It was scorching 45 degrees on 6^th May 2019 when I reported at Bharat Petroleum’s (BPCL) depot at Mathura Oil Refinery, Mathura for my Summer Internship. After reporting to the Territory Manager, Mr. Supratim Bhattacharjee, I was asked to spend 2 weeks in Mathura for orientation & to understand the working of BPCL, it's Strategic Business Units (SBUs), work culture and other management processes.

For 2 weeks, under a BPCL officer, I got a brief idea about the different verticals at BPCL, especially about the Retail Outlets (RO) & Marketing. This marked the Phase-1 of my internship.

Post 15 days of orientation, I was assigned project at different Retail Outlets of Agra & Noida. The project included the following:

Study of digitalization at the assigned Retail Outlets of Agra & Noida (2 completely different demographics). Suggest strategies to increase the digital payments at fueling pumps of BPCL & changes to be made to remain updated with the latest cashless payment technologies,
Analyze the effectiveness of the BPCL-Kurlon scheme (a scheme initiated by BPCL in association with Kurlon for lucky draw), in increasing the sales at BPCL ROs.

My Phase-2 started under the supervision of the BPCL Sales Officer in the city of Taj Mahal, Agra. I visited the assigned ROs regularly, collected data, studied the sales pattern, consumer payment methods & other trends prevailing in the city. Phase-3 was my 4 weeks stint at BPCL Noida, wherein I followed the same pattern of studying the ROs. Additionally, I was given work to take care of digital payments installation (Paytm, PoS machines etc.) at the company’s new 8 pumps in Noida.

The internship ended on 6^th July 2019, with the presentation and submission of the report to the Territory Manager. It was a wonderful and rich learning experience for me to work at a Fortune 500 company. Constant travelling, working with government officers, meetings with the District Magistrate, interacting with customers, working in real-time scenarios and managing the allotted resources have provided me an excellent opportunity to learn and grow. In a nutshell, these 2 months have enabled me to work on the problems a company faces and find solutions for those issues by applying the learnings of class-room lectures, textbook knowledge & case studies in the real-life scenario.

Prakhar Agrawal

My Two Month Summer Internship Stint With BPCL