An MDI student who interned with Coca-Cola tells why those two months were 'The Most Precious' and 'The Best Time of His Life'

Working at Coca-Cola is a dream for every B-school student, and this dream turned true for Anish Barjatya – a second year PGPM student specializing in Marketing at MDI, one of the best B-schools in the country.

Sailing through a tough selection criterion, he became one of the 21 students from India’s top 8 B-Schools to bag an internship offer with one of the biggest and the most recognizable brands in the world. In short, he had nailed it!

Here’s Anish recounting what he calls “The Best Time Of His Life” - "Most students my age have grown up sipping on a Coke, Thumbs Up, Sprite, Fanta, Limca or Maaza and simply loved savoring these enticing drinks that have been household names in India for decades. Coke’s TVCs “Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola”, “Open Happiness”, “Taste The Feeling” have struck a chord with millions, and every person in this country has been touched by this Beverages Major in some way or the other. I was soon going to be on the other side to see how they make it happen."

-So, here’s a little about how my first week went by
We entered the Coke Office, was greeted with some spectacular goodies from where we walked towards a lounge - especially for interns. There were personalized wall pictures of every intern and welcome messages hanging for us throughout the office. Wow, could the start be more welcoming?

It was induction time for us that went on for over a full week. We were made to visit bottling plants, attend ‘Support My School’ – a CSR Initiative and carry out several market visits. But what helped us more was the numerous sessions we had with some of Coke’s Senior Managers, Vice Presidents and the CEO himself - Venkatesh Kini during our journey. All this was intercepted by lot of fun activities, banter and informal interaction with the employees at Coke. Every conversation added to our learning experience here.

-The Work Culture simply made it a great journey
It was absolutely great to see how Coke sees no difference between an intern and an employee, and that for me was the biggest differentiator with other companies. Everyone here wanted us to get the most out of the ‘MANTRA internship program’ that we were a part of. No wonder then, this company probably has the best mix of culture, people and opportunities in the FMCG industry. We learnt a rather surprising fact - Coca-Cola in India has only about 200 employees owing to the unique franchise-led bottling model. This model lets every employee in the company be a leader in his/her own right and take responsibility from the time they start out as a Coke employee. Therefore, you grow quickly and evolve both personally and professionally.

-Opportunities Galore
All interns at Coke are given live projects; of course they are highly critical to the company’s business and of high value. For me, working in an FMCG company this size, in a Marketing/Operations project, gave me a 360 degree perspective of how consumer companies and businesses operate. Let me explain you how –:

My market visits with none other than the Vice-President of Franchise Operations - Mr. Bhupendra Suri was a great experience, and interacting with him made me understand that one must continuously learn in corporate no matter at whichever stage in your career you may be. Learning is always in the Market.

When I pitched my project ideas to the Bottling Franchise CEO in my project location market to get approvals for doing a pilot study, it was great exposure and I found it really exciting to show the benefits of my project ideas to the franchise on Coke's behalf. Such freedom and ownership is just spectacular!

When I could work with a Marketing agency to create my own sets of Point of Sale Merchandize to execute in the market and check consumer behavior aspects for my project - Seeing your ideas come to life is again truly spectacular feeling!

Cross - Functional Projects: Working on the project, you have to interact with multiple stakeholders within Coca-Cola and outside. My project allowed me to interact with managers of various other functions in Coke, and outside 3rd parties for planning and execution. This results in immense learning in all areas of business.

Leadership Opportunities: For the execution of my pilot project, I coordinated with no less than 50 front line sales people to coordinate the marketing execution of my project. I could also take the initiative and get approvals to hire and train upto 20 surveyors for my Consumer Behaviour Study.

Choice of Food, Conveyance, and Hotels: Coke leaves no stone unturned to ensure than interns get the best of everything while doing their projects. I could live in some of the best hotels, eat at some of the finest restaurants and take conveyance of flights, taxis etc as I deemed fit. No questions asked! Just get your reimbursements on time.

When I was guided by my mentor Mr. Ravinder Bhatia, Director, it was an honor to learn from him. He always had time for me and my project, and was keen to discuss all possible ideas and weigh the pros and cons. He also pushed me to my limits and I started thinking bigger and breaking down all the perceived challenges to make it easy for myself. I will forever look upto him.

At my age, to be given the amount of freedom, ownership and authority on the project I was a part of was simply too good to be true! Moreover, imagine the amount of time, money the company invested in me and the effort my guides and other stakeholders involved in the project put to show me the right way of going about things – it’s something which is extremely hard, let’s say almost impossible, to get during a 2-month MBA internship in any Indian company. Also, where else do you see project presentations by interns handling top projects getting evaluated by the CEO of the company and the Leadership Council. Yes, it happens here!

- I have saved the best for the last – THE FUN PART
Coke is full of colour and zest. Friday Funda is one of the ways it pampers its employees. Every Friday, employees get free Coke products to take home and enjoy with their friends and family. Thanks to the awesome HR Team, I also had the chance to get Free VIP IPL Tickets, Meet Star Cricketers of Gujarat Lions and Kings XI Punjab, meet Celebrities, Attend Coke Studio, take part in Social Media Contests and relish Coke products while in office, as much as I wanted. This is not the end. In the last week, all the interns gathered together in the office from their respective project locations. It was PARTY TIME. All interns got their Personal Audio Visual shoots done by none other than Leo Burnett!

If I had it sum it all up, I’d say for me, Coke is the best company to intern with, a company with high degree of intrapreneurship and professionalism combined with lots of fun and energy. These two months were simply the best two months of my life.