FEW TIPS FOR ITC

• ITC repeats its GD problems, don’t be overconfident, do practice this with your friends
• Have a good and interesting introduction prepared
• Know how to explain at least 2 projects in your resume and be aware of the slightest technical thing that is involved in those projects. And if you make it technical enough, you might get rid of questions from your course. By this you become the person driving the conversation.
• Make sure that you have a convincing reason to join ITC even after the intern

LOCATION AND DIVISION

ITC has around 100+ factories spread over 60 locations in India. Sadly these locations are not something one admires to work at. They are mostly tier 3 cities and if not they are located in the outskirts of big cities. If you are lucky enough you can find non factory locations in head offices, but I personally believe if you want to make the most from this intern, work in a factory.

I was allotted FBD (Foods Business Division) and to be very clear each division at ITC works differently, it’s like working in a different company all together. As far as FBD is concerned it is still in expansion phase and has new factories coming almost every year. In foods my location was at the dairy plant of munger district of Bihar.

Before you feel pity for me I visited Patna, Kolkata, Bangalore (twice) and even travelled in Business class and no matter how poor the infrastructure of the city is ITC makes sure that you have stay of life in that city. My stay was arranged at ITC park and it had all the facilities from swimming pool to club and as far as Dry state is concerned there is nothing stopping an IITian (wink wink)

PROJECT

The best thing about ITC is that you work on a real problem faced by the company, you suggest changes and they are implemented immediately and you are given freedom to explore the problem as much as you can (I will come to this one later).

Around 2 months prior to joining in May, ITC arranges a 3 days program to help us with how to approach and work during the internship. They teach us basic data analysis tools and all the non- technical stuff we might need during our project. Apart from this we are not expected to know any software or other things, but we might have to learn it during the internship (not in detail but to the point you can understand someone else’s work on it).

Coming to my project, ITC entered in pouch milk packing last year only. My project was to reduce market complaints in pouch milk packets. This included improving machine’s performance, inspection techniques and even out of the box ideas of how to prevent fake complaints. I was given this project about a week before joining and it was made very clear that the only criteria of success is actual reduction in complaints (since this data goes directly to head office, tempering results was also not possible). Currently there was about 0.2% complaints which i had to reduce further.

WORK CULTURE

I was given individual project (this means I had absolute freedom on how I want to proceed) and assigned a guide who was my contact point during the internship and a buddy (for any informal help, mostly newly joined managers from IITs). It is a 24/7 running factory and working hours are 9am to 6pm, 6 days a week (so i got one day to enjoy the astonishing night life at munger). But since I was on a project this timeline didn’t matter at all, in fact after the first week, I hardly worked according to this. Sometimes I had to go to at night shift to observe/implement changes, sometimes early morning and sometimes on Sundays as well. To compensate i took leaves during weekdays whenever i found workload was less.

My guide was the production manager of the factory, and he was responsible for any help that I need for my project. Most interns found their guides to be their boss and have limited interaction with them, but mine case was a bit different. He used to call me for dinner (He’s a great chef), organized parties at his home and even at the office. At the same time he gave me free hand on whatever I wanted to implement (considering the risks though). Since he was the production manager he was quite busy and sometimes wasn’t able to give time to my project, in such situations we met post work and discuss (benefits of small town).

Since I didn’t have any knowledge of the dairy industry and the technology used, I requested to visit other factories of ITC and even managed to arrange a visit factories of some more established players in the market. This is the freedom that I mentioned earlier. I just had to give a valid reason and ITC arranges rest. Whether it is visiting a vendor in Kolkata, or visit the original manufacturers of the machine in Pune.

Since they provide you with such facilities they expect work from you, to check the progress I had a mid review separately with Divisional Head and the CEO. Finally in the end my progress was reviewed by each level for which I had to make a presentation and one only get a chance to present further if he gets recommended. I got the recommendation to present in front of DMC (Decision Making Committee) at the Bangalore Head Office.

SUMMING UP

You will have friends who go to wonderful places for interns and you are stuck in a tier 3 city of a dry state. Frankly this makes it a bit difficult. But this is an experience of life, most of us will end up working in a corporate and for me it was too big a gamble to make this decision without having a taste of life here.

At the same time this project not only tested my technical skills but almost everything I learnt in my life. I dealt with people from Blue collar workers (aasan nhi tha) to Factory manager, I followed a truck secretly to investigate drivers activity, I even worked till 5 in the morning and sometimes on Sundays as well. It was a hell of a task. All this plus the hefty stipend makes it worth interning at ITC !