Featuring In The Front Page Of A National Newspaper | G Teja, VGSoM

Location: Grand Ballroom of Taj Santacruz, Mumbai | Date: 12th February 2020, 11 AM

Hundreds of MBA students, journalists and reputed industry leaders are anxiously waiting for the results of Business Standard Best B-School project competition. The competition selects crème-de-la-crème summer internship projects from top B-schools in India. My summer internship project at Titan had been selected as one of the final 5 projects that were to be showcased to the jury. All 5 of the finalists have finished our presentations and while the jury evaluates the results, the audience is asked to guess the best project.

“Teja...Titan SKINN…Teja”, the audience shout in chorus.

The jury is taking longer than expected to reveal the results and I can start to sense the feeling of butterflies in my stomach.

While we await results, let me take you through my internship experience at Titan.

The best part about working at Titan is the freedom with which people are entrusted and the amount of care that it bestows among its employees. From day 1, you are treated like an employee and less of an intern.

My internship project at Titan was to develop sales & marketing techniques for Titan’s SKINN perfume. This would involve not only the design of a solution but also validating it through implementation.

At the very start of the project, my mentor counselled, “Yours is a sales project, if your ideas are working, the sales numbers will speak for you. You have the complete freedom to come up with any idea”. My mentor supported me completely and constantly motivated me throughout my internship.

The first month: Hit the market & research extensively

I shadowed the Titan sales staff in the stores and almost donned the role of the salesperson to understand the customers.

Asking questions was my mantra to identify the solutions. I asked myself, why a particular customer behaved in a particular way, why the sales staff behaved in another way. I asked the same questions to customers, the sales staff of Titan and even their competitors. I remember an instance where a particular customer didn’t have time to answer my questions. I walked along with him until he reached the spot where he had parked his car to get my answers.

After extensive research for a month, the insights uncovered were used to develop the solutions and the implementation plan was ready.

My ability to see things “not in boxes”, has helped me to apply

• a supply chain concept to the HR recruitment problem,
• a credit cards concept for the sales staff motivation
• and HR concepts in designing various sales techniques.

The second Month: Implementation time!

There is no greater satisfaction than watching your ideas get implemented and delivering results.

I implemented 3 of my ideas for the given 3 problems and all of them were successful. The sales numbers spoke for me. I have been offered a PPI and I converted it into a PPO!

The chief panelist of the jury was about to reveal the winners of the competition. “It’s no less than a Chakravyuh”, the Chief jury commented on the strategies I had developed.

I bagged the 1st Runner up prize.

My passion for Sales & Marketing has been augmented through this experience and I am excited to begin my full-time role at Titan.