provided the individual has determina-tion to succeed.

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How Ashwath Krishna coped with challenges of Risk management in Finance during his summers

office in Chennai and has an employee base of around 60. Careers360: What project did you work on? Please share your Project summary.Ashwath Krishna: I worked on an independent project of Developing an Integrated Credit Rating Framework for different asset classes. I worked for the Risk Management and Analytics team. The entire project spanned for a period of 2 months.

Credit Rating Framework is an integral part of IFMR Capitals business functions. Only on the basis of the credit worthiness, an entity is on-boarded to do business transac-tion with. Once the transaction is in progress, it is essential to measure and rate the risk associated with transaction accordingly. Also during the business phase, it is essential to assess the stress associated with the entity periodically and

Ashwath Krishna, currently pursuing his PGDM Financial Engineering from IFMR Chennai com-pleted his internship from IFMR Capital into Risk management & Analytics. During his internship, Ashwath worked on an independent project of Credit rating frame-work, and learned the necessity of in-depth knowledge, dedication and commitment required to understand the working of Finance as whole.

He shares his project summary and learnings which he acquired from his internship. Careers360: Where did you complete your summer internship from? What was the size of the company?Ashwath Krishna: I did my internship in IFMR Capital Finance Pvt. Ltd. - one of the niche players in the debt capital markets. IFMR Capital, known as IFMR Caps has its head

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rate the entity on a timely basis. Credit rating framework is basically cohesion of the aforementioned evaluation tools.

This project basically deals with understanding and analyzing the different rating/grading framework used by IFMR Capital to analyze the credit worthiness of an entity, and streamline the existing rating methodologies so as to help develop an Integrated Credit Rating Framework. This project has been carried out in five phases:

Phase 1: Understanding the key business functions, Risk Management Functions, Key Risk Indicators, Risk Management Systems and Processes of IFMR Capital.

Phase 2: Understanding and analyzing the different Grading Tools used in-house for different asset classes (MFI, AHF, and SBL), evaluation of parameters used, their significance, and relevance to the asset class under consideration. Similar procedure was carried out for Transaction Scoring Tool and Stress Metrics Tool.Phase 3: Research on the different Internal Rating Framework used in different Rating Agencies and Financial Institutions. Identification of similarities and differences in comparison with the in-house tools, their benchmarking procedures, rating methodology and thereby identifying additional parameters and methods to enhance the in-house tool.

Phase 4: Evaluating the consistency of different tools with the Underwriting Guidelines ( for all the asset classes) and also their consistency with each other. Identified gaps were used to enhance the tool and its consistency with each other.

Phase 5: This is the final phase and is essentially a consolidation of the outcomes of all previous phases. An Integrated Framework was proposed by enhancing the different rating tools and by bringing in consistency across the tools making it more reliable and robust.

Careers360: What were the key challenges that you faced while doing your internship?Ashwath Krishna: Getting to know in detail about the different roles that IFMR Capital played in the debt capital markets was in itself a challenging and interesting experi-ence. We have had good exposure to Financial Statement Analysis and ratios as a part of our academic curriculum. But, the way credit evaluation has been credit out in industry was completely different. It not just involved analysis of finan-cials but also variegated dimensions of business ranging from Management philosophy, strategy to information systems and best practices.

Another challenging task that I experienced was in con-vincing the senior management about the changes and enhancements which I proposed. During the brainstorming sessions I got to know that some of the enhancements that I proposed were viable theoretically but would not be very efficient practically. Over all, it was an enriching experience. Careers360: What was your key learnings while doing the project and overall learning after completion of your internship?Ashwath Krishna: The most important learning from my Internship is the necessity of in-depth knowledge, dedi-cation and commitment required to understand the working of Finance as whole. It is not one aspect you have to learn, rather, you must acquire knowledge in all the working areas of finance which will take you to a long run. This insight gave me an essence of how I should prepare myself to confront any challenging job in the financial services line.

Overall, some of my key learnings are:l Understanding of Risk Management Systems and pro-

cesses at IFMR Capitall Basic knowledge on Portfolio analysis for credit risk

evaluationl Fair knowledge on credit valuation of an entity, transac-

tion based risk scoring and stress evaluation of an entity.

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Careers360: What were the key challenges that you faced while doing your internship?Ashwath Krishna: Getting to know in detail about the different roles that IFMR Capital played in the debt capital markets was in itself a challenging and interesting experi-ence. We have had good exposure to Financial Statement Analysis and ratios as a part of our academic curriculum. But, the way credit evaluation has been credit out in industry was completely different. It not just involved analysis of finan-cials but also variegated dimensions of business ranging from Management philosophy, strategy to information systems and best practices.

Another challenging task that I experienced was in con-vincing the senior management about the changes and enhancements which I proposed. During the brainstorming sessions I got to know that some of the enhancements that I proposed were viable theoretically but would not be very efficient practically. Over all, it was an enriching experience.

Careers360: How was your interaction with other employees during your internship period? Would you like to come back to the place for a job?Ashwath Krishna: Even though I was working for the Risk Management and Analytics team, the nature of my project demanded inputs and frequent interaction with cross functional team members. Even amidst their busy schedule, all the members whom I approached set aside time for me and guided me in the best possible way they could.

IFMR Capital is definitely one of the best places to work and the learning you get here is huge. I would love to work here full time if given an opportunity!

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How Subarna Mukherjee embarks her Summer Internship Challenges in Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd

Careers360: What project did you work on? What was the timeline for execution of different stages of the project?Subarna Mukherjee: My project was Establish posi-tioning and formulate digital marketing strategy for select-ed Mahindra Partners portfolio companies. The project required me to analyse 8 companies from diverse fields. Hence, the scope was broad and drawing a rigid timeline was a necessity.

I divided the different stages of project execution as follows:

Subarna Mukherjee, currently pursuing her MBA (IB) from IIFT Delhi completed her Summer Internship from Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, and learned the requirements and strategies of Digital Marketing.

Within the short span of her summer training, Subarna analysed the current positioning of the company and identi-fied the market gaps. She learned about developing digital marketing strategies, need of customer perception for map-ping and importance of positioning of a company in the market.

Read the interview to know how Sabarna tackled her sum-mer internship challenges.

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WEEK ASSIGNMENT

Week 1 & 2 Ascertained the intended current positioning of the companies (analysed various consumer touch-points and interviewed company professionals)

Week 3 & 4 Identified market gaps by understanding customer/consumer perception and established the ideal positioning

Week 5 - 7 Formulated the digital marketing strategies for selected companies

Week 8 Review and Presentation

Careers360: Please share a project summary.Subarna Mukherjee: The project began with 8 compa-nies in varied sector comprising of logistics, processed steel, engineering consulting, vocational training, boat manufac-turing, conveyor systems, renewable energy and retail.

It began with analysing the current positioning of the companies in these given industries. This was followed by competitor analysis and customer perception mapping to identify market gaps. Based on this we arrive at an ideal positioning for these companies. In the next part we design exclusive digital marketing strategies to communicate the positioning effectively.

Careers360: How did you execute the project? How much was your Stipend?Subarna Mukherjee: I began with taking up one com-pany at a time. To understand the current positioning I would interact with company officials, study various consumer touch-points both online and offline along with previous promotional campaigns conducted.

In the next step I performed a market survey to understand customer sentiments towards the given company as well as its competitors. Once I arrive at the required positioning I formulated digital marketing strategies to communicate the same. The final part was to perform a feasibility check as well as a cost benefit analysis for the proposed recommendations.

I was paid a stipend of INR 60,000 per month. Any other expenses incurred during the course of the project was reim-bursed by the firm. Careers360: What were the key challenges that you faced while doing your internship?Subarna Mukherjee: My project involved interacting with the leading teams of these companies at various points to recognise the problem areas in order to formulate a posi-tioning. I also intended to discuss my recommendations with the concerned companies from time to time to provide them with most desirable solutions. Owing to their busy schedules, finding opportunities to interact with them seemed difficult in the beginning. I overcame this challenge by planning ahead and conducting frequent follow ups.

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Careers360: While doing your internship, how were you connected with your academic mentor at your insti-tute?Subarna Mukherjee: I relied on my academic mentor to guide me through the project at every step. Be it explaining the various models I could use for measuring brand equity, sending links for relevant reading material or fine tuning my final presentation at every level, my mentor from my institute did it all. We connected via mail or over telephone.

Careers360: How was your interaction with other employees during your internship period? Would you like to come back to the place for a job?Subarna Mukherjee: I was in cordial terms with the employees of the organization. Along with my mentor and assigned seniors, various other employees came forward to help and guide me in various matters. Yes, definitely, I would like to go back to the place for a job.

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How Pratik Raut explored market research strategies during his Summer Internship

Careers360: What project you worked on and what was the timeline for execution of different stages of the project?Pratik Raut: I worked on a project that involved market study of recycling of a chemical Intermediate Tetrahydro-furan (THF). BASF is the worlds leading manufacturer for THF. The project duration was 2 months. The first week involved desktop research and getting acquainted with the chemical Intermediate THF, studying its market and appli-cations. The next 6 weeks involved field visits to all the major buyers of the chemical. The third stage involved extraction of various insights from the data gathered and making a project report. The final stage involved a presentation to the compa-ny officials and presenting the findings of the study to them.

Pratik Raut, student of Marketing at SIMSREE, com-pleted his Summer Internship from BASF where he worked extensively for a chemical intermediate-THF and explored market research strategies for the product.

An ex System Engineer from Infosys, Pratik, during his internship understood the value chain of the organization. He further shares the significance of mapping the research for a project to generate relevant data.

Read here to know about the overall Internship Experience Careers360: Where did you do your summer intern-ship from? What was the size of the company?Pratik Raut: I did my summer internship at BASF India. BASF is the worlds leading chemical company, which has more than 112,000 employees worldwide. The company has its customers in more than 200 countries.

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Careers360: Please summarise your projectPratik Raut: THF is one of the most widely used chemical intermediates worldwide. Many companies use fresh THF in chemical reactions and then recycle it from the leftover waste solvent once the process is over. The project involved finding the total amount of THF that is recovered by the recycling process per year in the Indian Market, the total capacity of recyclers in India, the main reasons due to which companies recover THF, the applications of this recovered THF and the future trends of recovering the THF in India. Careers360: How did you execute the project?Pratik Raut: The first week involved getting acquainted with the value chain of BASF and the chemical intermediate THF. I interacted a lot with BASF employees who patiently answered all my naive doubts. I made a project plan and shortlisted all the major THF customers that would be tar-geted for this study.

In the next 6 weeks, I interviewed all the shortlisted THF customers in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Gujarat and Bangalore. I also interviewed the major THF third-party recyclers in Mumbai.

The last week was dedicated to insight generation and research data accuracy testing, using various methods. I cre-ated a report of the findings and presented the same to the company officials on the last day of my internship.

Careers360: Tell us about your key learnings while doing the project. What was your overall learning after the completion of the internship?Pratik Raut: I understood and explored various market research strategies in the course of this project. Some of the key learnings of this project were:1. For the success of a project, a proper execution plan has

to be in place. This serves as a sounding board to check if the project execution is in process as expected.

2. A proper follow up through mail and phone calls is an essential requirement in the success of any project involving market study.

3. Understanding the value chain of the organization and analyzing how your project fits into this value chain is very important.

4. While carrying out a primary or secondary research, research should always be mapped to the project deliv-erables. Finding relevant data should be the focus.

Careers360: While doing your internship, how were you connected with your academic mentor at your insti-tute?Pratik Raut: The faculty at SIMSREE is extremely help-ful. My mentor, Dr. R. K. Srivastava helped me in prepare a questionnaire so as to get the best outcome from my field visits and helped me strategize my field visits. He also helped me to extract useful insights from the data gathered for the survey. Careers360: How was your interaction with other employees during your internship period? Would you like to come back to the place for a job?Pratik Raut: BASF is a great place to work for. I found all the employees very amicable and cooperative. They went out of their ways to offer help whenever required. There are a lot of employee engagement programs that are conducted often at BASF. The work environment is very lively.

I would definitely like to come back and work for BASF in future.

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How Richa Mehra impressed Britannia with her disruptive idea during her summers?

Careers360: What project did you work on? What was the timeline for execution of different stages of the project?Richa Mehra: The title of my project was DEVISE A DISRUPTIVE STRATEGY FOR TIGER CREAMS. The project was divided into 2 phases during my 8 weeks of internship. Phase One was Consumer In sighting while Phase Two was concept testing. Both the phases was com-pleted on time and as per the schedule, resulted in the suc-cessful completion of my Internship. Careers360: Please share a project summary.Richa Mehra: The aim of the project was to device a disruption strategy for Tiger Creams for one market to stay viable and competitive in the value cream biscuit segment.

Richa Mehra, an ex- engineer from Infosys Limited is presently pursuing her Majors in Marketing from TAPMI Manipal. During her 8 week long internship, Richa designed a strict consumer driven FGDs (Focussed Group Discussion) which helped her tackle the key challenge of converting ideas into working strategies.

Read the interview to know the Internship Experience: Careers360: Where did you complete your summer internship from?Richa Mehra: I did my summer internship project in Britannia Industries Limited. It is one amongst the market leaders in the biscuits and food products segment with Tiger as its flagship brand. The company has two broad divisions which cater to the needs of each segment of the consumer, 1. Bakery products 2. Dairy products.

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Careers360: How did you execute the project? Did you have any Stipend?Richa Mehra: To design the disruptive strategies for Tiger Creams the first step was to understand the brand Tiger, what it stood for and what was its target segment. Thereafter, FGDs were conducted to understand the con-sumer perspective, their consumption pattern, consumption occasions, purchase patterns and pocket money analysis of kids. The key learnings of these FGDs were then tested with the consumers as concepts and rankings were taken to understand the relevance and importance of concepts and purchase intentions of the consumers. Careers360: How did your corporate mentor at internship supported you to execute the project?Richa Mehra: My corporate mentor guided me through the various phases of the projects to have a better under-standing of the brand, its market and the present scenario along with the necessary and suitable steps ahead. He pro-vided me with some great learning opportunities and helped me explore the current industry trends and practices. Careers360: While doing your internship, how were you connected with your academic mentor at your insti-tute?Richa Mehra: My academic mentor helped me define my problem in a precise way and helped me to get started with the project. He supported me to connect the practical

problems with the concepts of the marketing sessions and how to apply them for our and companies best use. He constantly guided me throughout the journey of my project. Careers360: How was your interaction with other employees during your internship period? Would you like to come back to the place for a job?Richa Mehra: Working in Britannia was an amazing experience. It bought me a wealth of practical knowledge and experience that will help me in future. The superiors at Britannia were very encouraging and supported learnings at every step. If giving a chance, I would love to come back to Britannia for my job. Careers360: Share a memorable incident from your internship days.Richa Mehra: The most memorable experience of my internship was the interaction with my colleagues at Britan-nia. The chance to know them and learn from them was a great opportunity and experience in itself. Apart from that, meeting fellow interns from different colleges around the country was too fun and interesting. Getting to know them, their projects and how they worked on them was a good experience.

!!Careers360 Wishes You All the Best for Your Internships

Work hard and Stay tuned to bschool.careers360.com !!

MBA Internship Experiences

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