Senior PGDBM Students Get Quizzed on their Summer Internships by Industry Professionals

For the Semester III PGDBM students of Centre for Management (CFM), Thursday was a culmination and test of everything they have learned in their three months of working at companies for their summer internships. Under the scrutiny of guest judges from top companies, the students experienced varying emotions all through the morning – nervous anticipation, the thrill of presenting their work before judges with vast corporate experience in their fields of specialization and the completely nerve-wracking experience of having to answer some very tough questions posed by the judges!

Discovering New Avenues

PGDBM Marketing students Amaad Bhati, Luv Joukani, Abhishek Dandekar and Chirag Dodeja were among the first to present their intense on-the-ground sales efforts at Mother Dairy. With a brief given to convert retail outlets selling ice cream products of other brands into outlets selling Mother Dairy ice cream, the boys picked up a lot of insights into the ice cream market, both from the retailer perspective and the end customer’s perspective. The students also discovered the immense popularity of relatively smaller and local ice-cream brands which had a fair share of the market. When queried by Sheena Kapoor, Head Innovations at Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd. (Times Group) about the unique challenge of selling a seasonal product, Abhishek noted that his major learning was to ensure one’s product is well-stocked and widely available for a sustained period of time to guarantee sales all through the year. Chirag also mentioned their recommendations to the company, which included mobilizing ice-cream cycle carts and setting up Mother Dairy retail outlets like the ones in Delhi.

After finishing their presentations, the students stuck around to support their classmates

Describing his summer internship experience at financial house PhillipCapital, Salil Rane explained that his primary objective was to procure clients and make sales. While this was a challenging task, Salil did not lose hope and kept looking for solutions. When asked by Sambit Mohanty, Business Development Manager, Dow Jones, if his recommendation of using social media to create brand awareness for a financial house made sense, Salil pointed out that social networking websites like Facebook would help the company establish itself in the mind of young people who could become potential clients 5 years down the line.

Anishi Ketan, who interned under eminent financial journalist Sucheta Dalal in the personal finance fortnightly ‘MoneyLife’, also examined the effectiveness of social media for NGOs to create awareness about their cause. “As an NGO, you need every opportunity to showcase your work and social media platforms are the best, cheapest way to do so,” she said in response to a question posed by Rizwan Khatri, Chief Marketing Officer, Jaycee Homes.

Sweet Taste of Success

The finance internees were judged by a panel comprising Ritesh Rangwalla, Research Associate (Metals & Mining), Morgan Stanley; Shweta Vyas, Business Development Manager, Barclays Wealth; Prachi Reelkar, Senior Manager, Bank of Baroda; Prof. Vikram Gaba, CEO, AVY Capital Advisors Private Limited; and Dr. Mohina Kulkarni, Director, Investrix Financial Services Ltd.

A number of students who got hands-on knowledge in marketing financial products, and got to understand processes and regulations, said they came away from their internships feeling confident. That conviction showed in their presentations and in the way they ably handled cross-questioning from a panel of seasoned finance professionals.

(L to R) Corporate judges Sambit Mohanty, Sheena Kapoor and Rizwan Khatri.

Tanvi Gada, who interned at PhillipCapital, was assigned the task of understanding its financial offerings and serving clients as per their risk and return appetites. She said the internship gave her an appreciation of how companies and clients sometimes perceive a given financial product differently. To Vikram Gaba’s question on whether she would stick to the line and if so which of her traits make her think she can, Tanvi said: “During my internship, I discovered I could pitch; I could confidently tell the client that ‘you can buy this product’.”

Khalid Memon interned with Sucheta Dalal at her publication ‘Money Life’ on the grievance redressal processes of various financial regulators – mainly RBI, Exchange Board of India and the insurance regulator. he even got published in the consumer-focused magazine, something that added to his financial writing skills. He said that a task-master and candid mentor like Dalal gave him “too much exposure and I loved every bit of it. And she got results out of us. We had a lot of interactions, for example, a meeting with the Deputy Governor of the RBI.”

Feedback from Industry Judges

After three hours of back-to-back presentations, the judges gave their feedback on how the students fared. Ritish Rangwalla appreciated that most students took on a broad canvas, in terms of thesis and macro and micro parameters to work with at the risk of it becoming unmanageable. “Those were a great set of PPTs. For students coming out of their first jobs, they did a very good job,” he said, adding that it always helps to place one’s project in the context of a macro environment.

If there was one piece of advice running as a common thread in the feedback given by all the judges, it was on matters of presentation skills. While praising the students’ communication skills, Sheena Kapoor emphasized the importance of well-structured PPTs devoid of grammatical errors and marked by clarity of thought. “In the corporate world, PPTs will keep coming up. For me, personally, picking up such skills made all the difference. My boss came to rely on me for all strategic presentations and it helped me carve a niche early on.”

All the judges urged the Semester III PGDBM students to always put their best foot forward and take full advantage of their initial years on the job. Ms. Kapoor said, “Always make that extra effort to set the standard just that little bit higher. And it goes beyond things like punctuality. Understand what your boss is doing, understand the company’s growth plans and apply yourself strategically to these plans.”

One of the judges on the Human Resources panel added, “It is incumbent on all of you to make the most out of an organization. Constantly question and challenge your assumptions. Remember that if you don’t engage, if you don’t have a dialogue, you won’t be able to communicate.”

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