How MBA Students Should do Online Summer Internship & Report Making During Covid-19

The first step of online summer internship is the selection of the company which is either done by the institute or by the students through their own efforts.

By Dr. Raj Kumar Singh

At present we all are witnessing the horrible situation of COVID-19 pandemic all over the world and our every walk of life is suffering from this issue whether it is health, economy or our general lifestyle. In such a situation how the education system will not be affected? We have adopted the online education system since physical contact is strictly not allowed in the era of physical distancing.

As we all know, summer internship is an integral part of MBA and in the present scenario, as per government guidelines, MBA students have to do internship from home. In such a scenario it has become a very pertinent issue that how can MBAs doing their summer internship can to do the online summer internship and its report making.

The first step of summer internship is the selection of the company which is either done by the institute or by the students through their own efforts. Normally companies involve a mentor on its behalf and the Management Institute involves a faculty as a mentor. The responsibility of both the mentors is to guide the students during and after the completion of the Summer Internship. Students should be in regular contact with both the mentors through phone, email, Whatsapp or through the virtual interacting platforms like Skype, Google Meet or Webex, etc. for their regular reporting.

Student should get the project topic of their internship from the company mentor. Normally the project topic in the present scenario comprises consumer survey, selling of services like subscriptions or some financial products like insurance, mutual funds, FD and DEMAT account, etc. In the present situation, companies are avoiding HR or Finance related trainings because of viability and confidentiality.

Choosing the Topic

The topic should be selected in such a manner that it may have a comprehensive approach. Here hypothetically an example of doing summer internship in ABC Retail of XYZ City is taken. Its topic should be like “A study on the Consumer Buying Behaviour and Satisfaction Level with respect to the Customer Relationship Management for Retention of the Customers of ABC Retail in XYZ City.”

Project Objectives

After selection of the project title maximum three to four project objectives should be framed which should start with word ‘To’ e.g. “To Analyse the Expectations of Customers and Their Loyalty Towards ABC Retail” or “To Analyse How the Promotional Mix Influence the Buying Behaviour of Consumers of ABC Retail Products”.  

Research Methodology

After objectives, the research methodology should be framed having the constituents like Sampling Universe ,Type of Research, Data Type, Sampling unit, Sample Size, Sampling Method, Data Collection Tool  and Data Analysis techniques to be used e.g. SPSS & Excel etc. as guided by the mentor.

Questionnaire

After the designing of the Research Methodology, the Questionnaire has to be framed in which the questions should be in alignment of satisfying the project objectives. The Questionnaire’s first part should comprise general details, which includes the name, age, gender, address, education, occupation and income slabs of the respondents. The second part comprises questions with multiple choice answers specially using 5-Point Likert Scale. Try to avoid dichotomous questions. One question may be an open-ended question. Overall questions should be around 15 to avoid the burden and avoidance of the respondent. After approval from the industry and academic mentors covert the questionnaire to Google form and send it to the consumers of ABC Retails of the XYZ geographical area through e-mail or Whatsapp and take a very polite follow up after a week for timely collection of data.

Report Making

When the data of your entire sample size e.g. 100 consumers are collected one should start the report making process. The first step of the report making is to develop the cover page which should have the title on top e.g. Summer Internship Project Report on “A study on the Consumer Buying Behaviour and Satisfaction Level with respect to the Customer Relationship Management for Retention of the  Customers of ABC Retail in XYZ  City.” After the title, put some picture of the institute building or company logo as per the guidance of mentors and below that photo mention e.g. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Two Years Master of Business Administration (MBA) Programme  (Session : 2019-2021). Then mention the proper name and full designation of the mentor mentioning “Under Supervision of” and the students should also write their name, programme name and roll number under “ Submitted By”. In the bottom of the cover page full name of Institute , its place , affiliated University and logo of the Institute should be mentioned. In the inner page photocopy of training certificate, certificate by the faculty supervisor allotted as mentor (as per official format given by college), declaration, acknowledgement, preface and content (with table of contents  separately each with the list of chapters, list of table  and list of figures with page number should be mentioned.

One should divide the report into Section A and Section B. The Section A should have Industry and Company details like Retail Industry as a whole and ABC Retail. In Section A mention introduction with brief overall detail of  summer internship , industry overview which should contain, brief profile of all the major companies within the industry, size of the industry, products and services of major players, market share of major players etc. Then come the company overview with its vision, mission goals, values and objectives, its products & services, policy of the company, concerning motivation, how employees are expected to behave and customer orientation, etc.

Experiential Learning

Then comes the Experiential Learning in which one should describe the departments worked in, job description, experienced and learning gained, how this experience will help in future, students own thoughts, views, and comments in general about the company and suggestions for improvements in different areas.

In Section B, first the title of the project should be mentioned followed by the project introduction like covering the details of what is the project, outline of the project, objectives of the project, scope of the project, salient contribution of the project.

then mention significance of project,  literature overview, research gap , research methodology ( as discussed earlier). Use the data analysis techniques to be used  as from SPSS & Excel or any other Statistical Tool suggested by the mentor. In the data analysis & interpretation do the data presentation through the data analysis and interpretation of the Results.

After completion of the data analysis and interpretation, the findings should be written in alignment with the objectives and it should be based on the interpretation of the results and experiential learning.

Conclusion

After the finding, conclusion should be written in alignment with the objectives and based upon the findings. The real limitations should be mentioned followed by the recommendations in alignment with objectives and based on the entire project study with, general recommendations, guidelines and procedure for implementations and expected outcomes from the recommendation. Scope of future work should be based on the literature overview, research findings and conclusion.

The Annexure should contain questionnaire, company’s annual report, balance sheet, profit loss account etc. the bibliography should be using APA format strictly).

Few of the technical specifications that should be strictly followed are:

• 1 inch Margin from all the Sides of A4 paper,
• Times New Roman Font Style, Heading : 20 Point Font Size,
• Sub-Heading : 16 Point Font Size,
• Body Matter : 14 Point Font Size ,
• Line & Paragraph Spacing : 1.5, Justify & Central Alignment,
• The source of the data should be mentioned under all the tables taken from secondary sources
• Spelling mistakes should be avoided
• Don’t copy and paste, use your own language
• Don’t use social media chatting language
• Report should be made between 75 to 100 pages

After getting the approval from the company and institute mentors, the soft and hard copy should be submitted to the institute as per the necessary guidelines and instructions for the necessary evaluation of the summer internship report.

Dr. Raj Kumar Singh is Professor & Dean (R&D) and Chairperson – Centre For Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Skill Development (CEISD), School of Management Sciences, Varanasi