How an internship at Nestlé set me up for 4 projects and a PPO -By Akanksha Chattopadhyay from IIM Calcutta

I recount one of our BEO’s telling us, “When you leave, after completing the internship at Nestlé, we want your minds expanded by at least three times what it is today”. This is exactly what happened to me and I am sure my fellow interns feel the same way!

Nestlé is a household name in India. Like every child, my fondest childhood memories revolve around this name. We grew up with KitKat, Maggi, and Nescafé through school life up to work life. Hence, when my interview panelists told me that they would like to offer me the Sales and Marketing role for the summer internship at Nestlé, I was over the moon. It was an overwhelming moment and it filled me with a sense of pride, joy, and humility to have bagged the offer. 

A seamless induction for kick-starting the Summer Sojourn 

Right from the start, the HR team made us feel extremely welcomed and built an atmosphere of warmth and ease around us. When things took an unexpected turn around the world due to COVID-19, we did not get a chance to feel anxious because of the constant reassurance from the team at Nestlé. I admit it was heartbreaking that our batch did not get the wonderful opportunity of working at the Nestlé HO in Gurgaon and meet everyone in person. However, the HR team seamlessly onboarded us onto a virtual ‘Summer Sojourn’ which far exceeded the expectations that I had from the largest food and beverage company in the world. In a way, it was reflective of the strong values that Nestlé stands for.

Our induction process was spread across many days where we got the coveted opportunity of interacting with business leaders and learning about Nestlé, the individual business units, and how they function and gained valuable insights about the industry at large. The interactions with the Chairman & Managing Director, Mr. Suresh Narayanan and the Directors for different functions & businesses enabled us to get a perspective about the institution that Nestlé is in itself.  A fun-filled ice-breaking session was also organized for the interns and thereafter, the virtual mode could not stop us from bonding with one another. Over the course of the internship at Nestlé, we kept each other motivated and inspired through the exchange of ideas and resources. I can safely say that we all had already strongly imbibed the culture at Nestlé of growing together and being compassionate about each other.

The right mix of support and guidance

As the first week commenced, I was overwhelmed a bit by the project assigned to me and I confessed to both my guide and buddy that I did not understand a major portion of the project brief. To my pleasant surprise, both of them were particularly happy about that and rather encouraged me to pester them with questions as many times as I pleased. And that was pretty much what I did!

Everyone at Nestlé was extremely helpful and took a personal initiative in guiding us and addressing our doubts. However, our growth and learning as working professionals were ensured since there was no hand-holding and we had to independently do our end of the job to the best of our abilities. The style of working encouraged ownership of tasks to a great extent and adherence to processes to ensure the highest standard of quality of work delivered. 

A 4-in-1 internship at Nestlé

I was primarily assigned two projects as part of my internship. For my primary project, on one hand, I had to set up a working model of a Retail Sales Audit panel catering to multiple geographies within India and on the other, I was responsible for developing a social media content calendar for the brand that I worked under. Both projects involved interaction with multiple stakeholders both internal and external to Nestlé. A disciplined approach, fast pace of detailed work, and extensive guidance from my guide and buddy enabled me to be way ahead of the timeline. Consequently, my guide entrusted me with the incredible opportunity of working on two more projects. 

The third project required me to come up with SEO strategies for a brand website and e-commerce content strategies for brands across the breadth of the Dairy Business. The fourth project was an extremely exciting one which involved the identification of opportunities in the Indian market for new product development and designing concept cards post research of consumer sentiments. All the projects were quite challenging and were directed in four different directions. This enabled me to derive massive learnings across a very broad scope. 

Also, I was given the rare opportunity to present my ideas and recommendations to the entire business unit after aligning my work with the guide and Mr. Vineet Singh, Director- Dairy. The experience was truly rewarding and humbling. This also communicates volumes about how serious Nestlé is with regard to the summer internship. Giving such a massive opportunity to an intern less than a month into the internship is something you rarely see happening in any top company across sectors. It also emphasizes the fact that the projects we work on are real-time problems that the company is trying to solve and are keenly interested in looking into the solutions we come up with.

The journey from a Sales and Marketing intern to achieving a PPO

As is obvious, working on the projects exceeded my expectations with regard to learning and growth by leaps and bounds. I got introduced to concepts that I had never heard of before and got exposure to the kind of work that is done by a Brand Manager of an FMCG giant. I evolved as an individual with every passing day as I worked in collaboration with multiple stakeholders simultaneously amidst strict deadlines. I could not have imagined a better learning experience for myself.

As my internship at  Nestlé came to a close, I had mixed feelings. Partly sad, because the two months of exponential learning and exciting work came to an end but happy and grateful to Nestlé, for the incredible opportunity given to me. Nestlé made this experience even more rewarding by offering me a PPI. What followed was a long and anxious wait after the PPI until the results were declared. The very moment I received the news of being offered a PPO I was ecstatic and beaming with joy. I am now eagerly waiting to join Nestlé as a Management Trainee next year and continuing the journey of learning and growth.