Fantabulous days of Internship – Week 1

Life has both ups and downs and that's really interesting. 
Without the Down's the importance of Up's won't be that significant. :)

Yipppiieee, i got selected in the 3^rd company which came for summer internship interviews. This is what i felt on January 9, 2013. But I was the last to get a confirmed start date of internship.

Ground floor of the ABCD bank's branch @Interview day 

April 4, 2013

Left to right: Aniket, Jeet, Saurabh. Pankti. Rohit

It was the first reporting date to the ABCD bank’s Mutual Fund branch. I was not the only trainee, but had company of Pankti, Aniket, Rohit, Koustubh, Jiten and Jeet. All seven of us were from Institute of Management, Nirma University. 

As per the college policies, each one of us need to undergo a minimum of 8 weeks of internship. As of now, not even 1 month have been completed, but it feels like have spend 1 whole eventful year.

On the very first day got introduced to many top notches of that ABCD bank’s Asset Management Company (AMC) based on Ahmedabad. From the past 10 days before joining, I used to take follow up with them and finally it was feel good to meet them practically. After the introduction part was over, training started. We were bombarded with jargons on the very first day. After trying hard, concentrating on what my organization guide is speaking and frequently referring to the company’s booklet (which they provided), got to understand few of the stuffs.

Second day too was filled with training session. I learned about few of the following Jargons:
1) KYC (Know your client) – lage haath khud ka bhi KYC karwa daala
2) SIP (Systematic investment Plan)
3) STP (Systematic Transaction Plan)
4) CAMSKRA, CVL, NDML, DOTX, KARVYKRA
5) NAV (Net Asset Value) – the baap of Mutual Funds theory

One more happening thing of the day was mouth-watering lunch provided by the head manager of the bank at Saasu Maa… Opppssss Saasuji’s restaurant. Gujarati thali filled with variety of stuffs. I had 3 jalebi’s too.






April 7, 2013

It’s our first Sunday after joining.Aahaa… Still got opportunity to attend a seminar organized by the ABCD-AMC on Sunday. The seminar-hall was filled with ladies and housewives who were made aware of the Mutual funds in lucid ways by an orator from Pune. The best part of the event was an example of twin sisters, one of which invested in early days of her life and the other after getting older.

On the way to Office saw one of the biggest Goat @ Law Garden

the Magical Tap from which water flows without any support  :)

April 8+9, 2013

Training was almost over and time came for practical implementation. All those time spend with six of the friends was going to be on hold. The time we spend together, laughed, PJed, gone for lunch, acted like teaching on the white board. The time came, when we would be missing all those fun and frolic. But in my life my today is always better than the past. Hence, that’s what exactly happened. 

Now the time was for practically implementing what was taught. Few of them can be mentioned as under:
1) Convincing the clients
2) Spreading awareness regarding Mutual Funds
3) All steps of KYC form filling
4) Meeting both soft and rude clients

Now I feel, what all those awareness spreading as well as sales guys use to feel. It was very exciting and challenging job. Slowly I mastered the same by making a very personal touch and improving on the ways of interaction.  One thing I would like to say, “There is no theoretical alternative to what we can experience practically”.

The next day was my birthday, which was filled with surprises……….
To be continued…

Unintentional Marketing by a Lady at McDonald's – A great learning

Just after reading the topic you might have got the overall gist of the story. A marketing blog with innovative idea by some top notch lady in the company.

But that’s not the real story.

Friday 29^th march 2013

Jyot , Bhushan and Me were on a secret marketing mission.

After completing our major agenda for the evening, we crashed into McDonald’s restaurant. Before we would have agreed upon our menus, a lady came from behind.

“Coupon redeem this that blah blah aavdi che baabdi che ek be tronn taare paase coupon che tare coupon nikadi blah blah” , said the lady (this is what I got)

(Actually by all these she meant -> Take this coupon and do your normal purchase. You will get one 'veg Pizza McPuff', which you please give back to me.)

Barobar chhe, Jyot said

I was glad that she would get a ‘veg Pizza McPuff’ for free because of us.

Moreover, the simple Indian and homely looking lady in Salwar-Suit dared to ask us. It was a great move. She seems to be little bold.

We ordered the below stuffs:
1) Mc Veggie Meal * 2 
2) Mc Chicken Meal *1

Gave the lady’s coupon at the counter and waited for the order.

Scheme of the Coupon:
As clearly visible in the picture, you will get the coupon stamped in the first purchase. Then you will get it stamped on the second with 'Veg Pizza McPuff and so on.

“From where people use to get such kind of interesting coupons?”, i said

“Don’t know yaar”, said Bhushan and Jyot in chorus

Our dinner arrived and there was a coupon on the top of it.

“Oh, they are giving it to everyone who’s having a purchase above Rs.200.”, Bhushan said

“We could have availed the offer if we would have ordered in bits and pieces.”, Jyot mumbled

“Okay guys, next time…. Lets enjoy the dinner as if now. And Before that lets find a place to sit 
where we would get the maximum ‘Nayansukh’”. ,said i

“There it is, we can have both outside and inside overview”, Jyot said

Bhushan happily handed over the ‘veg Pizza McPuff’ to the lady and we moved towards the ‘Nayansukh’ table.

“Oh my goodness. Can you see that?” , i said

“Where sipppp where sippp where sipp ??” , Bhushan taking sip of coke

“Oooo Myyyy myyyyy. It’s biggieeee” , said one of us

All our mouth-watering faces were peeping outside the window of McDonald. Our dinner menu, which we selected after so much of analysis wasn’t that much tempting. A different hunger arose…………………………

Soon a guy came and took away our prospective asset (which we were happy to just visualize without blinking our eyes).

“All our stuffs are getting cold”, i said

“Hmmmm…. These can be bought again. But not thoseeeee.. yummmmm !!”, one of us.

“Hey look the lady is still there, convincing someone”, Bhushan said

“She might redeem one or two food-items today”, i said

“Shezzz having three coupons”, Jyot said

“Ohhhhhh.. WTF”, in chorus

“She is convincing every new customer. This offer is not meant for Gujarat”, Jyot said

“Is she planning to redeem all the 15 food items?”

“I think she’ll giving party to her neighbours today”

“Whatever, she is a good marketer”. i said

“Marketer. Where the hell this came from?”

“She is ruining McDonald’s Smile card scheme”

“Okay, Just answer this question of mine. As both of you might be aware that these days we are getting coupons every now and then on enormous good and services. Say it retail, automobile, parlors  banking sector and even I remember one of my colleague telling story about discount coupon at brothel with some monthly scheme. So, do you mind looking into all the random coupons by your own?”, i said

“Well sometimes”

“No… But”

“See, your answer is not a straight ‘Yes’. That’s means you need someone to explain the stuffs. That means one or two extra employee is required for the same?”, i said

“correct”

“yuppp”

“Still you won’t listen to him/her. You might say, ‘next time’ Or some excuse. As we do not have time in this busy era for ourselves and family (forget about others). Moreover, my past job’s personal experience says, Life of an MBA students (who is having a huge dream and expectations from himself) is more hectic than of a person at job.”, i said

“What you want to convey through the example. Plzz elaborate !!”

“I mean, Look at the job that lady is doing. I am sure, she is not recruited by McDonald and it’s not their marketing strategy”, i said

“Marketing strategy… It’s a loss to the company. This scheme seems to be a kind of loyalty programme. But that lady is redeeming all the offers in a single day.”, Jyot said

“Look at it differently Jyot. Like the very famous saying at our MBA ‘Read between the lines’, I would suggest you to ‘See beyond the Visibility’. She is making others able to convince by letting them know the offer. And people are more receptive to any other customer than the employer. As they are also customers, which implies ‘A customer would relate himself/herself more to another customer’, i said

“Ohhh.. Yuppp.. : )”

“That lady is inspiring”

“That’s what I told in the beginning. The lady behind McDonald’s Smile Card scheme”, i said
 

Left to right: Lady, Bhushan , Saurabh

We finished off our food and came out of the shop. The lady was still inside convincing, explaining and gaining. 
Convincing -> Other customers
Explaining -> The Scheme 
Gaining -> Food items and self-satisfaction

I wanted to have a photograph clicked with her. At the end somehow we managed to get one while she came out once. But that was without her notice.
 
It was a great day, understanding Human Psychology and relating it to Marketing which came unintentionally. I hope even McDonald would not have thought of this kind of marketing. I would like to name this as “Customer as an Employer” Marketing. Hope this would be a new trend in the near future. Company can get benefits without actually employing and paying salary. Sometimes this could be more effective than Advertising too.

Some of you might think this as “Word of Mouth”. But in my words (I repeat) ‘It’s looking beyond Visibility’. I would prefer calling it as “Customer as an Employer” Marketing, as its more of explaining by giving live example (and not just by simply conveying). And all of us would agree to this that, a visual learning is more effective than audio (just listening).

Eye-opening industrial visit to TPL

February 2, 2013

5:00am
Alarm buzz !!
Ahhh, 5:00 only, will wake up after 2 minutes.
Alarm off…

7:00am
Alarm buzz !!
Ooo my goodness 2 minutes became 2 hours. These stuffs never use to happened during class lectures. J J
Woke-up, face wash and started finishing off the 3 hours pre-planned WAC assignment target in 1 hour. But was able to do only a part of it.

Got ready for the most awaited Industrial visit to T*****t Pharmaceuticals Limited(TPL). An opportunity, a very first of its kind arranged by Institute of Management, Nirma University in accordance with Students Advisory Committee. Although, an odd time, as next week exams are going to grill us. Still, I thought to “better live and extract of the most out of present and work for future”. Rather than “repenting in present and thinking negative of future”.

After having tasty “Uttapam with tea” at our canteen as breakfast, we rushed towards the buses arranged by the college.

There were four Industrial visits today, and ours was at TPL. It was led by our respected and youngest (don’t know the age, but atleast by heart J J ) faculty Parag Rizwani Sir.

Once the bus plighted towards the destination, Rizwani Sir started the journey with a good note after Saraswati Vandana.

“Hey guys, lets make this journey a memorable one with full of knowledge.”

We played antarakshiri with full of passion. The 45 minutes journey sounded like a picnic. Everyone sang, laughed and enjoyed like anything.

Finally we entered the TCL campus. It was an amazing feeling, lush green 268,800sqft campus, light smell of medicines and very peaceful environment. We met Rita mam and she enlightened us with the insights about the company’s history, its development and achievements. Felt like a proud Indian, after knowing this kind of advanced development (as reading so much negative about India in the newspaper, sometimes make you feel pathetic about the country).

Although, being an IT engineer the presentation sounded like jargons in the beginning. But the very next moment, all the terms were lucidly explained by mam. Few of the insights can be mentioned as follows:

 §  The company which was started by the year 1959 as Pharma Operations by Mr.U.N.Mehta in a Bunglow at Watwa.

 §  Later on in 1989, it was shifted to Indrad with manufacturing tie-up with Nordisk(a Denmark company), for Insulin formation.

 §  Raw material manufacturing started in 1992.

 §  In 2001, modernization and upgradation of formulation unit took place.

 §  Currenly, TPL had 4-5 plants in India. For example – At Sikkim for domestic supply, at Himachal for Rest of World(ROW) supply and moreover the plant which we visited was having supply to US and Brazil.

 §  Currently, it has presence in over 70 countries, Mr.Samir Mehta is the current Vice-Chairman of the company.

 §  Regarding the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), for handing fatal chemicals like cyanide.

 §  Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) team worked very efficiently taking care medical check-up of all levels of employees.

TPL, the one which we visited is having 1870 employees. It is having a capacity of producing 5000 million tablets, 500 Gelatin Capsules and 30 Insulin Vials.

I was astonished and listening to the above unbelievable data.

Now the time was to have a live and practical visit to the operations of the company. There were few small Godrej cabs. There were enormous safety and precaution measures throughout the campus. We wore doctor-like clothes (it reminded me of the last time I wore a similar kind of stuff during my school days in chemistry lab. This one was more sophisticated. Finally washing our hands with sanitizer entered into the real operation zone where were allowed to view numerous operation without glass windows. Huge Machineries, Well doctor-like dressed workers and Hygienic environment.

It was like a dream come true for me. I remember, the last time i had industrial visit some 5 years back during my engineering days. It was “Nuclear fuel complex” at Hyderabad.

Accompanied by the AGM Mr.Bharat Mehta, we were walking outside the ‘O’ zone (an open protected area where products are exposed to environment) in a corridor having both sides glass-fenced. At our left side, packaging works were going on, in closed area. At the right side, huge equipments were performing their non-stop duty.

Those were the machines which make, capsules and tablets. The answer to the following questions were getting explored in front of my eyes:
How all the tablets are of same size?
Who use to fill the powder in the capsules and close the cap?

How come the weights of all the capsules (of a particular kind) are equal?
Why there isn’t any strip of tablet, which I encountered in my small life of 24 years having 9 tablets instead of 10 (an example).
How come, packaging be done automatically?

How come a machine produce 3 lakhs tablet an hour (even when one will get tired, just counting 3000 in an hour)?

 I remember a famous dialogue as in most of the moviess. “Aaj meri aankhein khul gayi”

There were so many happenings, in that one hour tour, that which one to state and which to leave?
Finally, we came out of the operations department with lots and lots of practical knowledge and a real feel of Industrial visit.

I was so mesmerized by the overall process, that once I saw the canteen, then only I realized that I was hungry. The canteen reminded me of the canteen at my past job at TCS, Chennai.

Finally we ended our journey with a good note.

Had lots of fun during the return journey via bus and reached our very own campus.

At the end, i would like to thank everyone for the same, specially Rizwani sir (acting as a great company for us) and the officials at TPL.

Uttarayan - A colourful Kite festival @ Vibrant Gujarat

 
Online search for a new Lappy, checking out Bank forms, double-dinner, lots of committee work, little time for studies. Saturday and Sunday were utilized/spoiled undergoing all the above mentioned activities.

Here comes Monday. Today i will definitely devote most of my time studying. Got up early, took bath, gone for break-fast and successfully started with Operational Management's Boeing case.

Ooo wooo, this case is “kool” -  1^st page over, 2^nd down, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th,6^th ....

This created further eagerness to visualize a real look and feel of the same. Had seen Boeing 777 and 787 in practical life. But a thought started coming time and again that 'how Boeing 707, 717 etc would have been?'

Solution - Lets go to google baba.

tannn-taaraaaaa... Laptop opened.

Search in progress. 
Oooo, it looks antique... recapitulated that i had seen few of them in olden English movies. Wowwww…

By the way, why not do multitasking. Lets open Facebook in a new tab.

That’s it….. one hour lost simply as if just a minute passed.

Went for lunch thinking of studying more rigorously after coming back and moreover to avoid having look and feel of the subjects.

Had lunch at college mess, came back and started reading Management Information System's HSBC case.

Hardly half an hour passed

Chipkaalu saiyaan fevicol se…Knock Knock…. Chipkaalu saiyaan fevicol se…Knock Knock….

My phone rang and their was a knock on the door, simultaneously.
 Opened the door and picked the phone call.

Piyush entering, “lets go to Kite festival.”

Sakshi on the other side of phone, “lets go to Kite festival.”

“Have you met Sakshi !!”, I asked to Piyush

“hold on a second, I’ll call u back” said to Sakshi

“Hey dude, I won’t go anywhere. Already spoiled 2 days”, i told to Piyush

“Lets go buddy, we are having RBI interview, still going” Piyush replied convincingly

“Hmmmmm…”

Yo my pumpkin pumpkin suno honey bunny, tapooo tapooo.. Yo my pumpkin pumpkin suno honey bunny, tapooo tapooo..

Hello tuneeee, that’s why these days she use to pick the phone after waiting for few seconds !!

“Okay, will be joining soon”, said i

“2:30 on the front gate”

“Ya sure”, hanged off the call

We came down of hostel and started analyzing the WIP of construction area.

“JK come, we will have fun at, International Kites festival”, said i

“Who all are coming?”, asked JK

“ya, who all?” , joined Pramod

“Piyush, Sakshi, Aditi, Ashish, Pri..”, said i

“oooo-aaayyyeeee-oooo”, chorus in background

“Pritisha, me and one section B girl”,continued i

“Who?”, asked JK

“that I am not gonna reveal. You need to join us to Kite festival to have the clear picture”
all smiled

Booked two autos and reached Sabarmati Riverfront.

International Kite Festival 

Arranging Kites -> Attaching thread to it -> Able to Fly with few initial failures -> Alvida Kite due lack to thread :) :)

Buying, Bloating, Blowing -> Baasuri, Bhopu

Huge sized balloon captured on the tip of baasuri

Different festivals celebrated on the same day throughout India:

1) Uttarayan


2) Makarsakranti


3) Pongal


4) Lohri

 
As soon as we entered the food zone, there was a unanimous decision of having Kulfi. It tasted really good in that hot sunny day. 

The ice-cream in the photograph is not the real one. :) :)

Why it's called Sabarmati RIVER-FRONT ???

Left to right - Saurabh, Pritisha, Pranoti, Sakshi, Ashish

Tale of Kites

 It gave huge insights and was a boon to our knowledge bank through visual art and craft.  The designer of "Tales of Kites" does know how to grab the reader by his eyeballs.

The door behind this photograph was not real. But it looks so naturally astonishing.

All is well that ends well

The overall trip turned out to be a great memory which would be cherished for long time to come.

Vibrant photograph @ Vibrant Gujarat

Note: None of the photographs in this blog are copied. They holds author's copyright.