I was staffed on a project with ABG’s Overseas Spinning Business (OSB) in Indonesia, the functional role offered to me being that of Strategy in a business transformation project. This entailed moving to the captivating city of Jakarta (one of OSB’s manufacturing units in Indonesia is based out of Bekasi, a small metropolitan city on the eastern border of Jakarta).
A string of happy coincidences!
I majored in Textile Technology and coincidentally, I landed a stint with a textile manufacturing plant. It was fascinating to see the two worlds of theory and practicality blend in front of my eyes. Added to this was the fact that I got a flavor of two separate roles in a single internship, working in tandem with ABG and a leading consultancy on the same project, witnessing their intertwined efforts.
In a nutshell, it was fun being a part of this melting pot. Moreover, I love exploring places and the stint location was perfect to ignite the adventuresome me! Scuba diving at Thousand Islands in Jakarta, hiking in Bandung, a visit to Mt. Bromo which is an active cinder cone, feeding animals at Taman Safari and a couple of days in Singapore were some of the highlights on the personal front.
My kitty is replete with takeaways; besides the core learnings (industry and project specific), the most important value addition came in the form of enhancing my soft skills in various forms – interacting with and learning from the CXOs, working with people at different levels in a huge and complex setup plus understanding their perspectives and at the same time making them understand yours, patience in aligning people’s interests, motivations and goals, especially when two different cultures merge at the workplace, and adapting to work in a foreign culture. And the gravity of enhancing people-skills was emphasized upon time and again by the CXOs with whom I had the privilege of interacting frequently during the course of my internship. A special note of thanks to the senior management at OSB for guiding me through the nitty-gritty of the project and for their unwavering support.
I’ve had an exhilarating experience during those two months, tackling challenges along the way, interacting with the natives, learning Bahasa (the local language), exploring the fascinating Java island (being a travelling-and-adventure enthusiast, it was a boon for me!) and dealing with the maddening traffic of Jakarta.
As I flew back, a train of thoughts rushed through my mind. Figuratively, we all are peripatetic; we travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls. It makes us modest since we realize that no matter how much we know, there is always room to absorb more because it’s just a tiny place that we occupy in the whole world.
ABG offers a repertoire of opportunities and is an excellent firm to work with in the domain of General Management, for anyone who is looking to work in this role and eyeing a multifold exposure. I am bereft of words to thank ABG for not only a marvellous internship experience but also for believing in me and extending a PPO.
Undoubtedly, the past two months were the best of my MBA life.
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