The final word from Sears…

This has been the most exciting, eventful and somewhat dramatic two weeks of the internship. I am almost done with my time at Sears and it is time to wrap up and say goodbye, atleast for now.

I had my final internship presentation scheduled for the middle of last week, almost a week and a half before the end of the internship. I wasn’t certain that I would be able to work right up to the end, since my baby’s due date and my internship end date almost coincided at the end of this week, and therefore planned ahead. This foresight was invaluable! My presentation was at 3 pm on the 7th of July and three hours later, right after I got home, I went into labor!!! That was the end of completing the internship on the planned schedule. I am home recovering and going back to work for a few short days to wrap things up and complete a final performance review. It has been very rewarding to take on two very differently challenging projects at the same time and complete them both successfully.

Regarding the presentation itself, I started working on the power point at almost the six-week mark, making notes and draft power points of what I wanted to communicate. My bosses were very accommodating of the need to make a well-crafted deck and supported me in many ways such as creating a rough outline, providing detailed reviews and feedback on my analysis, setting up schedules with my audience of CFO’s and VP’s and providing overall feedback on the slide deck. I was very happy with and confident of my slide deck for the presentation and took a couple of hours going over every detail in the slides and preparing for possible questions, while rehearsing the script for my presentation.

The presentation was attended by business unit CFO’s and VP’s and also included other Finance interns for the summer. Both my managers were present. I presented my findings and left time for questions. The presentation was well-received by the audience. My manager told me I had done a good job of the presentation and of handling follow-up questions.

Working at Sears has been a great learning experience in terms of Corporate Finance, the Retail industry, good management practices and self-discovery. I am hoping that I will get an offer before the summer is up.

Hitting the mid-way mark at Sears

This week has been more challenging than most and I am glad for the weekend. I had my first performance review with my manager. It turns out Sears has an extensive performance appraisal system in place, involving the intern’s input, self-appraisal, manager appraisal and subsequent discussion with manager. I have currently completed two steps in the process and am waiting on a second meeting with my manager this coming Tuesday.

I have been given 4 new projects to complete over the next 5 weeks. One involves process improvement follow-up on my first project. The second is a weekly tracking of our vendor contribution targets for the month, involving following up with the buying team on any discrepancies from forecasted contributions. The third is a capital project request for the replacement of jewelry fixtures at a Kmart store in New York. This is a standard project for finance teams in many companies in many industries and I noticed that it is the first thing on my syllabus for ‘Valuation’ in the coming fall quarter. The last project is potentially the most impactful of all my projects. It involves the circulars / inserts in the papers that Sears and Kmart use as standard marketing strategy to incent customers to buy. There has been a company-wide initiative to reduce costs on these circulars by shifting them from Sundays to Thursdays (cadence change) thereby reducing circulation volume. A reduction in sales has been observed over the same timeframe. My task is to identify if the cadence change is the cause of the reduced sales of if there are other contributing factors. It is a strongly analytical exercise based on available data and should help me apply my problem-solving and analytical skills. It allows me the opportunity to display my strengths in this area to my manager.

I also have the opportunity to share my learnings, findings and showcase my skill-set to upper management through the final intern presentation that is due in 3 weeks. I will be doing a power point presentation for the Finance CFO’s as well as other operating business CFO’s within the company. This high level exposure should be very beneficial for me should I choose to return to work full-time at Sears.

Finally on a front closer to home, I am going to hospital twice a week for regular check-ups and fetal monitoring and so far so good!

Finance for Jewelry Retail

Hi all,

Glad to be writing in again! It has been a very exciting and challenging couple of weeks. I am close to the end of the 1st project and am gearing up toward the finishing stretch. Just to remind you, I am interning in Finance at Sears and am working to squeeze in as much as possible over the next six weeks as I have a baby coming at the end of the internship, and not much say in when she decides that will be! I have been putting in an average of two hours overtime everyday as contingency against losing time in the last couple of weeks of the internship. My team, especially the business finance manager that I immediately report to, has been extremely understanding of my need to take time off for doctor’s appointments. All in all it is shaping up to be a productive summer!

Let me tell you a little bit about my project. I work with the Jewelry business unit and one of the most important things the merchants/buyers do every year is to go into negotiations with their supplying vendors to determine fair costs of products, negotiate returns of unsold or defective merchandise and negotiate support for things like marketing, volume discounts, margin support, clearance sales etc. It is critical for them to have all the numbers relating to these items for the previous two years in order to be effective in their negotiations. My task is to figure out what metrics are most relevant to them (through conversations with all of the buying team and their leadership) and develop a comprehensive scorecard that they can refer to during negotiations. Up till now, this sort of elaborately detailed information had never been available to them in one comprehensive data source, due to the existence of multiple data entry and pull systems. While the move to better IT is something the company is working on, much of the collation of data has to currently be done by individuals like myself, in order to be useful on the ground.

I made a presentation of my work to the Senior Vice President (SVP) on Thursday in the presence of the merchant and finance Divisional Vice Presidents (DVP’s) and my Business Finance Manager (BFM). The SVP and merchant DVP were extremely appreciative of the work I have done and are very excited about taking the scorecard to market in a week, where they will finally be armed with as much or more information than their negotiating counterparts on the vendor side.

The role of the finance team in a retail set-up is to support the functioning of the business unit using financial metrics, and I think this project has definitely delivered value to the business unit in a way that they would not have been able to access on their own. I am pleased with the opportunity to create value for my team and for the fact that I have made an impression of thorough groundwork and meticulous attention to detail with my senior leadership.

Looking forward to the next project!

Preparing for the summer

MBA at Sears Holdings Corporation in Chicago

Role / Function: Finance Senior Analyst; Corporate Finance
Working closely with a business unit, advising them on decisions based on financial information.

Hi! My name is Preeta John and I am an Indian student looking forward to sharing my summer internship experience on this blog.

I come from a background in architecture/design. Working in corporate finance is going to be a paradigm shift for me. The opportunity to work in retail is definitely exciting. I perceive tremendous potential to learn about the workings of a business unit in a large corporation. Most of my past work experience has been with small to medium firms, so Sears will give me access to a radically scaled-up and structured perspective.

As an international, this is my first experience of corporate America. I am expecting to be challenged and stretched by this internship. I also see tremendous opportunities for learning and growing, and also for going beyond the requirements to provide value above and beyond expectations. I believe my diverse background can be leveraged to provide my business unit with a fresh perspective.

The biggest challenge I face is embarking on a project in new territory while expecting a baby at the end of the internship. This internship is going to be a test of my ability to multi-task, prioritize and work with extreme efficiency. Somehow I am not nervous; just certain that I am going to do both jobs well.

I have spent a lot of time in preparation – getting logistics in order, finding an apartment, a doctor and a hospital, while also preparing myself for my professional tasks. I took a semester’s worth of work in Excel and a workshop in financial modeling. I feel confident that I have the basics and know where to look for the answers to complex problems.

Wish me well! I will keep you posted.