Summer Internship Of A Techie Robed As An Operations Manager - IIM Indore

INTRODUCTION OF THE BUSINESS

I joined Zivaya Wellness Pvt Ltd as a summer management intern for Operations this April 2018. The firm has a retail chain of spa and therapy outlets across pan India, especially in Indore, Ujjain and Jaipur.

ADAPTATION TO THE AURA OF IIM

The journey from getting the entry ticket to the IIM and until the summers was nothing less than a roller coaster. But it's the most enriching part of one's MBA diaries. It's when you learn to adapt to the stiff competition in the campus while playing your own shots with expertise. You learn the art of surviving and foreseeing the silver lining in the crowd of intelligence.

The message of "3 Idiots" that is "All is well" really helps you to feel such. 

PREPARATION FOR THE SUMMERS

I prepared for the summers through the demonstrating sessions, mock group discussions and interviews conducted by seniors and working professionals hired by the Institute. The domain wise in-depth knowledge given by industry expert was really a helping catalyst. The sessions conducted by the Placement Preparation committee of the institute and their repositories of study materials was a driving element for the summer preparation.

Added to this, little self-endeavours and confidence with a bit of luck are enough to sail you through the hurricane. 

With the commencement of the internship period, the only popular statement from my first year PGP course that revisited my mind was "the market that seems to be bearish is taking a bullish turn soon". Thanks to our finance professors for their wonderful treat with the knowledge and exposure to security markets.

ONSET OF THE SUMMERS - STRATEGIC SELF ORIENTATION

I dedicated the first two days of my 56 days stay at the firm in observing the incumbent employees and the daily operations.

This may sound dull to certain ears, but believe me, this helps you a lot to plan as to how to channelize your efforts and ideas through the already loaded grey cells of the colleagues.

I made a blueprint of how to go about for the first 15 days with some buffers keeping in mind the reluctance that I shall face while bringing changes to the firm. Though my director cum mentor gave me a lot of liberty in planning what to do to leverage the operational efficiency of the internal system and processes, the middle management was a little lethargic.   So to draw out the bottleneck from the process, I got involved with the lower management and the bottom staffs. This is something we learnt in the Organizational Behavior paper of the HR course in the first year.

In marketing paper of the first-year MBA, we came across a very popular saying, "Features Tell, Benefits Sell".  I tried to use this as a tool. I always used to convey to the lower management the enhancement a particular change will bring to the process once it is successfully implemented. This gave me a double advantage. First, I got massive support from the lower management in successfully deploying the changes. Secondly, it helped me to save a lot of time which I would have wasted moulding the rugged terrains of the middle management who seemed to be very reluctant to the ideas of a short-lived intern. My application of "Strategic Alliance" from the Strategic Management papers of the first year really geared up the process.

DEEP INTO BUSINESS

I started contemplating on the observations of the first two business days. A major insight was that most of the means of daily work were carried over WhatsApp or via one to one call without keeping others in the loop. I devised a dashboard for the firm with separate windows for the different centres of business. I linked the admin to all the live boards and connected the corresponding managers there. It helped them to follow all the checklists, routined works, HR related issues, subsequent follow-ups and on top of all everybody was on the same page.

The company was doing a lot of paperwork like asking the visiting guests to fill up the physical declaration form and then sending it back to the head office regularly. I got it away by developing a webpage which will capture the details of the visitor using a tablet and instantly synchronize it with the central database on submission.

The company was wasting a lot of money monthly on couriers to post credit card slips, vouchers, coupons, etc and posting them back to the head office. I moved this entire concept to cloud memory where the manager will upload the docs at the end of the day. This not only kept the processes updated with the time but also stalled the scope of money laundering. My supervisor appraised me for this concept and its successful implementation. I felt very happy to realize that I was able to add value to the firm's operation. 

The company was paying a hefty fee to a Hyderabad based CRM firm monthly for project maintenance. To my utter shock, I realized that even after the director paid for the tool, it was not properly utilized. Orders were still made over phone and accounting was done manually. I linked (vendor mapping) all the incumbent vendors with their associated products on this CRM and made inventory orders mandatory using this tool. This removed mismatch and misplacing of products during transfer from warehouse to different centres. Thereby making the overall process very cost effective.

LIFE OUTSIDE ZIVAYA WORK DESK

While bringing so many rapid changes in such a short span of time, I also built up good cosy relationships with my colleagues working on other projects.   I called staffs of different centres to explain to them the new process being implemented and the synergies that would be added. I even chatted over WhatsApp post office hours in case one had any doubt. On off-days, we used to have dinner together and used to visit places on long weekends.

This rapport building helped me a lot to network and carry out my responsibilities at the workplace. 

 

After successfully completing the project, we departed with great memories and an enriching experience.

The HR concepts that never appeared appealing during the first year classes really came handy during this journey to handle various sorts of people. Situations like Abilene Paradox, Group Thinking, Devil's advocate, etc were appearing in reality.

THE GREATER REALIZATION

It was almost over a week after we left the firm, I got a call from one of my colleagues, who yelled at me in ecstasy, "Hello Arijit, How are you? Where are you? When your classes are starting? Let's meet this weekend".   I realized it was not just a stay of 56 days at the firm. It was a destined stop on the journey of life at a B-school.

Summer Internship is not about the big fish that you catch by cracking the recruitment process of a big recruiter, nor about the salary that you get during those two months, it's about utilizing the first platform where you network and manage stuff and practise for the "test innings" of corporate life which are coming up once you bid goodbye to the dreamy campus and its rosy adventures.