Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an Extraordinary Destiny
They say that when it is meant to be, it will happen only then and not before that. This is something relatable to what I was going through during the months of September- December’18. But, when it is meant to be, it will happen then and not before that. Having sat for around 4 interview rounds of companies, I was not satisfied with the kind of job profiles which were coming for a student from a finance background. I still remember the morning of 10th January’19 when I was getting ready in my formals to sit for another round of interview with a company called Lowe’s. My flatmate had the first morning lecture and so she had left the room much before me. The silence in the room was troubling me. I wanted to cry and not come back home cursing my destiny. The questions which the panel may ask me were rolling in my mind. The entire atmosphere around me was negative. But all this helped me to become stronger and be ready for the worst. But who knew that in some 2-3 hours there will be a completely different story on the other side?
Lowe's Companies, Inc, doing business as Lowe's, is an American retail company specializing in home improvement. Headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina the company operates a chain of retail stores in the United States and Canada and is Fortune 50 company. As of February 2019, Lowe's and its related businesses operate 2,220 home improvement and hardware stores and employ almost 300,000 people in North America with serving almost 18 million customers being served every week. Lowe's is the second-largest hardware chain in the United States behind The Home Depot and ahead of Menards. Globally, Lowe's is also the second-largest hardware chain, behind The Home Depot but ahead of European retailers Leroy Merlin, B&Q and OBI.
Gathering the above information about the company helped me clear the interview round and finally I had my summer internship offer letter in my hand.
I was part of the Financial Decision Support & Analytics Team and my reporting manager was Mr. Ankit Kumar Kejriwal, whose designation was that of a Senior Manager.
The goals set for me in my project were:
To understand Lowe’s retail plan and understand various financial metrics.
Analyze the USHI performance from a Regional perspective and reflect the same in MMP reporting.
Identify the variances between the old Dartboard reports and existing MMP reporting mechanism.
Build a Check tab to ensure the accuracy of the MMP reporting.
Analyze the week on week performance in terms of Sales, Margin and Comp.
USHI Financial Reporting & Analysis work – take ownership of at least one Monday morning report.
To participate in the USHI reporting during MMP.
To assist in developing a complete performance package for the executives of USA using:
Deep Dive Analysis
Financial analysis
Suggest Improvisations.
My Internship with Lowe’s was a great learning experience. Being from a CA background, I had always been exposed to core financial accounting related work. Therefore, this retail industry was very new to me and thus, after 2 months of internship, I find myself to have gained a lot from a different industry and company domain.
Disha Yagnik
PGDM-09
NMIMS Bangalore
