As the days of my internship were inching closer, I became restless to know where I would be posted for the two months. In my heart, I was hoping for Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi —and still deep inside—Goa as my job location. I was not unreasonable in dreaming so as this is a company that launches most of its new brands during international festivals at Goa. But to my misfortune, I was given a project in Udaipur. It came as a shock to me but somehow I gathered all the energy I had to venture into the unexplored territories of Udaipur. As a silver lining, I, along with my co-interns, was invited for a two-day induction program at UB City in Bangalore. The hospitality at Ramada and the Jet Airways with extra leg room over and above the salary can win hearts of most Indians and pump them up enough to work sincerely for the company. We were briefed by the Head HR of the company about the various manufacturing facilities, upcoming brands, senior leadership team and finally our projects at our respective locations. Previously I had met him during my interview for the position. I could reminisce that my interview had revolved around very simple yet conceptual topics of sales and marketing. Nevertheless, most of my interview was a casual conversation around topics of my interest and a lot of small talks. The ability to talk on any topic and extraversion are two key aspects of your personality that HRs look at while hiring for a sales role. And this was quite apparent when I met my peers from other IIMs, NM, and IMT.
My project was essentially competitor analysis of various beer brands in Udaipur district and my mentor, the North Sales Head, was located in Delhi. Except for a few visits to Delhi and Bangalore in the lap of luxury, most of my two months were spent in the scorching heat of Udaipur’s rural pockets. What seemed to be a decent mid-sized city was now a huge district with 80% of its population living in rural regions. My job was to visit the beer stores, institutions as well as retail, and gather as much information about everything possible to do a fair competitor analysis. The task was made even tougher by the highway ban of liquor sales. I use to visit and take a look at the brands available and the shelf space appropriated for UB brands at any store. Suddenly I was dealing with only rural folks and a little understanding of Marwari came out handy. After a lot of probing to shop contractors, I got a hang of the profitability of running a liquor shop in the region. I got to know the various points on which UB could bargain with these contractors and vice-versa. Heavy trade discounts were offered by brands like Carlsberg-owned Tuborg in order to capture market share while the leader UB focused on brand building and marketing. The contractors were very sensitive to price and I had the opportunity to witness these price wars first hand. I prepared a survey questionnaire and interviewed both the rural and urban consumers to get inside their heads and find out the reasons for them choosing a particular brand of beer. I also did some number crunching in order to get the market share data for various brands in Udaipur. Suddenly all the core courses of my first year were shouting in my face, “Look there, it’s me again! I told you I have got an application in business for real”.
Combining all the analysis, I created a report and a presentation to be presented before the management of UB in Bangalore. My recommendation and implementation plan were appreciated by the Country Sales Head.
I believe that Sales in any company is the vantage point from where you can get a picture of the overall working of the company. I got a hang of the tasks that Marketing is doing by visiting the stores; the availability, shortage or overstocking due to Manufacturing; use of Business Analytics on sales data for various brands; the profitability of the company by understanding the product cost structure and pricing strategies to finally calculate margins for the company; and the list is endless. Needless to say, the internship has made it easy for me to understand the second year courses. Now when I encounter any new MBA concept, it is easy for me to imagine since I have an industry and a company in my mind.