Summer Internship With Marico - Nikhil - SJMSOM, IIT Bombay

I did my summer internship with Marico in the Supply Chain function. The internship officially kicked off with me getting a mail from the HR regarding the project details and the location. My location was the corporate office in Mumbai for two complete months. Along with the above, I also received the details of a market visit that every intern in Marico is supposed to undergo before joining.  The main objective of the market visit is to ensure that the intern is able to appreciate all the aspects of the Sales system. I had my market visit scheduled on the 15^th and 16^th of March along with fellow interns of other colleges.

The market visit started with a visit to the distributor and then to different retailers. I got to know how the salesmen work and what are the various technological aids that are being used in Marico, which gives the company an advantage over its competitors. I also learnt how the billing and order management is done and how all the activities seamlessly fit into ensuring a smooth and efficient way of working. On the second day, I had a chance to interact with an Area Sales Manager in the Andheri office and also with her team. I got to learn how the different consumer/trade offers were conceptualised and was also introduced to how the R&D department works in Marico.

The official induction started on 4^th April in the corporate office of Marico. The induction was scheduled for two days and it started off with few ice breaking sessions. Post that session; interns got a chance to interact with Mr. Saugata Gupta, CEO of Marico. We learnt how the company achieved the tremendous growth that it has, the challenges faced and in brief what are the future plans for the organisation. During the latter part of the day and the second day, all the CXO’s came and interacted with the interns. It was a very valuable experience learning from the stalwarts. These interactions were very much important as it helped the interns understand the organisation, its culture and also what is expected out of each of the interns.

About the project:

My project was titled “Analytics development for production and distribution planning”. I had to come up with a process that would create dashboards, which would capture the risks associated with the production and distribution. Along with this, it also had to have the actionable insights that planners could take so as to mitigate the risks. I was also required to prepare a standard operating procedure for the same so that in future outsourcing could happen. Since this was a live project that Marico intended to implement there was a great deal of importance given. The initial few days went by with the induction into the supply chain department by my guide and other managers. One of the main challenges that I faced was with respect to deciding the scope of the project, since it was a very broad project. Another challenge that I faced was coming up with a solution that would hold true for the complete range of products for Marico.

Experiences/Learnings:

·      For someone who is an electronics engineer and then worked in the IT industry for 3 years, supply chain was completely a new experience all together. Right from getting to understand the basic structure of a supply chain to seeing how the production happened (during a plant visit to Dehradun) the whole two months was a sea of change. Understanding all this also proved to be a major challenge that I had to overcome.

·      People are always there to help and it is just a matter of asking them for help or guidance. More often than not, the managers would have already faced the same difficulties that you are facing. One should not restrict oneself to just the guide/manager but interact and learn from as many people as one can.

·       As an organisation, Marico is extremely flexible in the way it operates. There is no entry time or exit time and even an intern can come and leave the office whenever he or she deems to (but more often than not, there would be enough work to keep one in office for the complete day)

 These were my experiences with Marico. It was an unforgettable experience working with Marico and something that I shall value for the rest of my career.

The author is Mr. Nikhil Gopalakrishnan, 2nd year student at SJMSOM, IIT Bombay.