The Summer Internship Project (SIP) (working for 2 months in a company after the completion of the first year of the two-year MBA program) is an integral part of an MBA education.
For an aspiring MBA student, SIP provides a peek into the corporate culture of the company to which the student is assigned. It enables him/her to understand the dynamics of the company, key people, organization hierarchy, etc. in the course of doing a project in the company. Nowadays, in Tier 1 colleges like IIMs, XLRI, XIMB, SP Jain, etc., the monthly stipend runs into lakhs of rupees. Students typically make a bundle upon completion of their SIP.
The serious students do an SIP to secure a coveted pre-placement offer (PPO). This adds brownie points to the CV when the student sits for final placements if he/she chooses not to accept the PPO.
If they accept the PPO, the rest of their MBA studies will be devoted to honing the skills that will enable them to hit the ground running when they join the chosen corporate entity.
Most students from tier-2 and tier-3 B Schools do not have the privilege of receiving stipends at all and work for free; therefore, most look upon SIP as an extension of their summer break. Even corporations do not take much interest as they don’t have to pay anything for the services.
Way back in 1990 in XIMB, I (as a novice/tyro/an upstart with zero knowledge of corporate conundrums) did not understand the importance of fighting for a SIP through the B School, which required pitting one's wits against one's peers.
Till I joined XIMB, I, along with my family, used to travel to Hyderabad (my place of birth and my mom’s hometown) for 2 months of summer vacation.
During the summer of 1990, my mom decided not to break the tradition and wanted me to spend the summers in Hyderabad. Through an uncle’s contact, I got an internship opportunity at a liquor company (forsaking TCS, SAIL, etc.).
On the first day of my internship in Hyderabad, a Monday, I met the branch manager, a dour chap with a sepulchral expression on his face. Either it was his normal expression or maybe it was the result of binge drinking during the weekend. My eagerness took a hit when he said, in not so many words, that he considers this engagement of MBA interns a waste of time.
When I pointed out that I would be carrying out a questionnaire survey to find out why the company’s competitor Brandy was outselling this company’s Brandy in the Hyderabad market, he gave a tolerable smile, opined that he does not believe that surveys about customer preferences would be any help, and asserted that it was an exercise left to the experts sitting in board rooms to deliberate on increasing market share.
He was not convinced that brand name, brand reputation, or ease of availability played a major role in consumer preferences.
To cut a long story short, he allowed me to do the project under the guidance of a sales manager. Since they were paying a pittance (stipend), I asked for something extra, as my classmates earned 5 times the stipend I received.
He smugly permitted me to take a few bottles of beer from the freezer for my efforts, weekly (what else can one expect from a liquor company!). For a young dude hitting the bricks during summertime in Hyderabad, it was not a bad choice.
I made a questionnaire using factor analysis as the foundation and started frequenting bars and liquor shops.
The first dilemma I faced was that I did not know the difference in taste between whisky and brandy. Since I wanted to do a serious project, I made the ultimate sacrifice by sampling liquor. The first thing I did in a bar was dunk a couple of pegs of brandy, followed by a couple of whisky pegs. This little experiment of mine did not provide me with the needed insight into the two spirits, but it certainly gave me a terrible hangover!!! So much for my diligence!
After toiling through 20 smelly and grubby bars, I got nausea instead of answers to my question, namely, why do folks in Hyd drink brandy?
Persevering for a few more days, I realized that people in Hyd had the misconception that brandy is good; doctors advise, drinking it for good health (there was a brand of Doctor’s Brandy in the Hyd market!). Later on, I came to know that doctors in Europe and North America advise brandy for people, as these countries experience frigid climes. To bring colour to the cheek of a white man’s pale face, doctors advocate a small peg now and then.
But this misconception in Hyderabad (a really hot city) led to the Hyd public drinking this stuff by the gallons!
Two of my classmates were also doing their SIP during the period in a hospital of repute in Hyd. One of them (now living in the USA) was doing it in HR and used to only talk about the lovely cafeteria, which allowed her to enjoy traditional Telugu dishes with relish.
Another of my classmates (working in Gurugram now) ended up corrupting the entire computer of the hospital as the floppy disk he was using for analysis was infected by a noxious virus. Happily, networking still had not taken root; otherwise, he would have done a lot of damage not only to the hospital IT infra but also to its reputation.
Many nights I freely picked up beer bottles from the company freezer under the indulgent eyes of my manager and drank like a fish. My manager, a Malayalam gent used to look upon me with a kindly eye and would advocate sipping stronger beverages.
When I finally finished my project (after too many hangovers, I failed to count), I gave a copy of the report to the branch manager, which had suggestions regarding the top three reasons for customer’s preferences for the competitor’s brand and also suggested a few brand names for their brandy, which I felt would allow the company to compete.
The manager triumphantly announced that his company was launching a new brand of brandy in the market called A MILLION CHEERS. He further proclaimed that his brand would severely dent the sales of the competitors in a matter of weeks, as the Vice President, who had returned from Europe, had suggested the name.
As I was still wet behind the ears, as far as the liquor trade was concerned, I accepted my manager’s wisdom as being superior to market logic and congratulated him effusively.
Three months later, I read the news that the company's new brandy turned out to be a dud and that they had withdrawn the stocks from the market at a huge loss.
This was the biggest lesson from my SIP.
The customer is the king.
Every liquor company must listen attentively to its customers, whether they are sober or drunk. Decisions regarding customer preferences are not made in comfortable board rooms but in smelly bars.
That was my SIP.
Some people make mistakes and learn from them, I happen to be one of them.
Though I received an offer during my placement from a liquor giant, who felt I was happily intoxicated enough to grab their offer, I politely declined!
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