Talk to any Delhiite and ask them to name a South Delhi market and all they will have as an answer is - Greater Kailash, Defence Colony, South Ex et al. A sales internship with Emami Ltd. shattered that perception for me when I visited the by lanes of different parts of Delhi, the names of which I heard for the first time in my entire being as a Delhiite. During my previous experience as an IT professional, I was used to working in an air-conditioned office with comfy chairs coupled with the luxury of a coffee machine that churned out your favourite coffee at the touch of a button. However, as a sales intern, it’s a sin to even dream of such luxuries on-field. What you get in lieu of it is a treasure trove of learnings which you will not find in any of your course books.
I wanted to intern in an IT MNC!
With a work experience of over 3.5 years in the IT industry, I was aiming for an internship in an IT MNC and leverage my experience into making the internship a fruitful experience. Moreover, the mythical notion surrounding the FMCG industry not shortlisting students with a higher work experience further added to my inclination towards the IT industry. A few setbacks and months later, towards the end of the academic year of 2016-17 Emami visited our campus and hired 5 students to work as summer interns.
Induction in the City of Joy
Emami invited us to their Kolkata Head Office for our induction. At the Emami Towers, we had the opportunity to interact with the best minds in the FMCG industry. The leadership at Emami, which comprised of the Heads of Divisions (viz. Consumer Care, Health Care, Ethical etc.) interacted with us and gave us a glimpse into how the FMCG industry functions and how Emami with its huge enticing product portfolio has been a game changer in the industry for over 4 decades. Further, they gave us insights into the distribution channel, product packaging and the various ad campaigns. Once done with the induction, we were handed out our different projects along with our locations.
My project as an intern was to work on Emami’s Outlet Expansion Plan in Delhi, with an aim to increase the overall effective coverage and business through range extension.
Back in Delhi, I met my mentor who guided me and explained the importance of the retail expansion project for Emami, its relevance in the current economic scenario and the reasoning behind the efforts being put in for the project.
Welcome Project RACE!
For the Indian FMCG industry, demonetization turned out to be a Black Swan event and the way wholesale channel crumbled due to the liquidity crunch it became imperative for Emami to look beyond the traditional wholesale channel and increase its direct reach across the retail channel before GST kicks in. Considering all these aspects, Emami initiated its retail expansion plan and named it Project RACE.
My job as an intern was to develop a strategy to increase our business on the retail outlets already being serviced by us as part of the Project RACE and increase our shelf presence through range extension.
Over the course of my internship, I visited 40 different markets across Delhi (along with a sales representative) and had the opportunity to interact with over 1200 diverse retailers to understand their needs and expectations from Emami for developing a sustainable two-way relationship. Additionally, I performed a primary market research to analyse the differences in our pricing vs the competition, the promotional strategies being adopted, shelf presence of our brands and the number of outlets (under our own outlet universe) being serviced by different companies. Later on, I performed an SKU-wise sales analysis to look into the SKUs with a scope of growth in our outlet universe and thus graduate towards selling larger sized SKU in more numbers.
The world is your stage and there is no end to ideation.
As an intern, I was given the complete freedom to work on different domains to help drive the sales. My day began with a market visit and interaction with the retailers, a visit to the different distributors and ended with analysing the research data to help devise a successful promotional and sales strategy for exceeding the targeted growth. On a weekly basis, I met my mentor with my analysis to have a brainstorming session on the feasibility and the viability of the strategies envisioned.
Towards the end of my internship, along with the different promotional strategies devised, I provided a holistic 360 degrees view of a Service Model for achieving higher Sales numbers which the leadership has taken cognizance of and would be implemented in parts, over the coming months.
My two months as a summer intern with Emami was an experience so enriching that it is going to stay with me forever. My interactions with the Emami leadership, our distributors and the retailers have helped me immensely in understanding the different facets to the efforts that undergo in making a product successful in this competitive FMCG industry. The past two months have given me a hands-on experience of what I learned during my first year and what I will learn in the coming few months.