Understanding My Manager!

Hey guys, I’m back to share my first few weeks experience at Dell. First of all I feel good going back to where I started my career in terms of function - marketing. However the first question is: Is marketing in banking the same as marketing in Hi-tech...Hmmm not totally the same but you need the same set of skills which I got. Understanding my manager could have been a great challenge, working with a director that has been on the job for over 15 years, perhaps his expectations should be high. Fortunately I have a good manager that understand my predicaments and knows how to express complex situation in a simple illustration. He’s a great listener and good on feedbacks. He gives weekly feedbacks on my performance. Also I had meetings with some of his team members and they shared a valuable insight on working with him.
On my project, after several brainstorming sections with my manager, I had to come up with a presentation on the project’s high level framework and weekly deliverables. I never imagined how wide the scope of my project was until I had a one on one presentation with some directors. Probably everybody has a different perception on the project. Going by everybody’s suggestion, it’s obvious the project is going to take forever. At this point I concluded that it’s important to have a strategic section with my manager on the possibility of narrowing down the scope of the project so as to be more focus.  
I made my manager see reasons why it’s necessary to be more specific on the scope of the project and he agreed with me. So I was able to identify the problem to be solved. And he came up with list of relevant people that their insight and feedback would be of value to the execution of my project. I did schedule one on one meeting with them and their response and contribution has been awesome. I have started to think of how I can build my future career around these great people.

Austin, the Great City!

My summer journey started on a sunny Sunday with a delayed flight from Detroit to Austin, I had boarded a taxi from Ann Arbor to the airport before I got Delta Airline’s text massage saying the flight has been rescheduled from 2pm to 4pm. Eventually, I had a very smooth 3 hours flight to Austin, the great city. On arriving at Austin, I moved straight to the lovely furnished apartment that Dell has secured for me and my family in a beautiful area of Round Rock, Austin. It’s about 4.4 miles to my office.

My resumption day was the following Tuesday, I was warmly welcomed to the company with a one day orientation program, where I met my recruiter, Lisa, one on one for the first time. She is such a pleasant lady. She introduced me to my manager, Roberto, during the meet the managers, who happened to be Ross alumnus. Roberto was excited about me; he gave a brief on my summer project- Marketing Investment Framework-China focus. But we spent most of the time discussing Ross because he hasn’t gone back to Ross since he left in 2000.

Dell’s working environment is new to me, coming from banking. Everything is super-automated. Roberto took me round the department introducing me to his team members and key people I will be working with. They showed knowledge and enthusiasm; and willingness to assist me on my project. I spent most of the week in series of meetings, understanding the nature of my project. We also developed a project plan that specified my weekly deliverables.

Meanwhile, I must express my excitement about Austin with the little time I have spent here. I had the opportunity to tour the city during the weekend; it’s really an awesome city. There are great bars and restaurants everywhere, good food –Italian, Mexicans and Asians to mention a few. The night life also can’t be overemphasized, Friday night was crazy! I was on the popular 6^th street with some other MBA interns, we all had fun. I can’t wait for another Friday. 

Opportunity to Change Industry

Hey, I am Patrick Ayeni, an MBA1 student at Michigan Ross School of Business. I will be spending my summer internship on marketing project at Dell within Consumer and Small Medium Business Division in Austin, Texas. This position is charged with the following responsibilities, among others: Ownership of marketing and advertising execution; Creation of brand tenets, campaigns and promotions for Dell’s various product lines across all sales channels; Measurement of the progress of the division’s results against the plan, with analysis of possible course corrections to improve business trajectory; Constantly evaluating technology, business and customer landscape.

This is an awesome opportunity to change industry while at the same time affording a great opportunity to add and imbibe some corporate values. I will be coming to the industry with a 9-year practical experience in marketing, product and business management experience in financial service institution. During this period I was able to leverage technology to improve consumers’ experience. I believe that my strong knowledge in consumers’ needs and behaviors will stand me in good stead to be successful at Dell during the internship period.

This challenging but exciting engagement will not only help me to transfer skills within industries but also across countries. However, I am envisaging a certain degree of cultural differences, coming from banking to hi-tech and also Nigeria to United States makes me a little bit nervous. Fortunately, my MAP (Multidisciplinary Action Projects) project with GE on Strategic Market Growth for Flare Gas Ultrasonic Flow meter offered me a great opportunity to learn about corporate culture in US and also prepare me ahead of marketing intern role. So I believe I should be able to hit the ground running as soon as I resume at Dell.

More Than Halfway Through!

It kinda feels like our HR staffer’s reading this blog. Within about 24 hours of my last post, I started getting staffed on projects with my preferred groups. These were not just ordinary, run-of-the-mill pitches and such - I’m talking about the more sought after live IPO and LBO deals. Now that we’re sort of over the hump of the summer internship, things are starting to gain momentum. The mid-program reviews came up during the week and while there were loads of positives, some of us realized that being strongly opinionated is a useful trait on Wall Street. I was therefore encouraged to demonstrate that I have pretty strong ideas on just about everything.

We had our volunteer day a couple of weeks ago and I went straight to the event from an all-nighter at work. I had a lot of fun as it involved all summer interns in the New York area and caught up with some old friends. The downside was that we were somehow required to return to the office (yes it was a half-day event) and I was running on empty the rest of the day.

While we investment banking interns started out meeting at local Tribeca hot spots, we’ve had to devise new ways of incorporating a social element into our demanding schedules. We now find ourselves ordering and eating dinner together while working late (making believe we're in some swanky restaurant), getting into lively debates on just about any random topic (who happens to be the strongest intern?) or trading oldies and rap tunes at 3:00 AM (anyone remember “Can’t touch this”/MC Hammer?). It might sound a bit sad, but it’s pretty much fun and we’re getting to know each other in a more unstructured manner. On the other hand networking with the full time associates and more senior bankers goes on apace during the day. 2 weeks ago, I had lunch with a very senior banker and found that our paths had crossed at a former client company of mine in Oklahoma - shows how small the world has become.

Raring to go!

I’m a first year MBA student from Nigeria, West Africa. As a background, I majored in pharmacy at undergrad, switched careers to public accounting with PwC (including a two year stint in Texas and Oklahoma) and will now be spending the summer with the Investment Banking Division of Citigroup in New York. As the more perceptive reader might be able to tell, I’m kind of interested in finance and look on the summer program as an opportunity to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – become a bona fide “master of the universe” (aka investment banker).

I’m pretty excited about the timing of my sojourn as the economy’s rebounding and I expect there’ll be many exciting deals to work on. I’m hoping fervently that on my return to Ross in the fall, I will be able to point to some major deal and say “hey, I helped to make that happen”. I also hope that I make a huge impression and secure that coveted full-time offer. The major downside lies in the fact that my chosen industry is extremely intense. For example, there is an expectation that I’ll frequently be required to work 16-20 hour week days as well as long hours on weekends. This would somewhat limit the opportunity to properly explore the good things that New York has to offer. I guess my attitude is that if all those other people can do it, so can I.

All told, I’m raring to go and “I’ve got a feeling….. that [this summer’s] going to be a good one”. I look forward to the prospect of sharing my experiences with you.