Every once in a while, we embark upon a new journey in life. Somebody has rightly said that past is for experience, future is for expectations but today is your experiment; so use your experience in your experiment to achieve your expectations. It was two months with Jubilant Foodworks, but it had taught us so many things already, right from corporate life to maintaining standards to become number one in your field. There are competitors, there are ups and downs and there are challenges, we need to fight everything.
The Company & its subsidiary operates Domino’s Pizza brand with the exclusive rights for India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The Company is the market leader in the pizza segment with a network of 1,128 Domino’s Pizza restaurants across 265 cities in India (as on January 19, 2018). Dunkin’ Donuts, a subsidiary of Dunkin’ Brands, is the world’s leading baked goods & coffee chain, selling more than 1 billion cups of coffee a year and more than 3 million customers per day. Dunkin’ Donuts sells a large variety of donuts and more than a dozen coffee beverages as well as an array of bagels, breakfast sandwiches and other baked goods.
Almost everyone started with their internship from the first week of the April, but I wished for an internship to start a bit later because I had met with a small accident and I needed some time to heal. And as fate would have it, our internship started late, due to a conference they had in Dubai. As I was the only summer intern from my institute, I started connecting with co-interns from other B-schools and as a result, we bonded well even before joining. Our internship was to start on 11
th of April, but the journey began much earlier - in search of accommodation. PG hunting was sort of an adventure, 2 days and 5 flats later, we settled with a 2 BHK flat to house the 8 of us. Success!
11
th April the first day of our office. Some of my colleagues have had corporate experience but it was the first time for me and that too in a new city. We started with donuts and coffee and unsurprisingly, had pizzas for lunch. In the afternoon we went for the office tour. After that, we had a few sessions and we got to know more about Jubilant Foodwork’s operations and marketing.
On the next day, we in a group of 2 visited the Dominos restaurant. Me and Saloni (intern from IIM Indore) visited Domino's branch of GIP (Great India Place) mall. It was very crowded. And it was my first experience behind the counter. Every other time we were on the other side of the counter ordering pizzas, eating pizzas but this time we were the ones serving. We never take into consideration how they manage to deliver the pizzas in 30 minutes to the customer's doorstep. So now we got to learn a lot in terms of what exactly happens behind the counter from taking orders to making pizzas, baking them and delivering them. We also got acquainted with the maintenance standards, the shelf life as well as the cleanliness of the place. Everything is done with proper precaution. That day I realized why Domino's pizza is number one in our country
On the 3
rd day, we visited the commissary, it is the largest in India. Where they make their doughs, donuts, and have a huge inventory plant, which is operated at about -18 degree Celsius. It was a very helpful visit in terms of understanding how Jubilant Foodworks operates on such a huge scale because the quality is the most important thing which customers expect. And the way commissary operates was amazing, you have to wash hand with sanitizer every time before entering to any room.
After that, we celebrated "the cleanest birthday" of one of our colleagues, Ms Saloni. After that, we had a few sessions on IT security, operations (six sigma) and HR policies.
In this short period of two months, I have learnt a lot of things regarding marketing, finance, operations imbibing a holistic understanding of business. I made good friends with different b-schools.
The ROXing process of Jubilant is what maintains the quality and let us understand how we can implement it in our lives:
Receiving: Restaurants receive raw materials (Doughs, paneer, onion, chicken, etc) from the commissary. Every product has a shelf life, there is entering date record of the receiving to make sure the raw materials are good to use before their expiry. The lesson from this would be to not be dejected if you miss the opportunity, just dump the negative thoughts like Jubilant dumps their expire products. There will be many opportunities coming your way, just maintain your standards (the purpose of your life) enjoy what you are doing.
Opening: Restaurants also maintain a record of the date of the opening of the products, and similar to receiving they make sure that the product is used well before the expiry date. And if expires they dump it. In your always life always "grab and open" every opportunity (take risks). You might succeed or you may even fail but you will get an experience that will be absolutely worth it. So failures are actual lessons in disguise. So remember there is success and there's experience.
Expiring: All the products have an expiry in the food business, so all the restaurants need to be careful before using the product. But everything is managed so carefully that they reduce the waste to a minimum. Keeping the inventory sufficient to avoid the wastage. In real life, we also have an expiry (something is going to end someday), but there is no expiry date for learning. We should learn from every single experience.
These are few most important points which one should bear in mind for not only internship but for working in an organisation, for college life or for real life as well
1) An innovator
2) Passionate and committed
3) A calculated risk taker
4) Focused on result
5) A problem solver
6) Resilient
7) A reflective practitioner
Be honest
Don’t panic
All the best!