IMT Ghaziabad, in keeping with its culture, is a hub of constantly energetic management activity. Events, competitions, quizzes and debates culminated into the B School event of the year – Tatva, 2011 – hosted by IMT Ghaziabad.
Each year, as technology and methodologies change, they are linked to the past, in that they become better, develop further, reach higher, acquiring world class finesse.
Tatva is IMT Ghaziabad’s Summer Internship Project Report Competition. We caught up with the judges and winners. Chief Guest Mr. Subhashis Nath played the double role of judge as well. Other judges included Mr. Vishesh Chadha, Strategy Manager and Field Services, Avon Beauty Products and Mr. Sandeep Poswal National Marketing Head, Samsung Electronics.
Mr. Nath is Senior Partner & Executive Director, Axis Risk Consulting Services Pvt Ltd – a Genpact Company. As Visiting Faculty, Mr. Nath is hands on with IMT Ghaziabad and Tatva in particular. The focus was, of course internships. “It’s an absolutely delightful experience. I have been involved in the admission process and have been visiting faculty for almost 3 years. To be Guest of Honor at Tatva is really nice. Here, at Passion, IMT has students from all over the country coming in through a competitive process, and that in itself is energy charging,” he said.
For Mr. Chadha, “The experience was actually pretty nice.” He found that the students had good projects, and the methodology they used was interesting. “We did our projects 4 years ago. Every passing year, we are seeing change in the way projects are approached. They have newer methods and are using technology and logic more. If given the right grooming by the their mentors in the corporate where they are doing their summer projects, I think these guys can become very well prepared before their final placements,” he opined, sounding very positive.
Agreeing with Visesh Chadha, Sandeep Poswal added, “Absolutely. Very, very good quality of projects. Especially the way they approach industry behavior. At this point of time when they are in their second year and about to launch into careers in the industry, they are showing high levels of maturity. I am quite happy with that. Frankly I was expecting more theory than the examples they have given. The final outcome is wonderful. We are pleased with the kind of quality we have seen today.”
Talking to those quality students, we found Riddhi Sen. She is the winner of Tatva, Marketing and had her Summer Internship with Britannia. “The project was basically a brand extension for the Britannia Milk Bikkies brand. Right now the company is into biscuits. To start off with it would be launched in Tamil Nadu, so I had to go there and find out what are the other things in the nutrition sector that Milk Bikkies can get into,” Riddhi confidently said.
For Riddhi it was a ‘structured’ internship as she was working with an MNC, where guidelines are set and the scenario is professional. Mr. Nath, though is of the opinion that an unstructured internship would work really well too. Especially so when the student is self-motivated. “I might be a little unorthodox here. Obviously, the logical mind says go do it in a Unilever or a Citibank because you get phenomenal learning. But, a little entrepreneurial streak in me tells me that there is nothing better than learning things in an unstructured environment. Because ‘unstructured’ actually compels you to bring structure. It requires you to apply much more. It requires you to prioritize your time commitment, prioritize your resources, it ensures that you bring about structure, you do the goal setting, you do the prioritization of resources. You ensure that you get the maximum value of the months you spend there and the company gets the maximum value. Instead of someone else telling you what to do and how to do it, you land up being a self starter because that unstructured environment demands you to be a self starter – more than a structured environment.” He ends, making a strong case for the unstructured internship. From what he says, the learning curve is completely different when it comes to an unstructured internship.