What a ride! This week marks the endpoint of my internship at Ninjacart as a city manager intern. It gives me immense pride to have worked at an organization that strives to provide a plethora of learning opportunities and a platform to work ‘on-ground’ despite these uncertain times. My four weeks at Ninjacart were a perfect blend of practical learning and on-field implementation of the same in sales, operations, people management, hiring and firing, market intelligence, and much more.
A typical day of my internship started with visiting local FnV mandi at around 4 a.m. for market analysis, managing operational processes for seamless delivery, target setting, and driving sales team for achieving targets. This was followed by meeting customers along with SEs, taking their feedback, addressing concerns, and monitoring hourly progress. The day ended with brainstorming sessions with mentors and cofounders post 10 p.m. pitching ideas, reviewing city performance, and strategic planning for the city.
All this exposure helped me delve deeper into my understanding of an unorganized, localized, and highly fragmented sector that Ninjacart is currently revolutionizing by providing tech-driven solutions to the world's toughest supply chain problem.
Apart from professional learnings, it has been an immense personal growth journey, being the only girl in the team, for the initial few days, I was nervous and hesitant, but the entire team was very welcoming and treated me like their own family member.
With a 360 degree work profile and continuous feedback from mentors, I have applied my theoretical knowledge gained in the first year of my MBA in solving real-life business challenges. Learnings in leadership, team building, delegation, monitoring, relationship management, and customer behavior are the key highlights of my stint.
I feel more confident in my decision to choose a startup over MNCs as I got a chance to take complete ownership and responsibility to deliver results and manage the city and team including planning and executing ideas from scratch.
While resilience and grit are muscles necessary for success, I wouldn't be able to learn and achieve without the people who guided and supported me throughout these four weeks.
Thanks to all that have helped along the way.
Some Important Takeaways :
- Stay organized from Day 1 and ask for feedback
Keep your mentor updated through daily/weekly reports and be open to constructive criticism. Note down hits and misses on the spot, this will help you stay organized and track your progress.
- Don’t be overwhelmed by responsibility
There was no spoon-feeding during my internship and it helped me by pushing me out of my comfort zone and held me accountable for the decisions I made. The top management always had my back and was always available whenever help was needed. Complete ownership led me to explore various possibilities to get the job done
- Give your all and don’t forget to take back too
Interact with different teams and try to get an overall picture of what the company does so as to see where you fit in best. In a nutshell, find out if this is what you really want to do.
Cheers!
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Also Read:
- Summer Internship Experience At Ninjacart | Arvind Kumawat
- Summer Internship At Ninjacart | Rahul VG, IIM Kozhikode