Summer Internship with Donear Industries Ltd. — Lovenish from IMT Ghaziabad

Wildcard entry for: –  31st August 2012

Name of the intern: –  Lovenish Atal

Institute: – IMT Ghaziabad

Organization interned with: – Donear Industries Ltd.

I did my summer internship in Donear Industries Ltd., whose head office is located in Mumbai. The company came to my college for summer placements and their process involved shortlisting of candidates followed by an online interview. During my interview I was asked basic questions on textile industry and my knowledge about the local place. It was not more than a 10 minute interaction in which no questions from my field of study were asked; as if they would have asked me questions on my field of study, I would have given them correct answers! This made me realize that in an interview it solely depends on the interviewer what he/she might ask the candidate.

Finally a total of 10 students were selected from my college and all of us were asked to report to Mumbai head office for the orientation program. In the orientation program, we were given a brief introduction about the company and its products, along with what we were supposed to do in our internship. All of us were given different projects and had to do market research in and around our home towns. I got a project which was not directly related to textile industry, but was intended to do research about carry bags buying pattern by retailers who buy fabrics from the company. This was basically to know if the company could enter into the carry bags manufacturing sector or not!

I am from a small city, Aligarh in U.P., so I was allotted cities/towns around Aligarh. My work included going to different cities, searching for those retailers who sell fabrics/clothes and taking their responses for the questionnaire I had with me. I started with Aligarh as it was my home town and I was well aware of the shops and market where I needed to go. Finding the retailers was an easy task. But then asking them the questions and getting their reply was the toughest part which I had to do. I was not sure of where to start, I had zero confidence. But somehow I gained some courage and started the interaction with the retailers with a formal round of introduction and telling them about the purpose of my visit. After some instances where I failed to take a reply from the retailers, I gained some confidence and got comfortable in talking to them. In the process I started asking them questions written in the questionnaire I used to carry with me. The questionnaire was made by me and approved by the mentor in my company. After taking responses for the questionnaire, I started talking to the person informally which many times led to a discussion, which gave me many insights on my future aspects.

I covered a total of 13 cities and met many friends at most of the places. Most of the cities I visited for the first time in my life. I went to Aligarh, Agra, Mathura, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Moradabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi, Kolkata, Delhi and Jaipur. All the cities are very rich in their tradition and culture. I loved eating different kinds of food at every place I visited. Every place had something unique associated with it. For instance, I loved eating dal bati churma in Jaipur; on the other hand watching the crowd doing Aarti on the Ghats of Varanasi was an amazing view.

For my research, I had to visit the old and crowded markets at most of the places where people were very reluctant to talk and give any information about their shops to any stranger. This was the biggest challenge which I faced at many places, but except in a few cases, I tried to make them comfortable talking to me and made them answer my questions in one way or another. To persuade people to listen to you is an important skill required for a marketer, and I believe I have done pretty well in it during this internship. As my work required me to travel most of the time, another challenge for me was to travel in scorching heat from one place to another in buses (which were in very bad conditions) and even in trains without reservation. Except for a  few times when I got sick due to all this, the internship was a good experience.

Overall the internship has more than matched my expectations. Skills like critical analysis, time-management, organizing and communication were improved during the course of internship. I acquired new skills which will not only broaden my job prospects, but will also improve my organizational and analytical skills. I learnt to travel in such unfavourable conditions and also had a lot of exposure to the market. For a future marketer, such experiences are very important and I am lucky to get such an opportunity. Needless to say, I did what I got and I got what I liked!

FYI! You can view the latest Internships in Mumbai here.

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