You feel the luckiest when you get an opportunity related to your field of engineering coupled with the domain you are most interested in when you start your journey at a top reputed B-School. I interned at Solvay and the Project allotted was related to Market Research for the company’s product. The selection procedure started with a live case study problem related to marketing and then followed by personal interviews. Giving a brief about Solvay, it’s one of the most innovative companies coming up with advanced materials with a justifiable tagline “asking more from chemistry”, been the first partner for Solar Impulse 2 and coming up with materials to contribute in new areas such as hybrid cars and space exploration for NASA.
The first day started with the usual induction program, HR presenting about the company and then project allocation followed with the mentor details. I still remember how much inquisitive I felt about joining the corporate space for the first time since I am a fresher. This was a great opportunity to not only grow from the professional side but also as an Individual. Aligning with the work style of your mentor, deriving the best knowledge from the sources provided by an MNC, regular feedback from other guides, laying out your weekly objectives clearly along with the daily recording of your activities at the end, giving a flow to your project, would be some of the tips I will give another fellow aspirant to be on track with their goals.
My project was to estimate the market for the company’s product in Agrochemical and Pharmaceutical space which were definitely new to me, but I am glad now that I am done with the project I exactly know some of the prominent details about the industry such as import and exports process of drugs & pesticides, drug approval process, and other current trends about the sectors in India in a detailed way while finding the prospective customers for the company’s product.
There were inevitable times when I used to come up with different approaches and ended up in selecting the wrong alternatives, but my mentors always showed full faith in me and cheered me up by concluding “Even if you choose the wrong alternative- you saved someone’s else time by not trying the following approach in the future and thus there is no time wasted!”
During the last month on weekly basis, We had to connect to our counterparts including Global Head of Agro & Pharma in Europe and make them aware about the leads in the project, such meetings used to be very enriching to get a holistic view on how actually decisions are taken by management after judging their alternatives, sometimes you will see even after carefully evaluating the databases and coming up with a clear picture after applying all the useful matrix taught in the class at the current business situation- you will not see much developments but there will be times when decisions are taken on lots of factors that are not being imparted in your classrooms- “instincts” or sometimes they just call it “experience”.
I think that’s the beauty of working, there is so much to learn from every person around you at every position. They have their own story to tell you- how it worked out for them and that obviously might not be the same case for you but whatever you are doing, its been done for the first time by you so let’s make a unique way of reaching to the milestone set by someone for YOU!