Tuhin's Internship Experience At Decathlon - IIM Udaipur

But make no mistake, Decathlon was not all about playing around and having fun. I was soon assigned to Inesis & FLX department- the in-house golf and cricket brand of the company. I was expected to manage the sales for these brands for the next two months, all while working on the assigned summer internship project. That means you have to work for those straight 9-hour long shifts in which you are not expected to sit for even once (except the lunch break of course!), manage the visual merchandising of your brands, dealing with even the ‘unfriendliest’ of customers in the friendliest way possible and so on! Trust me, it was not an easy job. But yes, it made me learn sales in and out in a hard way!

Coming to my summer internship project, I was expected to develop a market development strategy for Inesis, the golf brand of Decathlon. The deliverables included developing a competitive analysis of the brand, a user analysis for Pune golfers, awareness building program for Inesis and identifying distribution network opportunities in local golf clubs of Pune. I had to find out about every golf brand available in Indian market, their price range, quality and technical details (let me know if you are looking to buy a golf set, I am kind of an expert by now!), reaching out to golf clubs, meeting local golfers, conducting surveys and what not! The best part of the project was I even got to go out and try my hands out on the game on a couple of occasions!

The best thing I liked about Decathlon? I already mentioned their awesome work culture. The other thing is their amazing focus on customer service. ‘Outservice than outsmart’ –they truly live up to their motto. Next is the freedom at work you can have. You are absolutely, and I repeat, ABSOLUTELY free to do anything to improve your brand’s business. You can set your daily pilot strategy, manage your layout format, and set your own merchandising display, anything! You are truly the owner of your brand. You are free to make as many mistakes as you can, as long as you keep learning from them.

Was there any downside? Well, as they say, with great power comes great responsibility. True ownership means you are accountable for every minute details of your layout, something as big as deciding your growth strategy to as trivial as managing cleaning work. No weekend holidays, rather being in sports retail, you will only be overloaded with work on Saturdays and Sundays. It can be very demanding at times, and you have to be really passionate to live up to it.

By the time I completed my project work and ended my tenure on May 29, 2017; I got a real hang of how sales work, how visual merchandising is taken care of in retail outlet, how a brand commercial policy should be developed and many more. Decathlon was truly a great learning experience. Add to that, I made some fantastic friends, tried my hands out on skateboarding, and played a round of golf at the prestigious local club. Overall, it was an experience of a lifetime and a very enriching one. Decathlon-Wagholi, you will be cherished forever!