My project was to work in the recent VAN Project of Emami Ltd and to find out issues that encumbered the increment in the throughput of the areas under VAN Project. The VAN Project was a project initiated by Emami to increase its reach to many remote locations where the usual distribution system struggles to satiate the demand of the market. In short, a Van loaded with ready stock reaches these remote outlets, takes the order, and delivers it right at the stop. So, in a nutshell, it was a one-stop shop for retailers to get their stocks replenished without pondering upon the hardships of getting the products from distant wholesalers. A van covered a specific ‘route/beat’ every day, which had several villages and small areas, the demand of which was catered by our van.
I am sorry if I can’t explain any more about the intricacies of my internship because of the Non-Disclosure Agreement, but I’ll try my best to give you an insight on how (different) your internship can be.
Let’s be clear from the start, my internship was not just a sales internship. It was an amalgamation of Sales, Operations, and to an extent People Management as well. The route analysis was more in the lines of Operations, the throughput status in various categories of outlets was Sales, and analysing the selling traits of the Market Reporter (It’s all psychology) was People Management.
My internship required me to cover various districts of Maharashtra. I covered a majority of villages in Pune and Kolhapur district. I travelled to these remote locations 5 days a week and for the remaining two days I crunched the data collected and used statistical analysis to extract the root cause of these issues.
As in sales, performance is measured by parameters, so I started my internship by observing possible parameters, testing their efficacy in the market, analysing their impact on throughput, and then finding out a plausible recommendation to purge the blockage in throughput. I devised and tested around 15 different parameters, out of which 11 failed drastically, and only 4 gave me insights that would actually benefit the company.
Apart from what I did, I think I need to emphasize on how I did it. From sleeping in a hotel during the induction to sleeping on a bus station because autos weren’t available at 3 A.M; From booking an Uber to get to the airport to being dropped at a bus stand 20 km away from my designated bus stand because of language issues, the paradigm shift was quite visible. Yes, I felt like an agent stuck in a remote country because of the culture shock, but to be brutally honest it was worth it. There was a rush in doing all these things multiple times in a week. Remember: There’s no growth staying in your comfort zone.
So this is what an FMCG sales internship can be. Remember this though, sales is all about numbers, straightforward numbers. Brush up your Excel and SPSS skills because, without them, you feel like a deer in headlights
“Listen to the numbers and they’ll speak to you.” - Dr D.V. Ramana (Professor at XIMB)
Trust me, sales is all about ground reality. So keep an eye at the sky but make sure your feet hold on to the ground.
P.S. You feel delighted seeing familiar faces after two months. That’s an added benefit.
P.P.S. People from Uttarakhand don't have leopards and elephants as pets.
Signing out.
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