Internship last 3 weeks

So the very creative title says it all, I'm almost done with my internship. These days, I'm working on tying up loose ends and organizing the mass of information generated during the internship. Also, I’m creating a presentation that can effectively sum up 3 months of work in 1 hour and yet not miss the important details. There is still some time to go (about 2.5 weeks) and I’m yet to enter the reflection mode fully, but since this is my last post, I will mention some of the key takeaways from the internship.
On the positive side I have been able to learn about many key aspects of the business. I started with evaluating some broad market segments for the company. And these days I'm creating pricing models which I hope would shortly be the basis for some price negotiations. More importantly, I have identified some channels the company could use to target those particular market segments. Also as short side projects looked at product certifications and some supply chain issues. Now that I think of it that’s a reasonable amount of work for 12 weeks. May be if I had interned for a larger company I might not have got the opportunity to touch so many aspects of the company business.
On the not so positive side, I got some pointers about dealing with investors when you are running a company in its initial stages. And saw some instances of how frustrating it can be some times to have to think continuously about cash flows or be in continuous dread of losing the only advantage that the young company has – intellectual property. Having seen the amount of uncertainty all these can bring to even a well funded early stage company, I could see that there are some definite advantages of being in a larger company.
It has been a great two and a half months and I have learnt quite a lot and I’m pretty sure come full time recruitment it will help me make a well informed choice.
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Mid Summer Check In

MBA, News Corp. Now that I, Roy, am about halfway through the summer and a month and half into my internship, I feel that this would be a good time to let you in on my personal, deep thoughts about New York City and News Corp. My inner thoughts could befuddle even the most learned, so be careful reading on. To start, I love living in New York City, but I know that is a shocker. I have always wanted to live in this city and I am finally getting to accomplish that. There is just never a dull moment, which is not very good for my sleep habits. There is a reason they call it the city that never sleeps because honestly people are always out and about, which I love. Now that’s all I have to say about that.

As for my internship at News Corp and Fox News Digital more specifically, I am enjoying the heck out of it. I have been able to learn many things that both I knew that I wanted to and stuff that I had no clue existed. I have been able to research and recommend advertising capabilities for the IPad to thinking of creative uses for QR Codes. Additionally, I have been able to see from the start to finish the process of how digital advertising gets sold, published and delivered. Although I personally do not necessarily want to be in sales directly, having this understanding is crucial to any role I might want in digital advertising strategy or business development.

Going forward I have been tasked with creating a business plan type thing (not exactly sure if it will be a full business plan) which will show the implications of the changing internet landscape as it applies to the Fox News website. This research and plan will allow Fox News to strategize on how to better monetize their current digital advertising against these trends. As you may have heard, News Corporation has made headlines recently with respect to the Wall Street Journal online. They are going to start micro billing for its content. Many in the online news industry are watching closely to see whether this business model or the current one of paying through digital advertisements is best. I initially believe it will be somewhat of a hybrid of the two, but I guess I will have to see what I discover in my research.

My Intern Life So Far

Time is going so fast and 4 weeks have passed since I got here. Since my first posting, there have been several things going on.

(1) Work
Some of my project scope has been finalized and I am trying to keep pace with the schedule. Unfortunately I can't tell you about the details of the project, but I want you to know how important Apple thinks about confidentiality. As for each of the projects, I have to work with 3-4 Apple employees, some of whom are in other countries. To get to know each other, I organized several one-on-one interviews with them for introduction of myself and my project. One thing unique about Apple. When you begin your internship, you are assigned an i-Buddy. i-Buddy helps you with almost every issues and it was very helpful to me getting used to Apple and its people. Another thing I want to tell is that people here are really busy these days. Since the launching of i-Phone 4, almost all the operations people are busy whole day to resolve some follow-up issues. I see their passion and professionalism, and understand what made Apple at this position.

(Above you can see a pic of me and Woz. I hope I can finally be friend with Apple like the pic)

(2) Intern Events
As I said in the first post, there are lot's of intern events here. One is the executive speaker series. There were several speaker series since my first posting, including Steve's and Jonathan. I guess all knows who Steve is, and Jonathan is a SVP of industrial design at Apple. Recently he was announced as one of 50 smartest people in tech by Fortune. Again, the details of the speech is also a confidential, but I just want to tell you these events are really interesting and I gain a lot getting to know their experience and thoughts. There was also intern welcome dinner, field trip to winery etc. I am also in one of the teams for the corporate game, which is like Apple Olympic.

(3) Cupertino Life
When you are considering for a full-time job, I guess one important thing is the environment of where you live. Cupertino is a small city, but the weather here is so good. I heard that during May-December it hardly rains. Every day it is sunny, and you can enjoy a lot of leisure sports. Last week I brought my bike to Angel Island and went around the whole Island. People here are enjoying the weather and all seem to be sports-lovers. If you are very active person, I am sure that you will enjoy your life here.

Investment Banking Week 2

Work has been interesting so far. I am staffed on a number of projects - some live some otherwise. The live deals are obviously the most exciting since they are actually going to happen, but the pitches give me a sense of how much work actually goes into clinching a mandate.

A little on the work environment at CS - I think the Technology, Media and Telecom (TMT) group is a great group. Everybody, and I mean everybody, is nice, friendly and helpful. Even the senior bankers are polite when asking for help and I feel I work with them instead of for them.

It has been a little hard to juggle personal/social life and the internship. I work 16-21 hours most days, having hardly any time to do anything else. It remains to be seen whether such a lifestyle is sustainable and/or desirable.

Also, banking is a lot about personalities of the Managing Directors. Since MDs are the ones bringing in the revenue, they dictate what kind of work gets done and how they want things to be done. Different MDs have different requirements for their Powerpoint formatting. So we get exposed to different kind of management styles. There are directors who go for the big picture, and others who like to get down into the details. Having the chance to work under MDs with different working styles is an enriching experience.

Bear with my shameless promotion of CS, but I think CS is in great shape post-crisis. It constantly ranks top 3 in the leveraged finance league tables, beaten only by Bank of America and J.P. Morgan, both of which have humongous balance sheets. CS is known for its execution. Furthermore, CS now ranks 2nd in global M&A deals. It is exciting to be part of an up and coming financial powerhouse in such a conducive market for investment banking.

Fun, work and vistas

In addition to the 30-odd Rossers here, there are over 150 MBA interns in Seattle this summer, from B-Schools all over the U.S. We have a Facebook page and google groups where people have signed up for different activities. It has been great to hang out with them over the weekends for BBQs, Kayaking and Movies. It is not possible to meet over the week, but I make it a point to see other people every weekend, and I got to know a few of them very well.

Amazon organizes a lot of events for its interns. We have weekly happy hours. And one of my favorite parts of the internship is the speaker series. HR invites Senior VPs and VPSs from different divisions to talk to the intern group about their teams, career and the company as a whole. These are very educational, and provide another opportunity to spend time with the rest of the interns. As for networking, I meet a lot of people in relation to my project. And I reach out to people in groups that I find interesting. I found people here very open to talking to interns and happy to make time for us.

I have found the workload to be reasonable for an internship. My days vary quite a bit. I usually meet one or two people per day about my project. I spend several hours writing my findings or recommendations down. I also spend a few hours doing secondary research for my project. Due to the flexibility Amazon employees enjoy, every once in a while I work at the office café or lounge so that the change of scene and beautiful Seattle vistas can inspire me. I am very impressed by how every Amazon building has great views.

Starting up as a consultant

“In matters of great importance, it is style and not sincerity that matters” – Oscar Wilde

One of the most important qualities of a consultant is to build credibility quickly – with the client, with their team and in their firm. Early impressions count heavily. The first two-three weeks of consulting are the most demanding for a fresh consultant looking to establish a good early impression. I would dedicate this post to sharing learnings from my experience that could help a fresh consultant ace this early challenge.

Always be on time. I cannot stress the importance of this enough. In the American workplace, punctuality is expected by your colleagues and clients. Set multiple alarms in the morning. Skip breakfast if you’re rushing, but be 5 minutes early at client site. In a couple of weeks you’ll smack of dependability, which will go a long way in your relationship with the client.

In meetings, listen well and contribute confidently. Never let the client feel that you are an intern. Firms won’t pronounce you as an intern in front of the client. You are expected to perform like a seasoned consultant. However, I would stress listening much more than speaking. Jot down your notes, form your ideas and speak impactfully at the right time. In a large meeting, I personally prefer to carefully rehearse talking points in my head, and then deliver them succinctly, clearly and confidently.

Consulting firms are looking for new ideas, frameworks and models to solve problems all the time. Develop new models, nurture new ideas when you have some time off your responsibilities. Then take these models to your buddies, the partners, and to your clients. These go a long way in convincing your firm that you bring fresh thinking to the table. If you do implement your model, make sure you highlight appropriately. Share the model, write a case study, put it on the knowledge base and present your work to partners.

Network well. Seek advice of experienced folks on how to shape your internship. Their inputs will not only be immensely useful to your project, but will also give you an insight into its culture and what it takes to be successful in the firm. Offer to work for your partner, project manager or buddy beyond the project. Help out in writing proposals, SOWs, project plans, etc. These are very tedious document that people are always looking for help on. You’ll be a super-valuable asset to them and they will back you for a full-time offer.

Finally, always be cognizant that the client is paying a huge hourly rate for your work. Always push yourself to deliver value that is greater than that rate.

Life at Harley-Davidson gains momentum

Having completed 3 weeks out of my 10 weeks of internship, I now feel that my project is taking shape. The LDP program here is quite an intense experience, and you are evaluated not only on your project deliverables, but also on how much you have networked within the organization, and on how many H-D events you have attended. This is true even for the internship, and so my days are packed with work and lunch & dinner events!

I had a fantastic trip to our Kansas City plant recently where I saw first-hand how the fuel tanks were fabricated, then were customized with H-D’s famous paint options, and then how the motorcycles were assembled. The Harley culture seems to be prevalent even in the plants where all employees there were very warm and helpful. And of course, I did not miss out on the famous barbeques of Kansas City at Smokehouse!

Summerfest saw millions of visitors flocking to Milwaukee as usual. As I had mentioned earlier, Harley-Davidson has its own stage, and I got VIP treatment as an employee – I got to watch the shows from the H-D deck. In the picture, you can see Counting Crows performing at the H-D stage.

Part of getting to know the American culture is getting to know the two most popular games in the country – American football and baseball. I got to know the first game at Ann Arbor itself, in the largest university stadium in the US. I watched my first baseball game ever in Milwaukee last week, with their local team ‘Brewers’ playing against the San Francisco ‘Giants’. The game’s quite slow, but people go mostly to hang out with friends and drink beer and eat hot dogs! I did all of that during the last game, and although the Brewers lost, it was a very memorable experience!

My next blog will have details about my ‘insider’ tour of the Miller Brewery, a company-hosted Bradford beach social, my dealer visits, and a volunteer opportunity I am participating in with the Harley-Davidson Foundation. Till then, keep riding as always!

Season 4: About Pharmaceutical Industry and Eli Lilly

(MBA, Eli Lilly) First of all, pharmaceutical industry is important to us because it creates new drugs to cure many kinds of diseases that damages people’s life quality. It is a great industry to work with if you are passionate on improving people’s life quality and prolong lives. Nowadays, this industry, especially for leading patent pharmaceutical companies are facing increasing competition from generic companies like Teva in Israel. In 2011, many blockbusters will go off patents and thus these big companies will face huge losses in their ever cash cows. This trend puts lots of pressures and urgency on patent pharmaceutical companies. Most of these companies’ response will be to emphases innovation and accelerate the pipeline to overcome the gap. Also you may read news on pharmaceutical companies’ restructuring to cope with this strategic move. Last, another thing you may be interested in is that pharmaceutical industry has very long cycle. From a molecule to a fully approved drug on the market, it normally takes around 12 years. If you really care about the fast outcome and fast innovation, pharmaceutical industry may be not the right one for you.

With respect to Lilly, it is a good company. People in the company are generally nice and willing to share their experiences and offer advice. The overall culture is all about excellence, respect for people and integrity. Today, Lilly is still in the progress of global restructuring and you may clearly feel how fast they want to develop new drugs to replace those old blockbusters that are going off patent in the next few years. Lilly, like many other big pharmaceutical companies, has two key focuses in the corporate, one is R&D, over $3 billion investment every year, and the other is sales and marketing. Other functions and administrations are revolving around these two centers. In addition, Lilly, like many other pharmaceutical companies, is starting to expand business in emerging markets such as China, Russia, Brazil, Turkey and etc. because of the fast increasing need on effective drugs.

All in all, pharmaceutical industry will be a good fit if you feel yourself are fascinated with healthcare. Lilly will be a good fit if you are in the spirit of teamwork and humbleness as well as agility of learning.

Reflection

The summer internship is finally coming to an end and it is now time to do the one thing we all love to do; reflect on these last months and identify what we have learnt and how much growth there has been, around the waist and intellectually!! To merely say that I have “grown” over these last months would be an understatement without qualifying that claim with all the things I managed to accomplish!

Starting off as an eager student of business, ready to soak up the knowledge and get my hands dirty with paint, I have now managed a decent size business and ran a team of 9 employees, handled angry customers, satisfied customers, met deadlines, payed off my debt and began to understand what I really want to achieve from my business degree. Did I value and like this experience? Definitely. Is entrepreneurship for me? Maybe. Maybe not. I realized that although I love to get out there and meet new people, talk to them, lead a dynamic work force, entrepreneurship is a tough job and one that maybe I should keep for later on in life, once I have had more experience on the financial and administrative side of business, am comfortable with that and willing to leave it to others to handle that task!

What I take back most is the amazing network of fellow colleagues I made who are from every walk of life and I truly learnt from them as I understood that although I may be international, I did grow up with a lot more than they did and that while I look at the internship as a resume builder, for them it was real work that would help them earn a decent amount of cash to get through another year of university. This put things into perspective for me and helps me realize that I need to better utilize the opportunities that come my way the following school year!

Just Like MAP!

Hi people, how are you guys doing?

Even though I finished almost the half of the summer internship, I think it is good time to go back when my internship begun. By the way, so far, my internship has been fun and challenging, but, luckily, MAP experience has saved me couple of times. Thank God that I am in Ross : )

1. Internship Subject
I got the internship opportunity in the strategy team in Samsung Electronics' semiconductor memory division. My internship subject is setting a market entry strategy for an upcoming product by studying current IT trends. I want to go deeper, but it is against NDA sorry..

2. Team members
I'm working with two other MBA students. 'J' is from MBA school in China and has been a great intermediate between me and 'P'. And 'P', who has pure engineering backgrounds before joining MBA in U.S, has giving us diverse perspectives. It took me first two weeks to figure out the personalities of my teammates. I found out that we have a perfect chemistry for the project!!

3. First impression on mentor
My first impression on my mentor is very good. Considering conservative Korean culture, he is the person who has very open mind and will to listen other opinions, which are against his opinion. He is also love to talk about classic guitar, body building, and soccer. Finally, he is the one who makes us go home as early as possible. I love it!!

4. Just like MAP
Every internship step reminds me MAP; the letter of the engagement, the way interacting with mentor and other teammates, the research methodology, and, of course, making attractive also persuasive power point slides. I did not realize MAP experience was going to help me to secure my fulltime position. Cross ma fingers!!

See you next blog!

Last Post!

(BBA, Fox Broadcasting)

Hey guys! It's Alyssa Fried. This past Wednesday was my last day at Fox. It was sad because obviously I don't want my internship to end and because two of my bosses were out of work, sick. However, we've been e-mailing and I know that we're going to keep in touch. This is one of the great things I am taking away from my internship at Fox. I have made so many connections in so many different departments in Fox Broadcasting.

I have learned so much at my internship with Fox, more than I ever could have hoped to have learned from a summer internship after my sophomore year. I learned about analysis of numbers, revenue analysis, planning sales, and what goes on before and after deals are made. Having my own projects to do, plus watching the other employees doing their projects helped me gain so much knowledge.

Another great thing that I am taking away from this internship is I am now extremely proficient in Excel. They taught me so many shortcuts, and after working on spreadsheets all day for six weeks, I feel like I know the ins and outs of Excel. I know this is going to be extremely useful for me in the future.

Something else that is going to be useful for me in the future is what they taught me about working with clients. They taught me that every client has their needs and requirements, and it is the company's job to fulfill them. One day I am going to use what they taught me to communicate with my clients and build client relations.

I think I showed my bosses my incredible work ethic and my desire to succeed. I think that I could have been a little less anxious about messing up and making mistakes, but looking back I think it was normal to be nervous in my first 'real' office job.

Now that my internship with Fox is over, I am going to be working for an accounting firm in New York City for three days a week. This accounting firm does the taxes for Broadway shows, so once again I will be working with the entertainment side of finance. I am very excited to see how this compares to my internship at Fox!

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their internships and their summers!

The Media Industry

It's really an unbelievable time to be working in the media industry. News media has really struggled over the last decade with declining ad revenues and entirely new methods of media consumption. It's been survival of the fittest throughout the industry, as the companies that adapt the fastest win out with emerging trends. In my internship at Thomson Reuters, I feel fortunate to be thrown into the middle of media revolution.

Reuters media, although the most recognized and branded portion of Thomson Reuters' business, actually accounts for a very small portion of the company's overall revenues. However, Reuters media is still a huge brand builder and money-maker for Thomson Reuters. Reuters Media, like the rest of the company, relies mostly on business to business transactions. While there is a Reuters news website that generates significant traffic (although mostly outside the U.S.), Reuters does not compete with media distributors such as the New York Times, Yahoo, CNN, etc., but rather the Associated Press and other content providers. In essence, Reuters creates content through its global, unbiased, journalists stationed worldwide. They then distribute that content, whether it be video, text, pictures, graphics, etc. to the aforementioned consumer focused media companies (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.). While this does allow Reuters to avoid many of the problems plaguing the industry such as declining ad revenue and new platforms, it provides its own set of challenges that I have been working on solving as a Strategy Intern.

Without getting into too much detail, it's an incredibly exciting time to meet these challenges at Reuters. Whether it be adjusting to new ways of consumption (think iPad and beyond), adapting to changing consumer tastes (think twitter, mobile, etc.) or simply just generating more revenue out of existing channels, there is a plethora of change going on in the industry and at Reuters itself.

I look forward to continuing to get my hands dirty and give my best effort to solve some of these issues, anticipate changes, and shape the future of Reuters media.

Alex Weiss (BBA Rising Senior)

Sun burnt

As an Israeli who has some roots in Iraq, I rarely – if ever, get sunburnt. Texas, however, has proven to be the Moriarty to my Sherlock Holmes of a skin. Or, if you will, the Darth Vader to my Obi-Wan Kenobi. I could go on. But I won’t.
For the past 4 weekends I have either been tubing, hiking, boating, or swimming. I’m as red as a lobster. I say this not to discuss my dermatological state – but rather to emphasize the social lifestyle that us interns have been living here. Every weekend is full of activity! This weekend for instance, I will probably go to the Texas Roller Derby; last weekend was a 4th of July excursion to Lake Travis, etc. etc.

I must also note that I am at the exact mid point of my internship.
So far what I’ve done is essentially talk to people, get the lay of the land, and scope out the project. We finally have a firm grip on the timeline, what we want to deliver, and how we want to deliver it. A lot of the past week has been spent on taking toll of what I’ve done so far and discussing the project with various parties and stakeholders.

I don’t think I can emphasize enough how long the process takes: Scoping out a project in a culture you are not familiar with and in a business line you never knew takes time. A lot of time is spent just understanding the acronyms. Dell has an overabundance of those. The rest of the time is about managing expectations, and getting the assistance, resources, and support you need to conclude the project successfully. I think the success of an internship project hinges more on the preparation than it does on the execution. We will see if I’m right soon enough.

A lot more of my time now is going towards analyzing data and work rather than learning the ropes. I feel that I have become significantly more productive in what is essentially an environment and culture I have never encountered until a few weeks ago. While the learning curve has been steep, I feel I have finally reached a plateau of productivity. I hope this keeps up.

Traditional industry… more dynamic than it looks

Hello everyone!

How's the summer going? Hope everyone is enjoying these days and making good use of them. In my case I'm more than half way through my summer internship at Cummins. It is time to start wrapping up my projects and put everything in order in order to prevent rushing in the last weeks here.

By now I feel like I've learn a lot about the diesel engine industry… well actually about more things because Cummins not only does diesel engines but also power generators, exhaust solutions, components and other things. But most of them gravitate around diesel engines. It is really interesting to see how all this businesses, although with the same core components, differ one from the rest. For example, the product characteristics requested for one type of power generator used at a hospital could be radically different from one (of the same size) to be used in a power generation plan.

One thing that surprises me the most is the fact that diesel engine-centric products have a lot of way to go in terms of growth. Probably you, as me in the beginning, could think that the oil-feed engines would have their days counted, but actually, that's apparently not true. In the short term there are no hybrids and other "greener products" that actually could cover, at reasonable cost, the space that diesel engines cover in trucks and industrial applications. Additionally, the new environmental regulations and continuous improvement of companies like Cummins are making the old Diesel Engine a way efficient and clean power source, even comparable to some of the most recent alternatives. And don't get me wrong, Cummins is working hard to provide alternative power sources and greener alternatives; actually they are one of the world leaders in emissions control equipment.

Additionally, there are still a lot of opportunities to grow geographically especially in emerging markets like the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) were an ever increasing economy demands more power and equipment. So we should not disregard the potential of companies working into the "traditional" industries. That would be one of my key learning from my internship. I feel that sometimes, as MBAs, we feel that the only way to work in a dynamic environment with high growth potential (personal and professional) would be in the high tech, green or CPG industries. Now, after my internship at Cummins, I think that some "traditional and established" industries could also offer exciting experiences and we need to be open to understand and consider them as a place to develop as professionals.

Learning, scoping, delivering!

MBA, Amazon

At this point, one third of the internship is done and with it comes an urge to see some work done. The first month is probably the most unproductive and hard (at least that’s what I have heard and what I expect), simply because you are flooding with new information. You have to learn the about the company’s culture and how to navigate it, the topic and industry you are working with, and the project objectives itself. Apart from it all you are still supposed to start delivering some results.

From the very beginning I have spent a considerable amount of time just scoping my project: what it will be and what it will not be. I believe this is probably the most important success factor of a good end product. Is by scoping, and discussing the scope with your manager, that you are able to set expectations and plan yourself to achieve a good result.

The first month would be the best phase of the internship if it wasn’t by one detail: you are supposed to start delivering something. Just by talking to other interns and former interns I have the feeling that pretty much everyone has some sort of frustration during this phase. The common sense is that either you don’t know exactly how or what you are supposed to deliver.

I guess that my consulting background helps me at this point. I feel much more confident simply because I have worked at many other 3-month-projects before. I’m also lucky to have a very concrete end product to produce: an excel model. And the success of my work will be easily accessed at the end by checking the website: the model is there or not. At this point I have a mock-up and I can start showing it around. That was my strategy to manage internal and external expectations.