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Little did I anticipate when I left the campus in March, following a nation-wide lockdown that it will extend for almost a year. Neither did my batchmates, as we all considered it to be an early vacation. This year has been tough or rather it has been very new for all of us as we had to do our summer internships virtual, from home.
Amidst the pandemic fear and the slow-down in the economy, I am very fortunate that Ford Smart Mobility honored the internship offer and provided me with consistent support throughout. Ford Smart Mobility LLC was established as a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company and is focused to design, build, grow, and invest in mobility-based services and products.
As a student specializing in Marketing, I was elated to grab this internship offer in the field of Product Development as a Marketing and Strategy Intern. I had the opportunity to collaborate with the product team and gained hands-on experience in exploring untapped marketplaces, framing the business models, and analyzing the revenue streams for the same. From estimating the TAM to devising the launch strategies, FSM gave me the opportunity and freedom to work independently across the entire product development lifecycle.
A choice between a well-developed MNC or a growing Startup has always been a difficult choice for most of the B-School students. But FSM is a mix of both. As a startup driven by an MNC, FSM gave me both the work-life balance of an MNC as well as the scope for learning that we get working in a startup. The organization had a very flat hierarchy and the entire team was very friendly and approachable. I had the opportunity to present my final project submission to the firm’s senior management at the Director level.
Post my SIP for 3 months, I was given another opportunity to extend the internship as a live-project and work on implementing my submissions as a project intern. This was like icing on the cake as I was involved in the implementation part of the business use cases, in which I had done the initial Market-Research and analyzed the competitive landscape. During this live-project, I was also involved in a Market-Study for Drone-Based Mobility solutions which were very interesting and I was even called to the office in Chennai for giving a brief presentation about it.
Ford Smart Mobility LLC, SIP experience was enriching and provided me with immense scope for learning and development. The theoretical subjects and the concepts that I learned inside the classroom were very useful and relevant. I must thank my professors at IFMR GSB for designing a curriculum that suited the current market practices and also enabled me to sustain and complete a highly-demanding summer internship. I strongly believe that the technical and functional learnings that I got from this internship experience will stay with me throughout my career.
By
Kailash Swamynathan
Second-year student of IFMR GSB, Krea University