As the days for the internship reached near, I got excitement level kept increasing. I could not wait to know my location and project details. Wipro has been a systematic way, they shared the mentor details and location a month before. While I connected with my buddy and mentors to understand the culture and role, I could not stop imagining the plans I'd make with my undergrad-friends. I could not attend my engineering convocation, and this internship was an excellent chance for me to have a get-together. Being a travel-enthusiast, I had even listed down weekend gateways from Banglore and 'best places to eat'. But who knew, someone in some part of the world would have a BAT and everything would be ruined.
However, I was extremely grateful to Wipro for honouring our offers and giving us this opportunity to be a part of this memorable journey. It was overwhelming at the beginning to be part of this global organization, which went away as I slowly became part of their warm culture. And everything we learned in our first year about organization culture seemed right. Despite the virtual setup, my productivity & learning was not at all slowed down, all credit to the amazing team at Wipro who took the extra effort to onboard us. Interning as the Presales Consultant at Digital-Mobility & User Experience(MUX) BU was overwhelming, I have profoundly benefited from its cross-functional work. The Presales division’s unique horizontal structure covering all the verticals provided me with a great breadth of knowledge about the functioning of Wipro.
The team allowed me to suggest a topic of our liking, and we eventually finalised on focusing on my internship topic. I had to present a POV( point of view) on warehouses dealing in the retail industry and its scenario post-COVID-19.
Part 1 involved data collection through secondary research and getting a thorough understanding of what is the key trends in warehouses dealing with the retail industry. I had to go through close to a hundred reports to get a proper understanding of what traditional warehouses are doing and what the technologies are providing. Part 2 involved documentation of the research findings and setting up criteria for shortlisting technologies among the thousands present for in-depth analysis. Due to the time constraint of two months, my guide and I decided to stick with 4-5 coming age technologies to devise the solution. Part 3 was the most interesting where I had to make inferences from the data collected. The objective was to understand what the company is looking for and align my findings and recommendations accordingly. The final part involved a thorough understanding of Wipro’s capabilities and how Wipro MUX can collaborate with the warehouses. The major challenge that I faced during my internship was in the data collection phase as most of the data were confidential and getting real-time supply chain data was a challenge.
The valuable feedback I got from all my interactions provided me insights from experience that veterans have gathered over decades.
My key takeaways from this internship are the values of commitment, trust, and joyfulness. After having experienced the Wipro way of working, I can undoubtedly say that people are committed and motivated towards their work. But what amazed me the most was how everyone was always ready to help each other out.
Network as much as you can. People at Wipro at all levels are incredibly approachable. They used to chat with me for long hours and help me understand the organisation, their transition from services to digitalisation and stuff that are not a direct part of my scope but all of which helped me related my goals to what the organisation wanted. And they were senior folks: people with more than 15 years of industry experience. All you got to do is just drop them a mail or send a meeting request!
Preparation Strategy
While the whole grandeur of summer placements cannot be covered in a paragraph. With back to back interviews and GDs, keep yourself prepared with recent business news and new technologies in the industry.
Go through the company websites, valuations recent news, value mission and vision, and then align your personality and how it would be a perfect match for the company!