In this article, Anoop Kumar Agarwal a student of NMIMS Hyderabad who interned at Gabriel India in the Sales and Marketing Domain talks about his summer internship experience. Find out about how his onboarding process went, what his learnings are and his experiences during this internship.
Hi, Tell us about how you got selected for this internship? Take us through the moment you realized you had got the internship.
I had applied for a Sales and Marketing profile. After that, I had an interview with the panel where I was asked series of questions which includes Hygiene, Marketing, etc. According to me, it was a satisfactory interview.
After 4 days I got the mail of selection for which I felt lucky as I will be going to spend my 2 months in one the largest Automobile segment Company which has been recognized as one of the best places to work for in India. I am currently working in their Export Marketing section as a Marketing Strategist.
On joining the company as an intern, how has your onboarding experience been like?
The onboarding experience was amazing, as I was given informative sessions and a brief about the project.
How has your interaction with the team members and colleagues been like? How will you make sure to leave the best impression on your supervisors by the end of the internship?
The interaction with my team members was profound. Interacting with colleagues from diverse backgrounds not only helping me to broaden my horizons but also I am acquiring a deeper perspective of the project.I complete the assigned tasks within a given time frame, working on the problem statement where I am trying to get in-depth of it and make sure that all the objectives are met. In this way, I will be able to help the company to boost its revenue which will help them to grow their business.
Tell us in brief, about the project you are currently working on and how is this project going to help the company?
Currently, I am working as a Marketing Strategist with Gabriel India under their Export Marketing division. On the daily basis, I focus on U&A study which involves research that aims to 'understand a market and identify growth opportunities by answering questions on whom to target, with what, and how. After that, I used to calculate the sales of its competitors in various countries based on my Market research and also evaluate the technical details of the product.
This set of research will help the company in a lot of ways:
1. Company will know about its business potential.
2. Will help to increase their sales and as a result their revenue.
3. Will help to analyze them with their technical aspects of the product.
Give us an overview of how you prepared for your summer placement season.
For the summer placement season, I have revised the basics of Marketing where I had revised important points from Philip Kotler. Apart from that, I have also jotted down key points from Marketing Dossier. With reference to the interview, I have practised Hygiene questions and improved thereby revising them thoroughly. Also learned from the past experience as to what I lacked and improved it next time.
Based on your internship experience till now, what are some necessary skill sets one must be prepared with before starting an internship?
The first and foremost skill which one must be prepared with before starting an internship is Analytical skills which refer to the ability to collect and analyze information, problem-solve, and make decisions. One must be having a good command of excel as it is of utmost importance in an internship. I worked on excel during my internship where I have to analyze data based on the requirements.
Secondly, one should also be prepared with comprehension and strong Aptitude skills before his/her internship. During the internship, one should have to read long reports in less time so good comprehension should be there and strong catching power(Aptitude) is also mandatory as we have to understand the business requirements in a glimpse of time.
What are some new skills that you have developed while working in the company?
"Market Research, Strategy, and analysis" as my project revolved around these 3 points so developed these skills. Apart from that, I have also learned "how to approach senior leadership" as I was required to approach them every 2 days a week. I was also required to get "Business potential" from all around the world, which I learned."MS Excel" was also part of my project where I improved that by working in the team.
What are some of the challenges that you have faced in your internship and how have you overcome them?
Challenges-Expanding the business and understanding the potential customers was the biggest challenge in the internship. Overcome- I had done "Competitor Analysis" and "Market Research" in detail to understand the potential customers' business and mapping them with the needs of our business.
Tell us about a situation where you were complemented by your Manager for your work.
While understanding the requirements of the project, there were a lot of requirements that need to be done, so for some of the requirements, I was complimented that I should go this way to implement the same in the business. Secondly, while plotting the excel with data I was told to tweak it a little so as to align it with the business needs.
What have been your major learnings during the internship?
In my 2 months of the tenure of internship, I have learned a lot about personal and soft skills.
1. Learned how to manage time well while doing multiple tasks in a short duration of time.
2. How to approach senior leadership, whether a Manager or HR, was also part of the learning.
3. Prioritization which is of utmost importance in the corporate sector was the learning phase.
4. Enhanced Communication and networking skills as having to talk and interact with various leadership position people and colleagues of various B-schools.
5. Tool learning such as MS Excel was also a part of my project.
6. Learned about how to apply Market Research, Strategy, and analysis in real-life projects.
7. Understood the business better by deep diving into its existing strategies.
8. Focussed on business requirements by identifying the potential customers for the firm.
Tell us about your final presentation of the project to your manager in brief. What was the toughest question asked during the presentation and how did you answer it?
The final presentation involved a lot of data analysis and Market Research and strategy making. I mentioned all the relevant links and respective PDFs in the project. After continuous meetings, interaction, learnings, ups and downs in the project I finally completed my project with utmost sincerity where I presented clean and up-to-date data in excel and presented that to my mentor for which I was praised and given some heed for the future course of the journey.
The toughest question as such revolved from my project itself where I was asked about the mapping part of the customers as to which section should we allot to the particular customers and what strategy was used by me for its implication. I answered in a confident manner as I was well versed with my project where I said that I analyzed all the markets all over the world to get to know the potential customers where I focused on U&A study to identify growth opportunities and for mapping part as well where my mentor was convinced on that and praised in front of other management persons.
Some advice that you would like to give to your juniors based on your internship experience.
Some tips that I would like to give to my juniors:
1. One should be well versed with Excel as it is of utmost importance in each and every domain one opts for.
2. Communication and presentation skills should be of top priority in MBA.
3. Basics should be clear of various tools such as R, Tableau, etc.
4. Linkedin profile is a must in MBA as it gives a lot of connection opportunities and learnings.
What was one of the best moments according to you during your internship?
Though I would say Summer Internship was filled with a plethora of learnings and interaction with a diverse set of people across the country gave me an idea to think about a particular business problem from a different perspective. These were the mix best moments of my internship adding it I also got to know the different sectors (Automobile) where I talked with various stakeholders and got an opportunity to interact and present my project to the people who are in a leadership position where they were satisfied with the outcome and complimented me on a project which was well done.
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TIMELINE, PROCESS AND RULES
- You don't need to register on InsideIIM.com or on the Kampus App to take part in Summer Saga Season 8. Simply share your experiences in the Digital Diary. To maintain standardisation, every Digital Diary will have a few questions that you'll need to answer.
- Access all the Digital Diaries forms from here: Digital Diary 1 | Digital Diary 2 | Digital Diary 3 | Digital Diary 4 | Digital Diary 5
- Your overall submission will be evaluated on the following parameters:
-Completeness: This depends on the number of Digital Diaries you have filled.
-Value Addition: This depends on how in-depth your answers have been. The score for this parameter will be given by our Judges.
-Reach: This depends on how many unique people have read your internship experience once we publish the article. We maintain fair play, we will publish all the articles on the same day, so that you can also share the same in your network.
- There is also a title called, ‘Campus With The Most Interesting Interns’ that will be awarded to (a) the campus that submits the maximum number of entries and (b) the campus that submits the best quality entries (based on the score given by our judges). The minimum entries from campus to be considered for this title is 10. So, if you want your campus to win the title then make sure your classmates and other students from your b school share their experiences in this year's Summer Saga Competition.
This competition is broadly divided into four categories. Refer to the table below to know more about prizes in each category.
Prize Money
|
Category
|
|
Banking and Finance
|
Sales, Marketing and General Management
|
Operations
|
HR, Consulting and Others
|
| 1st Prize |
₹ 10,000 |
₹ 10,000 |
₹ 10,000 |
₹ 10,000 |
| Runner Up |
₹ 5,000 |
₹ 5,000 |
₹ 5,000 |
₹ 5,000 |
The 1st Prize winner will also get a one-hour 1-on-1 career guidance session with an industry stalwart, from our panel of mentors in Kounsel.
ABOUT THE JUDGES
Every year, we have Campus Managers from some of the top companies (such as Reliance, HSBC, Flipkart, ABG, HUL, TAS, etc) judging the annual Summer Saga competition. We will release the details of the judges of Summer Saga Season 8 soon!
Check out the previous year's
winners!
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Maybe this will help you reflect and recall these two months as well (which can come in handy when appearing for interviews in the future). InsideIIM is the perfect platform to chronicle your experiences, your highs, your lows and everything in between.
So guys, what are you waiting for? Start writing! You have a voice. You have the experience. Make the best of it!