"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..."
- Opening lines of "A tale of two Cities" by Charles Dickens
I wasn't quite Charles Darnay, the fictional hero of Dicken's "Tale of Two Cities" , who had spent long days in a London jail awaiting his court trial. But trust me as the 9th of April, the first day of my internship, came close I wasn't any less anxious.
It was a hot summer morning as my friend dropped me off at the HT Media Office. "So you are going to work here", she said visibly impressed by the imposing stature of the Hindustan Times House located bang in the middle of Connaught place. "Well I am just interning here currently, but someday soon enough I will", I said to her smilingly. It's funny how women get impressed by the size of the building where you work. For most guys the only thing that matters to them about their office is how far it is from a great pub!
As I walked into my office, I couldn’t help but notice the walls of the office each of which were filled with dozens of TV screens covering multiple world events. Frankly those multiple screens gave those walls some sort of an omniscient - all knowing feel that I didn’t quite like.
As I looked around the office was buzzing with activity and the crowd was stunningly diverse. There were kurta clad journos and then there were bandana clad RJs. The only dress code that I could see at this office was that there was no dress code. After waiting for a few minutes at the reception, I was ushered into the office of my Project Mentor. With a 6 feet tall frame that was clad in a Versace shirt and a visiting card that read IIT -Bombay and XLRI Jamshedpur, he was every bit impressive.
"Let’s talk about the project over lunch", he looked at me with a busy glance. Later in the afternoon, I was taken out to a hip, upmarket restaurant in Connaught Place. He spent a few minutes discussing random and varied topics. By then I had started to feel that this was probably a chill company and I am one of the lucky few who is going to have a cool boss for summers. My thoughts proved to be immature as he quickly cut to the chase. Over a rich Italian lunch he laid out my project. “Your mandate is simple, Parth". “Give me two strategic growth areas for the company.” As I snuggled in a forkful of Lassagna, I wondered what his definition of simple was. I for one couldn’t see how designing the strategic growth plan for a business of this size was going to be simple.
So there I was - A young MBA intern, all of 25 and tasked with the responsibility of defining strategic growth areas for a multi-million dollar company. I could clearly recall, the words of a senior, who always used to say - " There are two kinds of internships - "One in which the company forgets about you and kills you with boredom, and the second in which the company thinks way too highly of you and kills you with work". Mine was clearly in the latter category.
Anyhow I got down to work and the next few days were a bit of a haze as I spent long hours understanding the company, analyzing competitors and sniffing around for a break through business opportunity.
Ask any management student what does he want to do post his MBA and odds are he will say "Strategy". Unfortunately many people are not able to see beyond the glamour associated with a strategy project. The first and foremost thing a strategy guy has to do is to know everything about his competitors. As Marlon Brando said in Godfather - " Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer". And trust me it is no easy task. From stealth surveys to mining humongous databases, I spent days figuring out what our competitors are upto. Then there is the problem of multi-tasking. You have to be everything to everybody. The finance guys must be convinced that your idea is financially feasible, the marketing guys must feel that your product is God's gift to the market, the HR guys must be convinced that hiring people for this project will be simple and yes without the operations guys your idea will never become a reality. Getting the varied functional heads at the company on board was all the more difficult for me, as I was a virtual outsider in the system, Lastly the biggest problem with new product development is that there is always fine dividing line between a great business idea and a foolish business idea and no matter how good your analysis is, you are never quite sure which side of the line you are on.
Work apart, somewhere in the middle of the internship I had my photo-op moment. By then I had settled into a daily routine of wrestling with new business ideas, analysing them with Porter frameworks and spending endless nights over coffee.
As I rambled my way to the coffee kiosk, I noticed a mini crowd near the gate. Curious, I walked towards it and suddenly found myself face to face with none other than Parineeti Chopra. Her new movie “Ishaqzaade” was just releasing and as a part of the pre-release PR blitz she had come down for an interview. Graceful as ever she enquired about where I was studying and agreed to a photo-op. That’s the thing about working at a media company. You will have enough snaps with celebrities that your friends on Facebook will get tired of liking them.
Coming back to my project, I had finally spotted a multi crore business opportunity that had not een explored by the management. I then switched to the second stage of my project as I went about building a go to market strategy around my proposal. The days flew by as the D-day finally arrived and I had my review presentation with the leadership team.
Butterflies were back in my stomach as I went up to make my case to them. As expected, there were a flurry of questions on matters both trivial and important. Fortunately I was able to defend my proposals with loads of data and meticulous analysis.
With the presenattion my internship drew to a close. As I trudged back to the gate, I had one final look at the TV screen clad walls of my office.
Morgan Freeman’s memorable lines about prison walls from Shawshank Redemption whirred right back in my mind.
“These walls are funny – At first you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em and then enough time passes and you can’t live without them.”
- Opening lines of "A tale of two Cities" by Charles Dickens
I wasn't quite Charles Darnay, the fictional hero of Dicken's "Tale of Two Cities" , who had spent long days in a London jail awaiting his court trial. But trust me as the 9th of April, the first day of my internship, came close I wasn't any less anxious.
It was a hot summer morning as my friend dropped me off at the HT Media Office. "So you are going to work here", she said visibly impressed by the imposing stature of the Hindustan Times House located bang in the middle of Connaught place. "Well I am just interning here currently, but someday soon enough I will", I said to her smilingly. It's funny how women get impressed by the size of the building where you work. For most guys the only thing that matters to them about their office is how far it is from a great pub!
As I walked into my office, I couldn’t help but notice the walls of the office each of which were filled with dozens of TV screens covering multiple world events. Frankly those multiple screens gave those walls some sort of an omniscient - all knowing feel that I didn’t quite like.
As I looked around the office was buzzing with activity and the crowd was stunningly diverse. There were kurta clad journos and then there were bandana clad RJs. The only dress code that I could see at this office was that there was no dress code. After waiting for a few minutes at the reception, I was ushered into the office of my Project Mentor. With a 6 feet tall frame that was clad in a Versace shirt and a visiting card that read IIT -Bombay and XLRI Jamshedpur, he was every bit impressive.
"Let’s talk about the project over lunch", he looked at me with a busy glance. Later in the afternoon, I was taken out to a hip, upmarket restaurant in Connaught Place. He spent a few minutes discussing random and varied topics. By then I had started to feel that this was probably a chill company and I am one of the lucky few who is going to have a cool boss for summers. My thoughts proved to be immature as he quickly cut to the chase. Over a rich Italian lunch he laid out my project. “Your mandate is simple, Parth". “Give me two strategic growth areas for the company.” As I snuggled in a forkful of Lassagna, I wondered what his definition of simple was. I for one couldn’t see how designing the strategic growth plan for a business of this size was going to be simple.
So there I was - A young MBA intern, all of 25 and tasked with the responsibility of defining strategic growth areas for a multi-million dollar company. I could clearly recall, the words of a senior, who always used to say - " There are two kinds of internships - "One in which the company forgets about you and kills you with boredom, and the second in which the company thinks way too highly of you and kills you with work". Mine was clearly in the latter category.
Anyhow I got down to work and the next few days were a bit of a haze as I spent long hours understanding the company, analyzing competitors and sniffing around for a break through business opportunity.
Ask any management student what does he want to do post his MBA and odds are he will say "Strategy". Unfortunately many people are not able to see beyond the glamour associated with a strategy project. The first and foremost thing a strategy guy has to do is to know everything about his competitors. As Marlon Brando said in Godfather - " Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer". And trust me it is no easy task. From stealth surveys to mining humongous databases, I spent days figuring out what our competitors are upto. Then there is the problem of multi-tasking. You have to be everything to everybody. The finance guys must be convinced that your idea is financially feasible, the marketing guys must feel that your product is God's gift to the market, the HR guys must be convinced that hiring people for this project will be simple and yes without the operations guys your idea will never become a reality. Getting the varied functional heads at the company on board was all the more difficult for me, as I was a virtual outsider in the system, Lastly the biggest problem with new product development is that there is always fine dividing line between a great business idea and a foolish business idea and no matter how good your analysis is, you are never quite sure which side of the line you are on.
Work apart, somewhere in the middle of the internship I had my photo-op moment. By then I had settled into a daily routine of wrestling with new business ideas, analysing them with Porter frameworks and spending endless nights over coffee.
As I rambled my way to the coffee kiosk, I noticed a mini crowd near the gate. Curious, I walked towards it and suddenly found myself face to face with none other than Parineeti Chopra. Her new movie “Ishaqzaade” was just releasing and as a part of the pre-release PR blitz she had come down for an interview. Graceful as ever she enquired about where I was studying and agreed to a photo-op. That’s the thing about working at a media company. You will have enough snaps with celebrities that your friends on Facebook will get tired of liking them.
Coming back to my project, I had finally spotted a multi crore business opportunity that had not een explored by the management. I then switched to the second stage of my project as I went about building a go to market strategy around my proposal. The days flew by as the D-day finally arrived and I had my review presentation with the leadership team.
Butterflies were back in my stomach as I went up to make my case to them. As expected, there were a flurry of questions on matters both trivial and important. Fortunately I was able to defend my proposals with loads of data and meticulous analysis.
With the presenattion my internship drew to a close. As I trudged back to the gate, I had one final look at the TV screen clad walls of my office.
Morgan Freeman’s memorable lines about prison walls from Shawshank Redemption whirred right back in my mind.
“These walls are funny – At first you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em and then enough time passes and you can’t live without them.”