I interned at the Credit Card Division of the Yes Bank. It is a relatively new and rapidly growing business division of the bank which was launched just about a year ago. The project was vital for the bank and aimed at helping in gaining larger market share coupled with more visibility for the YES Bank Credit Cards.
The main objective of my project was:
“To build a customer engagement platform for maximising the share of wallet and building a superior customer experience”
Being a novice in the banking industry, few of the first tasks I undertook were to learn about the Credit Card business, customer lifecycle, CIBIL score and competitor’s products and offers. As end deliverable, I designed a full market research that included questionnaire preparation and conducting in-depth interview of the Credit Card customers. The data from this survey was processed and analysed using various statistical methods and tools which were taught in the first year of the MBA curriculum at IIMU. SPSS workshops by Prof. Prantosh Banerjee came to my rescue and was heavily relied upon to do the calculations.
Drawing comparison from my previous work experience:
One thing that I have experienced here was the direct application of the concept that I have learned in the IIM Udaipur as a contrast to the work experience after graduation. After graduating from IIT, I have joined Oracle and there I have to learn everything from scratch. There was no direct application of the concept I learned during my graduation. But in case of my summer intern at YES BANK I have applied many concepts in my day to day work of my project. The way Market research subject was taught in the IIM and the kind of project work involved in the subject during the academics I had a clear vision and project plan from the initial days of my projects. And this direct application of academic learning into the corporate working is the main contrast that I found in IIM Udaipur.
Key Learnings that I draw out of my Internship experience:
- Professional entrepreneurship
One of the core learning was entrepreneurship in the professional environment. In the induction training program, HR explained that Professional entrepreneurship is core part of the culture of YES BANK and I thought it’s just one more jargon that is only explained in an induction program. But when I started working and slowly I realised that Professional entrepreneurship is in its DNA and I have to evolve myself to adapt to this culture of YES BANK. Many of the business verticals of YES BANK are still in a high growth phase and everything in the business unit is evolving. There is no clear procedures or defined roles for everyone instead all professionals have to act as entrepreneurs and do whatever it takes to complete a particular task.
If you want to achieve something you have to take ownership of it. For completing any task or achieving the desired result the taking ownership is important and I have to follow up with different people till the task is complete even if it’s not in my job description. I have learned the true meaning of taking the ownership while working at YES BANK that is to have the zeal to achieve the target and do whatever necessary to achieve it even if it not part of your job description.
- Harder, you work, luckier you get
A staunch believer in hard luck, my resolve became stronger post my internship. Having to juggle between the Internship on one hand and CFA level 2 exam preparations, on the other hand, the two months were some of the most strenuous of my academic and professional life. But looking at it in hindsight, I think that kept me on the edge and made me work harder. Although its too early to rate my performance as both the PPO offer and examination results are to be declared few weeks later, I would still rate them as successful because of the satisfaction level I have to post my internship
As enunciated above, juggling between the two goliaths like tasks gave me a lesson in time management. The internship PPT was on the evening of the last day of internship while the examination was scheduled for the very next day. Since I had not informed Yes Bank about the CFA examinations, the time I could muster for revision was lesser than what I would ideally have hoped for. Nonetheless, having worked hard for it over the past two months, I was reasonably confident about it and hope to come out of it with flying colours!