Summer Internship with Easy Taxi – Hitesh Thakre from SIMSREE
Hitesh Thakre interned with Easy Taxi and shares learning through his life in different aspects. Hitesh is an MBA student at SIMSREE. Read on to explore his interesting story.
To start off with, I graduated from an engineering college confused about the career, nothing much to do. So I tried to burn my own hands and few others friends like me by setting up a sports academy. Somehow I figured out my passion and gathered the courage to take it to the next level but scratching our brains and devising a strategy to scale up was not that easy as we were expecting. We realised that somewhere we were wrong in our planning and execution and our 1 ½ year old sports academy bombed. I was quite distressed but the experience that I got from this venture was immense. It gave me enough courage, confidence and determination to face the challenges.
This was part and parcel of the life, failures do hurt but it teaches lifelong lessons. So, I decided to pursue MBA and went through the rigorous admission procedure. I got the admission in SIMSREE, Mumbai. Mumbai and pursuing MBA sounds good until you face the reality. Very soon after getting an admission, the procedure for summer internship started in our college. I faced the heat of the competition when companies used to refuse me. These refusals actually helped me to figure out my career path and where I want to take it. So my priority was to get selected in a company which will offer me a B2C or B2B sales which actually requires lot of field work. Due to my previous experience of sports academy I have learnt this sitting in an office and getting in to the field is altogether different ball game.
I started searching for more options which could give me this sort of opportunity. One day, I got call from the Benito Consultancy informing me about the company which has shortlisted me for the interview. The company was into mobile app business which facilitates customers to book a taxi on their mobile phones with in 5km vicinity. Before this incident, I have never heard of this that one can book a taxi on app without calling customer care. The actual day of the interview came and the operations manager informed me that the managing director would be interviewing me. The funniest part was I dressed up in all formals and saw MD in chinos on conversation calls furious about that day’s plan. Managing Director briefed me about the Easy Taxi that it is founded by Tallis Gomes; headquarter in Brazil and a Rocket Internet Venture which has heavily invested in Jabong and Fab Furnish in India. The Easy Taxi first was launched in Mumbai in January, 2014. After listening to his brief, I got comfortable since it is a start up; I will have lot of responsibilities which is what I really wanted.
After all the formal conversation with the managing director, he asked me to go on the field with senior sales manager. I was dumbstruck whether to celebrate or cry on my fate, I couldn’t celebrate because there is no formal conversation about the selection and I couldn’t express my anxiety because I was under the probation of Senior Sales Manager. I was on field on the first day of my internship, all the glorified dream of talking to the customers crushed when I came to know that our customers are Mumbai City’s Taxi Drivers (It was hard to digest). The sales manger understood my notions and I also realised it is going to be very hard day on the field. He showed me how to greet drivers, how to build rapport with them and most importantly how not to irritate them. As the day went on I had gone Airport To Wadala, Wadala To Borivali, Borivali To Bhayander and then finally Bhayander To Mira Road. You can imagine the situation how difficult it was in the scorching heat of Mumbai in April. At the end of the first day the one thing that gave me immense pleasure and satisfaction is on the first day itself I have learnt the trick how to talk to the drivers and how to get into their nerves. All said and done, I went back to my place with sales manager giving me a small treat at Mac Donald’s without realising the fact I was not yet got the confirmation letter for the internship. As soon as I reached my place, I was fast asleep due to very tiring day; with little hope I tried to sleep but I got the call from an unknown number realised that he was managing director of Easy Taxi. Finally, he gave me the good news that he has selected me for an internship for the period of 2 ½ months after few moments I got the confirmation email as well with all details (Most important detail:-STIPEND!!!!!). In the moment of excitement and joy I have completely forgot that I was tired and stupendous set of responsibilities coming way. Hence I was officially got selected for the internship from 15th April, 2014 to 30th June, 2014.
I have started my first day of the internship by joining the conversation call at 9:30 am. The MD asked me to request the rides through our application and take feedbacks of our drivers those who are working with us just by being the customer. For the first week I was roaming in Mumbai in private AC fleets and taking feedbacks. I completely enjoyed this part of the internship; it was fascinating not being mumbaikar enjoying the traffic, various localities, food; etc. After the first week I asked to be on the field and I was given the weekly targets. This made me realise that the game has just only began. I will be honest I never completed my weekly target for the 2 weeks but I think the organisation wanted to test my temperament. I developed few tricks after having enough experience for 2 weeks so to build the rapport with the drivers. After 2 weeks I got comfortable while talking to the drivers and explaining them how would the application help them to increase the revenue.
The internship in Easy Taxi was not at all about hectic schedules and pressurized working atmosphere but it was also about team meetings at Hakkasan, Sanchos, 3 Wise Monkey and birthday celebrations. It was the experience I was waiting to die for a good working atmosphere, competitiveness, and challenges and most importantly team members standing for each other (How can I forget about the Food that I enjoyed at various places). During the period 2 ½ months of internship, I worn the different hats of responsibilities such as converting private fleet drivers into easy taxi drivers, training the drivers how to use the applications and testing the latest mobile versions of easy taxi mobile application and devise the strategy for incentivizing drivers for their accepted rides.
The most cherished part of the internship was when the senior management believed in my capabilities to lead the team of 8 promoters. When I actually took responsibility of leading the team of promoters that means I would be responsible for their performance and making sure that they are much disciplined; I realised it is toughest job to manage people. It helped to learn leadership qualities, decision making, importance of team work and how to execute and implement certain plans.
The experience of internship in easy taxi helped to get rid of fear of failures and gave me enough courage to stick to our plans. Finally the last day came on 30th June, 2014; I had a mixed feeling I got attached to the organisation may be because best people to work with or may be because I loved challenges whatever it was I enjoyed each and every moment in Easy Taxi. Few of the final moment that I will always cherish in my life is the farewell party at Masala Library, BKC ,Fossil wallet as a gift from the organisation and to be on top of list for achieving the targets.
“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not attainment. Full effort is full victory.”
-Mahatama Gandhi
If Kinjal’s experience motivates you, you can view the latest internship in Mumbai.
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