Flashback : Summer Intern Experience At Flipkart - Siddharth From IIFT, Delhi

A five minute five slider presentation sums it up all.
All the feelings, emotions, joy, knowledge and learning I had in the last two months. From anything to everything that I saw and experienced during this two month period was just the kind of memory everyone wishes to cherish.

The moment the journey begins and I come out of the Kempagowda International Airport at 3:00AM in half sleepy state, I am greeted with a Flintern placard bearing my name on it to take me to my hotel making it very clear from the onset that this internship would be something about the experiences and moments I would swear by. As all the interns reach the hotel, we are welcomed by a bag full of goodies.
Next morning the internship begins with all of us excited and pumped up as we reach the PW office. We go through a week long induction program in which we get to know about the company, its different B.U.s and meet all the senior management people one by one throughout the week. The well carved out induction program with details in advance about every event clearly showed the importance given to it by the company. As the induction ends, we head on to our respective BU for working on our internship project.

I was with the Ads team of Flipkart and the B.U. being not even a year old was in itself, kind of a start-up inside a start-up. I along with the other Ads intern went through a small half day induction and then went around the floor meeting people. Being a fairly new entity, the number of people was very limited and because of the huge growing opportunities in this field, there was always quite a lot of hustle bustle that was present on the floor all the time. So after all this, I met my team and had a brief description about the task allotted and then the midterm and the final goal settings.

And this is how it goes on. Working on the assigned project while attending meetings in the meantime and even product launches for the upcoming products in the market. Be it the back end work involved in the launch of the newer version of the Flipkart App or be it any day to day activities. The team lunches turned out to be more of casual meetings with a lot of brain storming done as to how to achieve the targets or either to outdo them or improve them. The weekend mails talking about the status of weekly works and about the coming week goals clearly show that everyone works with throttles full on. But among all these, to keep the place exciting, people find the catalyst that keeps them running by celebrating the birthday and anniversary of colleagues in complete college style which would suddenly attract everyone’s attention and fill the whole floor with fun, laughter and joy; giving everyone the fuel to work that extra bit more which makes the difference between companies.

Numerous meetings were held with the team members or with the Category Managers, where we learnt about the nitty gritty of the work. We went back to our rooms with a nearly everyday feedback from the mentor about our work. Simultaneously with the rest of the work, we worked on making the pitch deck for the client or gathering any intel that could help us get the client on board. Amidst all these daily chores and the work on the project the time just flew by and came the final review. A good deep interrogative review detailing the intricacies of the project first to the buddy and then a polished version of it to my Mentor concluded my internship.

This, though on an overall level, technically sums up my intern experience at Flipkart but along with all the learning and knowledge that I gained here, I made a lot of life time friends and memories that could any day bring a smile on your face whenever you remember it. The fun at the foosball table or the long discussions at the team time break about anything one could think of. The visit to the play arena or the infinite planned outings that left unexecuted everything is worth mentioning. And in the end to conclude the two months of a complete fun filled enthralling experience was the Flintern farewell party with loads of fun, music, entertainment resembling the cherry on top of a well-crafted delicacy being prepared for last two month with full attention to every details.
With this note bidding adieu to all who were a part of this journey along with me either as a rider through the tides of time or as a glider working constantly to make this small rendezvous a lasting one.

P.S.: Ab har wish hogi Puri
(You would have seen that coming for after so long a discussion about a company especially when I worked in the Ads BU)

  ---------- This article has been authored by Siddharth Tripathi, a student of MBA (IB) 2015-17 batch at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (I.I.F.T.), Delhi.