Going international amidst lockdown for an internship at Strategy& Middle East -By Aayush Gupta from IIM Ahmedabad

0 min read

For an MBA student in Vastrapur, life can be explained by practically every adjective in the English language – but I am confident that “easy” is not one of them. Among all the changing seasons, it would not be wrong to say that the placement season is the jolliest of them all. After all the festivities of company presentations (some of them bringing an entire carnival to campus), corporate dinners, CV reviews, late-night interview preparations and buddy calls – everything boils down to a single day: The Placement Day. Based on the individual, it can be either the worst of the days or best of them. For me, it turned out to be the latter.

I remember being weak-kneed before my final interview with Strategy& for an internship. I had had two interviews already and was now the last remaining candidate for the firm. Still, as I entered the room – everything washed away. Two-thirds of an hour later, I was calling home to declare that I was going to intern at one of the big-shot names in the industry. It would not be until later that I would be asked for my preferences, and my already amazing internship with Strategy& would go international – to the Middle East.

A transnational experience from home

Months later, the novel coronavirus struck the world. With businesses closing and offers being rescinded across the country, it can be said that uncertainty was the order of the day. It was the first time Strategy& Middle East was hiring students for an internship from India – and even our seniors (the go-to source for all internship related knowledge) were unsure how things were to pan out. That being said, there was little for me to worry. The home team in Dubai made sure that we were updated on the latest happenings from the firm’s end. We were allotted informal buddies to discuss our views and lay calm to our minds. 

By the 21st of April, working from home, I was already being inducted alongside three other interns from India. Before joining in, we were equipped with all that would be needed – tools and research guidance – by the HR team. Going in, I think every one of us knew that the next eight weeks would be nothing like the otherwise mundane “lockdown days” we were having before.

For the unprepared, working from home comes with its own set of challenges. First, one cannot interact personally with others, and that makes it challenging to forge human connections – both with your colleagues and clients. Second, the digital divide affects all of us at random times. Technology, humanity’s greatest invention, is treacherous and can leave one high-and-dry at the worst of times. 

Additional loss in translation aside, one’s laptop may reset, or the internet may go out at the most crucial moments. Third, probably the worst, the “home” part in “work from home” may include anything from your mother calling you for dinner to family members roaming in the background during your presentation – none of which have been traditionally labelled as “professional”. An added challenge for me was balancing my day for the different time zones – I was interning from home, but with Strategy& Middle East.

However, all it takes to devise a strategy to overcome the most difficult of challenges is a smart mind. For Strategy&, it is in the name. Apart from having informal mentors, the firm led efforts for us to have interactions with the firm leadership multiple times. I had multitudes of Virtual Coffee Chats with my team members to get to know them better. We also had weekly meetings for updates which soon turned into catch-up sessions with small games. I, too, organised a Virtual Treasure Hunt for my entire team.

As it turned out, the other two challenges were not challenging at all. Everyone acknowledged that shaky internet and having family around as uncontrollable factors. It added more of the “human” element to the entire experience whenever we heard someone’s child playing in the background or had family walking in the video frame. The time-zone difference was a blessing in disguise, allowing me to be ready for the day even before my seniors woke up.

A mishap, a response, and an outcome

My laptop turned out to be a portal to another dimension. Each moment, I learnt more and more from people from diverse backgrounds across the globe. Since one of my projects lay at the intersection of multiple practice areas, I was not only interacting with leaders from my project, but also with internal experts from other practice areas. All the efforts were to culminate with the last client meeting. We had presented our work to the client before, and the feedback so far had been gainfully positive. But like IIM-A trains us – there is nothing certain, but the uncertain.

The stage was set, the deliverable was ready, and people from five countries joined for the meeting. The meeting flowed smoothly enough, until “the digital divide” struck. The client had a query on a piece that I was involved in, and fatefully, the internet went bad for the team member who was presenting. The silence, which would not have been longer than five seconds, felt much longer. Instinctively, I chose to answer the query for the client – leading to a fruitful discussion until the team member joined back again. I was not sure how it would be perceived, but later, that intervention was welcomed by my team members. This came to be the highlight of my experience. 

Lessons, take-aways and growth

It is said that consulting is all about the people that you work with. I was fortunate to have worked with multiple teams – all of which had people who were there to coach and support me. Not only were my ideas discussed but were deliberated and incorporated in the final deliverables. Timely feedback, life lessons and personal guidance from seniors became the key pillars of my internship experience at Strategy&. 

My internship taught me three things which I would carry throughout my professional life. First, integrating with the team. While a profession is a place where individuals come together to work – that is not the be-all in consulting. Every person has a way of doing things. Getting to know them and incorporating them in your interactions builds trust – which is essential for all the things that follow. 

Second, communicating the truth and communicating it in time. Most of us would not want to “bother” someone else with the work we’ve been given. However, acknowledging that you are facing problems opens a door for others to help you. Some people have been here for years – and if they know a workaround for something, that makes communicating your problems, nothing short of a “work-life hack”. Third, delivering value with each interaction. From the title at the top to the footnotes at the bottom, and every sentence in between – everything should carry enough weight to stand out on its own. That too, as one of my managers puts it, “in a way that a baby can understand it”.

There are things you wish would end-soon and then those which you would instead have not ending at all. Through my nine weeks, I explored new industries, had interactions with leaders which were nothing short of a masterclass and became an IIM-A’s PGP1 survivor while at it. I am sure that this was not the cookie-cutter consulting experience which people have had. But even with the lack of travel-glamour and other perks consulting entails – the organization made sure that my internship experience at Strategy& was worth it.