Absurdity Is The Ecstasy Of Intellectualism - An Internship Experience At ITC Limited

Webinars & Workshops

"Absurdity is the ecstasy of intellectualism." - Anonymous

The above phrase is befitting for my two-month experience at ITC Limited wherein I worked with the 'Trade, Marketing and Distribution Division' at Kolkata. Right from the beginning till the end, ITC has given me some moments and learnings that will be treasured forever.

My focus product was Bingo chips and I had to increase its potential sales against its competitors. The first few weeks of my internship involved understanding the ways how the Sales team functions. I had to visit retail stores along with the Distributor Salesmen (DS), know how they are taking orders and collecting money, if they are making use of the device given to them, checking on timely delivery. After few weeks of such visits, I was allotted 40 stores under the same Distributor and asked to increase their sales by 20%. Further, my work revolved around making a beat plan of those 40 stores and ensure I visit these stores at least once a week. On an average, I visited 8 stores per day and spent around 30-40 minutes in each store understanding the key issues and formulating a solution side by side. While making the route plan of these 40 stores, I strategized in a way such that I visit the shop after 2 days the delivery of stock was done. In this way, I would be able to replenish the stock in shops that I had high off-take of SKU’s and procure order prior to the DS. In this way, I figured out shops that needed to be visited once or twice a week. By doing this, I was also able to identify the Consumption Centres, i.e. hot spots like shops near school, college, coaching centres, offices, cinema halls, etc. where there is maximum sales. My visits also involved checking for the inventory, displaying the chips for making them visible and available, provide the retailers with racks or hangers.

In the subsequent month, our team of 6 interns shared our collected findings and based on them we constructed 3 Pilots –

Merchandising at selected outlets to know its impact on sales.

Sampling of Lead SKU’s at the identified Consumption Centres.

Loyalty Programme at Industry Outlets.

We collated all the data of first month and implemented our recommendations in the second month based on the above 3 Pilots. The core activity of piloting has based on the Hypothesis that the above activities with increase the sales of Bingo chips.

ITC has taught me how to make hypothesis on problem statements, dig the findings and implement my own recommendations.

The challenges I faced while doing my research made the entire journey all the more insightful. Something very special about the work culture of ITC is how they let individuals implement their own ideas and make the drive experimental. This is how I learned while challenging my own thoughts. With it's excellent line of salesmen, it was so exciting to understand their way of life and intriguing working pattern. I am grateful to have interned with such a giant conglomerate.