What I learnt during my internship at Cloudtail -By Swayam Prabha from IIM Lucknow

Cloudtail is one of the largest sellers on Amazon. It is owned by Prione Business Services Pvt. Ltd, which has 76 per cent equity held by Catamaran Ventures and 24 per cent held by Amazon. The challenges and potential in the e-commerce industry excite me, and Cloudtail is one of the major players in India, which is why I had applied for a summer internship at Cloudtail. Here is an overview of my internship experience.

It was to be an 8-week long internship starting from April 6, 2020. Meanwhile, I kept hearing of internship cancellations by well-known recruiters. I am very grateful that I did not have to go through this unfortunate event. Cloudtail onboarding team was in constant touch with the interns about various options they were considering for the internship. The internship finally kick-started on April 20, 2020, as a work-from-home (WFH) internship.

The selection process of internship at Cloudtail

Cloudtail came to IIM Lucknow with 4 roles: Vendor Manager (VM), In-Stock Manager (ISM), Financial Analyst - Business Finance, and Financial Analyst (FPNA). The selection process consisted broadly of 2 rounds:

• Resume shortlisting

• Multiple interview rounds

The first step in selection was role-based resume shortlisting. I was shortlisted for the VM/ISM role. This was followed by 2-3 rounds of interviews. I had 2 rounds of interviews in which I was asked about my previous work experience, situation-based questions about Cloudtail’s 14 leadership principles, and some questions related to my hobbies. The final role was communicated at the time of joining and I finally made it to Cloudtail as a VM intern.

Collaboration is the new competition 

Induction was spread over one and a half days, wherein we interacted with senior leadership of Prione and Cloudtail. This included the category leaders to CEOs of both Cloudtail and Prione. The induction ended with the allotment of our projects.

An aspect worth mentioning here is the transparency, every intern was told about other projects as well so that we could collaborate and help each other. We were also told that unlike the relative grading back at college, Cloudtail has an absolute bar that one must clear for a PPO. So, the focus was on collaborating rather than competing.

Supporting team, a great mentor and valuable learnings 

I had a project mentor and buddy throughout my stint with Cloudtail. My review sessions with my mentor were very insightful and detailed, despite the internship mode being virtual. I got support and encouragement from other team members every time I asked them. I was an Excel novice when I started the internship, but now I am confident I can solve numerous problems with Excel in a few minutes.

Also, interaction with vendor representatives has surely helped me improve negotiation skills, all the while emphasizing on the accuracy of data to make a point. There is no place for ambiguous terms like 'a lot', 'significant', and 'huge jump' at Cloudtail. I was encouraged to give objective figures like a change of xx per cent in all aspects of my work.

Great companies think differently

To make the experience as it would have been if we were in office, we had frequent connections with CxOs and several training sessions on e-commerce. The campus engagement team also ensured that our stint was not all work and no play. We connected almost every week in the evening with fun activities. This has helped me to get to know fellow interns from other B-Schools which served as a stressbuster too.

No-PPT culture is another noteworthy point. At Cloudtail, processes and ideas are discussed and goals are evaluated through documents (a welcome break from so many PPTs in B-School), that is maximum 6-page long. Even for my mid-review, I submitted a 4-pager followed by data-driven annexures to back all content of my report.

At Cloudtail, things are always moving and there is so much to learn and do. It has been an amazing experience so far. As I write this, I am in week 6 of my internship, and looking forward to many more opportunities on the way as we are being given the option of extending the internship by 2 weeks if one feels the need.