Summer internship experience at Zensar Technologies
The Impressions Summer Internship Program is a well thought out experience that takes care of all-round development of the interns and engages them fully in the cultures, values and core competencies that each RPG group company possesses. At the end of the program, all the interns learn to live and work and laugh, in the RPG way.
The program begins with an induction program that lasts 2 days. The interns are put up at lavish hotels in Mumbai, are treated to free meals and stay (talk about pampering!). This is followed by engagement activities with the RPG group heads at RPG house in Mumbai. The engagement activities help the interns know each other better and know more about the companies that they are going to work for. Each Group head gives us his/her insights about the company, and how it adds value to the RPG group as a whole. Many friendly contests are conducted to test out knowledge about RPG and to keep the competitive spirit alive from day one. This is followed by a lavish lunch where interns get to interact directly with the group heads and ask them any questions they might have been harbouring. It is a great opportunity to know about the companies, directly from the heads. It gives the interns a perspective they otherwise, would not have had access to.
After the two days, the interns are sent off to different cities depending on the RPG Company that they will be working for. My internship was to be at Zensar Technologies, an emerging market leader in the digital transformation space. My experience in Zensar has been nothing short of stellar. I came in with a bunch of expectations and apprehensions about many aspects of the internship such as the viability of the project, the execution of my recommendations and the kind of support I would receive from my peers and superiors at Zensar. In retrospect, I can say that Zensar gave me more than I could have ever asked for. I was in for the ride of my life and it all began with a pleasantly sunny day in Pune.
My stint at Zensar started with a swift introductory session where we are made familiar with the overall organisation structure and how things work in the company. Interns were then thrown a lavish lunch where we got to interact with the who’s who of Zensar and were able to informally interact and be familiar with the people we would be working with during the next two months. After lunch, interns are introduced to their managers and “buddies” where we took stock of the task ahead of us. This marked the official start of our projects.
The word “manager” is wrongly designated, as they were more friends and guides. Help in every aspect of the project is provided to interns. Every request and suggestion is taken seriously. Zensar expects interns to perform and make sure they have the necessary tools and support to do so to the best of their abilities. Zensar truly knows how to motivate interns to bring out the best in them.
My project was about the creation and enhancement of knowledge management portal for Zensar. This project entailed cooperation and contribution of a plethora of stakeholders across the Zensar value chain. Hence, I was apprehensive about being able to communicate and cooperate with experienced managers and executives across different business units in Zensar. However, the Impressions summer internship program is carefully developed by RPG to tackle problems exactly like this that new intern’s face in companies every year.
The open culture that is imbibed and practised in every RPG Company, especially Zensar, makes it easy for interns to talk directly to managers and the concerned stakeholders without hesitation. Interns at Zensar are given the power and autonomy to make their projects their won and drive them the way they please. This is complemented with the support of all concerned stakeholders across the company which helped me progress through the goals that I had set with my manager.
Daily discussions and feedback from different departments such as IT, marketing, sales, Delivery and the like have helped me in creating a bespoke knowledge management solution for the users. After the conceptualisation of the platform and the development of the features was done, it was time for implementation of the portal.
Again, the hard work and support of my team enabled me to narrow down the technical aspects and develop them to the satisfaction of different teams. Feedback was taken after demos and workshops that were given to different employees. Many a times we had to go back to the drawing board and rethink our strategy and the feature set that we were offering. This to and fro ultimately led to a final product which was presented to the CEO and today has been deployed to beta users across the company.
One of the key attractions of the RPG Impressions summer internship program is the Arjuna Awards, where interns across all RPG group companies battle it out and the top three interns with the best projects are rewarded. This provides all interns with extra incentive to give their best during the two months as the Arjuna Awards help in weeding out the top talent in the intern pool and includes cash prizes, which are always a good bonus.
Of course, it’s not all work at Zensar. Apart from the tea breaks and the lunches with CXOs that the interns were treated to, a lavish party that was thrown for the interns on the conclusion of the Impressions summer internship program where we had our fill of fun and frolic. People and RPG know how to work hard and party harder.
Overall, it has been a wonderful Journey for me. My co-workers were supportive at every stage and I was given full autonomy in terms of conceptualization and execution. Winning the Arjuna Award and receiving recognition from Mr. H V Goenka was the cherry on the cake. These two months are filled with memories I’ll cherish forever.
