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.
Showing posts with label learnings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label learnings. Show all posts
Friday, July 16, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Learning and Unlearning
"Are you having fun ? What did you learn ?" the CEO asked, even before I could start my midway presentation.
I'm more than half way through my internship and often during these 7 weeks I have got the urge to do more analytical 'MBA type' stuff. The need to give business issues the form of a well laid out case and then provide an elegant solution. However, in the real world facts have a way of hiding until right after you have made the decision and then in hindsight they are all there. And more than that, although something like a conjoint analysis might be very valuable and look even better on a report, business needs might be more effectively served by a quick calculation delivered with perfect timing.
Even though picturing yourself making that all convincing strategy argument supported by incontestable facts is very satisfying, but almost never achievable in a real business scenario. As I start the last month of my internship I'm convinced the increased comfort with business ambiguity will help me propose more practical solutions to the problems I'm handling.
I would say the most important learning in this internship has been to know better when to keep the MBA in me reined in and let common sense make the call...and yes it has been fun learning that and more. A bit unsettling, but fun none the less.
Finally, as posting on this blog has also been part of the summer experience, I would use this comment to say something about the blogging assignment. When I opted for this exercise at the onset of summer I felt that this may be useful. But now I’m coming round to the view that it may be better to discontinue this exercise from the next year or make some changes at the very least. Blogging is essentially about free sharing of ideas and the less boundaries we put around it the better. Also in my view in its present form this assignment has been a distraction from what students should primarily be concentrating on - which is their internship. It may be minor but it’s a distraction none the less. More important, the internet is much too powerful a medium to waste on saying something just because you have to meet a word limit. Just my two cents… (390 words)
I'm more than half way through my internship and often during these 7 weeks I have got the urge to do more analytical 'MBA type' stuff. The need to give business issues the form of a well laid out case and then provide an elegant solution. However, in the real world facts have a way of hiding until right after you have made the decision and then in hindsight they are all there. And more than that, although something like a conjoint analysis might be very valuable and look even better on a report, business needs might be more effectively served by a quick calculation delivered with perfect timing.
Even though picturing yourself making that all convincing strategy argument supported by incontestable facts is very satisfying, but almost never achievable in a real business scenario. As I start the last month of my internship I'm convinced the increased comfort with business ambiguity will help me propose more practical solutions to the problems I'm handling.
I would say the most important learning in this internship has been to know better when to keep the MBA in me reined in and let common sense make the call...and yes it has been fun learning that and more. A bit unsettling, but fun none the less.
Finally, as posting on this blog has also been part of the summer experience, I would use this comment to say something about the blogging assignment. When I opted for this exercise at the onset of summer I felt that this may be useful. But now I’m coming round to the view that it may be better to discontinue this exercise from the next year or make some changes at the very least. Blogging is essentially about free sharing of ideas and the less boundaries we put around it the better. Also in my view in its present form this assignment has been a distraction from what students should primarily be concentrating on - which is their internship. It may be minor but it’s a distraction none the less. More important, the internet is much too powerful a medium to waste on saying something just because you have to meet a word limit. Just my two cents… (390 words)
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