Most people have already made up their minds as to what they want from an MBA. “I want to be a marketing professional at an FMCG company” …” I want to work at a top-notch Private Equity firm” …” I want a front-end consulting role that will give me a bird’s eye view of different businesses” …The list goes on.
As for me? I was okay with almost everything. Everything seemed interesting yet nothing made me think that this, in particular, is my career calling. When I secured an internship at Bennett Coleman and Co. (The Times Group), I was quite elated as it was a great place to understand how a large business in advertising and media with an even larger distribution channel works.
It started off with a 3-day induction in a fancy hotel – I have come to know that this is the common trend for most companies recruiting from Tier-1 colleges. I got to meet a lot of nice people who would be co-interning with me. I think the most memorable part of this phase was how friendly everybody was towards us – we were treated like family and not interns or employees. We were given some personalized goodies as well!
During my campus interview, the panellist had asked me at some point, “The job requires you to be awake at odd timings. Is that something you’re okay with?” Being a hardcore video gamer since the age of seven meant that the term ‘odd timings’ did not exist in my vocabulary. Fellow gamers will understand Dota and Counter-Strike binges till 6 A.M! Looked like sales and distribution here could be the right job for me.
Well, she wasn’t kidding. During the first month, I had to wake up at 3:30 A.M. and travel to various parts of Mumbai in order to actually see the distribution happening with my own two eyes. I’d reach by around 4:15 and scope the area. Newspaper vendors would start coming in at around 4:30 and start their daily operations. By 5:30, it was a full house and entire roads would be packed with newspaper trucks and vendors frantically running from one area to another. By 6:15, most newspapers would be on bicycles or scooters, ready to reach their final destinations. And by 7, the area would be swept clean, as if none of this all had ever happened.
The funny thing, though, is that I did not feel tired even one day during that month. I got to interact with hundreds of people in various parts of Mumbai – BCCL employees, newspaper vendors, truck drivers, delivery boys and everyone else in between – and understand a lot, not just about the business but about human behaviour and motivations in general. The second month of my internship was a lot more ‘normal’. I had to look at the data I had obtained in the past month and try to come up with possible improvements to the system.
Surely, companies this old don’t need half-MBA’s to solve their problems, I thought. However, as I put together my data points and came up with improvements with the help of people in my department, I realized the purpose of summer internships – Incremental improvements are the name of the game. As long as everybody pitches in and makes something work a little better, the business can grow as a whole.
The internship period is a two-way process where the company, as well as the candidate, can test their compatibility with each other. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at BCCL, understanding the business and interacting with so many knowledgeable people there. The company also liked me back in this case – I obtained the Best Intern Award. It was an enriching experience for me.
Write-up credits: Ramprasad Murali, MDI Gurgaon, PGPM (2018-2020)