Summer Internship with Ogilvy & Mather – Toshiba Rajput from IBS Mumbai

September 10, 2013April 19, 2016 Sarvesh

Name of the intern: – Toshiba Rajput

Institute: – IBS Mumbai

Organization interned with: – Ogilvy & Mather

‘Guide in disguise’ @ Ogilvy & Mather

The desire to win the IBSAF Award for best Internship project ignited the fire in me and the search for a valuable internship opportunity began. While I was looking forward to intern with an esteemed financial institution I happened to meet a friend who referred my resume to his senior. After an interview cum interaction with the Subrojeet, the AGM of Operations department at Ogilvy Action, I was given the confirmation to join from March 12, 2013.

The day of joining I could feel myself “on pins and needles” while standing in the queue that lead the way to those six elevators that were bustling with voices of professionals wearing short skirts, cowboy bands, spiked hair and nails painted with bold colours like yellow. As I was telling myself to relax I hear a heavy voice saying ‘excuse me’, it was eleventh floor and I had to step out. The atmosphere of the waiting area was warm enough to welcome me. The wooden carpet, dim yellow lights and ‘Ogilvy’ imprinted in creative style right above the straight faced security in-charge made me smile for the first time since I opened my eyes that morning. Accompanied by Subrojeet, I was introduced to the HR and a few colleagues present around. Gaping at the long, well-lighted hall I could see rows of cubicles appearing like my study table, decorated with colourful hangings, thoughts, pictures, employees cracking jokes, some listening to music. On a whole the place was filled with enthusiasm and excitement.

My work started with meeting a vendor and to my surprise I was able to carry forward the discussion in the absence of my senior. Post-lunch all the interns on the floor had to meet Daksh Arora. Maria & I had to work under his supervision. We were asked to go through the implementation brief of Mahindra Maxximo Plus (MMP) –Tarrakki ka switch,- a rural brand activation programme for the launch of a mini-van which came with a fuel smart technology. The only words said by Daksh in the meeting were ‘Brief them with the road-show and assign tasks according to their performance’.

Project roll-out: days passed with daily targets of dealing with hard bargaining ground –staff, numerous calls, generating five detailed reports and preparing myself to answer the never ending questions of Mr. Daksh Arora. It felt like a court room and nobody was to be blamed. His expectations were to the extent of slogging in lunch hours. I always wondered, why me? The very question was always overpowered by the burning desire to win the IBSAF Award. It seemed quite challenging without hands-on experience over the financial aspects of the company despite my specialising subject being finance. It came to me as a complex task to discover a cost effective budgeting model as asked by the Vice- President. Geared up to find a solution for the problem I collected data and sat to analyse it but could not interpret relevant information to begin with. Approaching the concerned employees was the second step. Some were too occupied, many of them had negligible knowledge, and others didn’t like offering help. To my rescue and surprise came one, ‘guide in disguise’, Daksh Arora. He was an efficient manager handling operational tasks on a daily basis. Sparing an additional one hour from his schedule he took me through the vicious circle that leads to fluctuating variable expenses and impacts the budget. Providing me with the framework of ‘Operations Budgeting Model’ and wishing me luck he closed the discussion. Two weeks later following the path of analysing each element that impacted the budget and graphically representing it. We could find out major factors causing an increase in the variable expenses. The main project, MMP, was in its closing stage with analysis and evaluation was being carried out. While Maria & I were rejoicing our achievement of closing the project effectively and receiving feedback for the same, Ravi came with the news that Mahindra Rise plans to celebrate its 1 lakh sales milestone that was crossed during the project. Now I could see a big smile on Maria’s face.

May 28, 2013 – Three days before our internship was to get over, an unexpected conflict occurs with Riya, the co-intern. The origin of the argument was her continuous attempt to off-load her work on Maria initially and later on me. This issue was followed by an unprofessional behaviour by Riya at first and then a call by Mr. Daksh Arora investigating the matter. I pretended to be strong but felt cold inside. The thought of leaving such an immature impression on my senior gave me jitters all over and the confidence of winning the IBSAF Award started to diminish.

Post internship, the deadline to submit the report had approached. I cracked my knuckles while I looked at the incomplete report and began to type it holding my breath, spending hours reading and editing it. What was not known was that God had planned surprises for me and here my system crashed. Eyes wide-open, words couldn’t come out, a long silence prevailed. The only thought that helped me regain my confidence in preparing the report again was of how I was clueless about the Budgeting Model and lost hope and how Mr. Daksh offered help. With my right foot down, I sat to write the report and this time it came more appealing and enriching.

Results – unaware of the results of IBSAF Award being out I was enjoying my toast butter when I received a message from Mac, a friend, saying ‘Your name is there in the mail’. Leaving the plate aside I jumped and grabbed my laptop. It took minutes to access the mail and every second of that moment made my heart beat faster. What I could see was my name being nominated for the IBSAF Award. “Aah! I did it“, were my words filling my heart with joy. It was my reward for those two months spent at at Ogilvy & Mather and working with Mr. Daksh Arora was a blessing.