Students’ Speak: Internship allows for applying classroom learning real-world business situations and challenges

Summer internships pave way for applying classroom theoretical learning and real-world practical business problems. Abdullah Salman shares his own summer internship experience with Britannia and learning that he acquired during the internship.

Summer internship is mandatory for every student in the MBA/PGDM program. It can be considered as a part of the course curriculum, irrespective of Major or Minor in any domain such as Marketing, Sales and distribution, Operations, Human Resources, Analytics and IT systems. Good internship experience often paves the way for a successful career ahead.

Summer internship is usually compulsory across all the top B-schools. TSM, Madurai believes that it provides hands-on experience for the students after the first year of the MBA/PGDM programme and helps understand the corporate sector and the manner in which it operates. This also helps the student to get the knack of business, besides providing an insight into the ground reality of the market. It allows students to apply classroom theoretical knowledge to a practical environment where they get to dirt their hands with real-world situations and challenges.

This also helps a student identify the fields in which they want to pursue Majors or Minors in the upcoming second (final) year of MBA/PGDM program. Students also do either market study as a kind of learning or they conduct market research with the help of a mentor (company staff-member) assigned by the organization. All this while students are also working under a project mentor (professor) allocated by the college to guide and assist them on various levels.

Apart from this, a student can also undergo various live projects to know the business requirements which will further help them stand out during placements. Our college also supports and assists in off-campus placements, i.e. for attending interviews for the companies that do not visit our campus. For example, Naukri.com comes to nearby B-schools and calls for pool campus placements, so in this case, college helps in taking the interview and placement assistance.

I did my summer internship with Britannia (one of the top 10 FMCG companies in India). I was shortlisted based on my resume and the role offered to me was for sales. I was interning with Sales and Distribution division of the primary and secondary sales team wherein I was allocated a distributor in North-Chennai who served around 44 modern trade outlets and our tasks included:
- To ensure achievement of secondary sales targets by increasing revenue in Food & Beverage/Snacking segment.
- To execute Visibility Implementation & Merchandising.
- Handled stockist/distributors to align channel sales for 44 outlets in North Chennai under modern trade.
- To implement the launch of new consumer promo, trade schemes and new products.
- Represent Britannia for consumer complaints.

It was great learning and students build networks with other B-school students. At the end of the two months (eight weeks) in our summer internship, we have to submit our project report on work done during these entire two months for the purpose of grading by our college mentor and jury team.

About the Author:

Abdullah Salman M. is currently pursuing MBA in General Management from TSM, Madurai. He has 15 months of work experience as a Network Engineer. He hails from Vellore, Tamil Nadu and has previously completed BE (ECE) from Anna University, Chennai.