Home Internship & Job Experiences What I learnt during my internship at Mahindra and Mahindra -By Somen Kundu from IIM Ahmedabad

What I learnt during my internship at Mahindra and Mahindra -By Somen Kundu from IIM Ahmedabad

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What I learnt during my internship at Mahindra and Mahindra -By Somen Kundu from IIM Ahmedabad

My internship at Mahindra and Mahindra commenced a few days back amidst the uncertainty pertaining to the pandemic. The mode of the internship was a concern at the beginning with the onset of such unprecedented times. But the GMC team at Mahindra was pro-active in handling the situation and started the internship virtually on the pre-decided date. Thanks to the digital focus of Mahindra as a group, the experience was extremely smooth right from the onboarding process to this day.

The selection procedure

Being a part of the General Management cohort, the process included 3 steps – CV shortlisting followed by an interactive game and psychometric test, group discussion (GD) and personal interview. GD topics ranged from current affairs to topics on the socio-economic impact of technology and policies. The interview was mostly based on my background and what impact could I bring to the firm, if given an opportunity.

Virtual internship protocols

The benefit of a virtual internship comes from the assurance of being safe at home and that we are all with our families during these scary times. However, I believe that being on-premise would have helped build better relationships and I could have learnt more from conversations over coffee with senior leadership.

Providing a seamless experience along with maintaining data confidentiality was the biggest challenge that was faced by most of the firms in this internship season. Much of it was sorted when we received our virtual desktops with the necessary applications pre-installed. The support from the IT team was commendable in this aspect. To keep the experience as close to the regular in-house internship, frequent leadership connects with the CxOs of the different Mahindra businesses were organized along with the weekly catch-up calls by the GMC team. Interacting with the top-level executives and staying connected with fellow interns over WhatsApp groups and calls made it a memorable and profoundly insightful experience to cherish.

Building professional relationships in times of Coronavirus

As the scope of the project was already adjusted by the GMC team at Mahindra to suit a work from home scenario, it was easier to adapt to this new way of working. I received tons of help from all the stakeholders of the project, especially from my manager, Abhishek. However, I wouldn’t deny the fact that building a more personal connection would have been better if we had an in-person interaction. But this is the closest to the best internship experience I could get in these challenging times.

Although people had tight schedules with numerous calls throughout the day, they made sure that my project is not stuck, and that I remained productive in the entire duration of the internship. Everyone, from my manager Abhishek and my buddy Karan to the CEO of my company, Ashutosh, provided ample time and added inputs to keep my project relevant in the post-COVID scenario as well. Regular follow up by Anisha, Prachi, Munira, and Jayatika from the HR team made sure that I was on the right track and didn’t face any issue with the progress of my project.

There were many smaller projects where my manager provided me with an opportunity to learn and deliver apart from the core deliverables of my project. I remember the day when I took one such project from scratch to the final stage of implementation. The joy when the team came back to me saying that the new system will make their lives simpler was incredible and brought an air of positivity and freshness in these clouded times.

Learnings garnered during the internship

To adapt to the fast-paced work environment of Mahindra was the very first thing I had to learn. Although the project was designed keeping my work experience in mind, I knew nothing about the industry when I joined the company. There were tools and terms I had never heard of, and the learning curve had to be steep to be productive as soon as possible. Interacting with the top leadership of different group companies made me learn from their vision of a post-COVID world and the impact on the sectors due to this historical event that we are experiencing.

Seeing classroom concepts being applied to the fields of marketing and operations and learning from the tweaks applied to the frameworks to suit the VUCA environment will be a few of the major takeaways from my internship at Mahindra and Mahindra.

If I had to point one major takeaway from the internship, it would be the strict values and the high customer-centricity built in the solutions proposed to the business problems. I realized the importance of Mark Levy’s line “A problem well-stated is half-solved” while working on my project as this was the sentiment that always reverberated from the team.

Edited by

Somen Kundu - IIM Ahmedabad

(Batch of 2019-21)

An Electronics and Communication Engineer from BITs Mesra, Somen has previously worked as a Software Developer at Oracle. A first-year student, he is the Placement Coordinator at IIM Ahmedabad. He likes singing and sketching portraits in his free time.

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MBA Mahindra B-School IIM Ahmedabad Internship IIM