Finance in China with Arjun Katragadda (Week 2)

Nimenhao!

Working in Shanghai has been awesome so far. Training for the various aspects of the job is an ongoing process and will continue right up to the end of my internship. Although there are a lot of Chinese graduates working in the office, the company caters mostly to expats in the Asia Pacific region so most of the top executives are either American or British. We’re learning a lot from these accomplished managers and they’ve taken a hands-on approach with all of the interns and their individual projects. It’s also nice to have all these great contacts now, and I’m sure it will come in handy when I start looking for an internship within the States next year.

I would say that the overall office environment can be quite competitive because everyone is trying to close in on deals and secure investments from their own client lists and they don’t want others stepping on their toes. But, we also have to work together in teams for projects that are related to improving the user interface of their in-house software and coming up with new sectors to tap. Later we started to get familiar with the back-end of the website they use to maintain the relationships they have with their clients online, and we also ran mock meetings to get used to the whole presentation style (and sales pitch for potential investors) by the time a real meeting comes around.

Earlier in the week we took part in an induction ceremony that showed us how Chinese business practices and etiquette could differ from Western ones. I thought the most important one was the ‘friends before business’ rule which I’ve been experiencing everyday when meeting with new colleagues, interns, or local clients. In the West, you could do business with someone who you don’t really know well, and professional or personal relationships could potentially develop later while doing business with those acquaintances. Here, people are extremely reluctant to work with you unless they get a good sense of your background, so it’s extremely important to take people out to lunch/drinks and have them get comfortable with you at a one-on-one level, and behave in a manner that wouldn’t cause them to ‘lose face (mianzi)’.

I’m definitely looking forward to the weeks ahead. Some of the interns and I are planning to take a trip to Hangzhou over the weekend. My limited Mandarin skills, which I thought would be a major stumbling block to moving around here, aren’t really getting in the way. The subway system I use to get to work is probably easier to figure out than the ones in the U.S. or London, although the size of the crowds can be unsettling. But mostly everything here is really efficient and modern, and I really have to come back here on a holiday sometime to fully experience all the amazing things that the city has to offer.

Well I have to get back to my individual project now and I’ve also got to prepare for tomorrow’s tasks so I’ll catch you guys next week!

Interning with Chris Conte (Week 3)

Business Development

As I mentioned previously, Vteractive is finishing up their most recent project. As a result, Ken is at a crossroads as to what path he should pursue next. There are many potential paths, each of which requires weeks of research in order to make the best decision.

I have been given the task of researching the path- ‘Expanding into Mobile Gaming.’ Ken recommended making a PowerPoint presentation, and he sent me a presentation format along with questions to answer and business concepts to research. Some of the questions were very straightforward, but required a decent amount of research (What are the barriers of entry? Who are the competitors?). Some of the business concepts (such as Porter’s Five Forces) were completely foreign to me and require more brainpower than research to develop.

To date, I am about halfway done with the project. At the end of every week, I present my work to Ken and his former classmate. As I tell them my latest findings in the mobile gaming market, they bring up more specific questions for me to research. This has been the most difficult--but most rewarding--project thus far.

Talk to you next week!

Finance in China with Arjun Katragadda

Hey guys!

Hope everyone has been having an exciting summer so far. I look forward to sharing my experiences over the next few weeks and hopefully it will provide you with a brief idea of what it might be like to work in the financial services industry, and give you an insight into the kinds of challenges and opportunities you could come across while working abroad.

A quick intro: My name is Arjun Katragadda and I am a rising junior at the Tepper School of Business. I am double majoring in Business Administration (with a concentration in Finance), and Decision Science. This summer I am interning with the Essential Finance Group in Shanghai, China. In a nutshell, the company provides services like asset management and financial planning for its clients who are looking to invest in the Asia Pacific region.

So how do you go about pursuing an internship outside the U.S.? There are quite a few placement companies that are listed on TartanTrak in the Fall, and offer internships in a wide range of sectors all around the world. After submitting my application, I had two follow-up interviews regarding my interest in the industry before I got the offer and was placed at this firm in Shanghai. I had a couple of other offers to work within the States but ultimately I decided on this one because I felt it matched my interests best after consulting with past interns, and I also couldn’t resist the opportunity to work and live in the centre of what is currently the world’s most dynamic economy.

Well that’s it for now! More updates about the city and the office environment next week…

-Arjun

Interning with Chris Conte (Week 2)

Hey! In this blog post, I’ll talk about what I have been doing during my internship at Vterative.

Play-Testing Sessions

One of the most important steps towards developing a great game is LOTS of product-testing. In the entertainment industry, this is referred to as play-testing. In addition to finding bugs, play-testing serves the purpose of redefining and fine-tuning video games. Depending on play-testers’ reactions and feedback, game designers may significantly alter gameplay and game design.

My first project as a Vteractive intern was to organize two play-testing sessions for our latest game, Questinations. Planning the sessions was relatively easy. I had to prepare a room within our office, buy drinks, prepare handouts, and provide a laptop. My boss helped me out with the first three tasks, and I made a note on my calendar reminding myself to bring my laptop. All that remained was finding play-testers.

My boss warned me that finding people willing to play-test a startup company’s game can be difficult. The task was made more difficult when I discovered that we could not bribe people with food or money, as that would likely bias their feedback. Another issue that I had to keep in mind was targeting play-testers representative of our game’s target market.

I posted a link to our play-testing sign up page on a few casual meet up groups and some local gaming-related websites including IGN and Pittsburgh LAN coalition. I also planned to give fliers to the Game Stop in Squirrel Hill. I got lucky twice.

My first stroke of luck was at Game Stop. I knew it would be against store policy for me to distribute the fliers, but I went inside anyway. After making sure it wasn’t busy, I explained the situation to the employees. They were very reasonable and agreed to help us out by distributing the fliers. Soon afterward, the Pittsburgh LAN coalition e-mailed my post to all their members, who then forwarded the relevant information to other gaming distribution lists.

Our first play-testing session was a huge success. We received tons of useful feedback for the game. After significantly updating the game, we held another play-testing session, from which we received a lot more useful feedback. All of the feedback has been documented, but updating Questinations has been put on hold while we work on a video game for our first client!

Fundraising

My first solitary project was fundraising. As most business students know, a common reason for small business failure is insufficient capital. I was assigned the important task of researching potential grants and investors for Vteractive. I started my search with key words such as “how to find funding.” Later, I searched different combinations of specific terms including: entertainment, technology, and Pittsburgh. After a few hours, I noticed decreasing returns from my searches, so I turned to some friends who closely follow entertainment technology. They directed me towards two grants, both an excellent fit for Vteractive. In the end, I compiled a list of 6 funding sources from which we could reasonably be awarded capital. I reviewed my results with Ken, who had done his own research. We had some overlap in our findings, and Ken was very pleased with the funding sources, two of which we decided to pursue.

Operations with My Le (Week 2)

Hey everyone!

I can't believe that it's already been more than a month since I've started my internship. Everything is happening so fast! Last week, DuPont hosted their annual Supply Chain Leadership Conference at the DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, DE. What this basically means is that they fly in all their OBL's (Operational Business Leaders) for a three day conference. I thought that as an intern, I was expected to blend in with the background and observe what was going on; however, reality was quite the opposite. From the very beginning of the conference, the host gave us (the interns) special recognition and had us introduce ourselves in front of all the executives. They wasted no time in putting us to work when we were chosen to present in front of the group after a brainstorming session. It was nerve-wrecking, but also a confidence booster because our ideas were well-received. At the end of each of the 3 days, there was a cocktail hour which allowed me to network with some of the most influential people at the company.

As far as work goes, I am about half way done with my main project! Which is extremely exciting, given the fact that I know my work will add value to the company. I also just started my second project last week, so I have my hands full at the moment. Sorry for the short blog, I promise next week's will be better!

- My Le

Consulting with Jamie Yieh (Week 3)

Hi again,

It’s Thursday afternoon and I am flying back from Hartford to DC to catch my connection to Pittsburgh. One thing I realized (and love) about the consulting lifestyle is that the hours are long but flexible. I work extremely hard Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday putting in 11-15 hours a day but then on Thursday, I catch a break and leave the client office around 3:30PM to fly back home. And best of all, on Friday, I make a few phone calls from the office if I need a landline for a conference call but no one will yell at me if I decide to work from the comfort of my own comfy bed. The flex-time also means that you need to be flexible in terms of being open to taking a call early in the morning or late at night. Especially if the client or team is in a different time zone, you could be accommodating their West Coast time zone and scheduling an 8PM call.

This week, I interacted pretty heavily with the client. I sent e-mails to the project’s leadership (I re-read my e-mails 1,000 times before clicking send), began speaking up on some smaller conference calls (Yes, I stuttered a lot), and sat in on a pretty intense 8-hr meeting where Aetna managers discussed the next steps that needed to be taken in order to reach their 6/30 and 8/1 milestones. Something in my understanding definitely clicked this week. Another hint about making the most out of an internship especially in consulting is to keep asking questions. Anything that relates to your industry, which is really everything, counts as a legitimate question. Aetna is a health insurance company but I can relate that to healthcare providers (hospitals, clinics, etc.) and pharmaceutical companies, both retail (CVS) and manufacturer (Pzifer). I asked things specific to what I see on a document used within my project such as “Why is the PMO focusing so much on Clinical Programs versus the other workstreams?” I also went as broad as learning the different pay structures for doctors, how to reduce the cost of maintaining linens in hospitals, and the pros/cons of an HMO plan versus a PPO plan. Anything is fair game and those you ask won’t be annoyed. They see it as a “Stump the Partner or Manager” game and want to be quizzed. But once you get all of this information, be sure to try and find a connection point between your discussion and what you are experiencing on your project! It shows that you are genuinely listening and critically thinking about their responses. Since I am helping out with both the PMO and the Clinical workstream, I was able to figure out some information gaps Clinical was experiencing and connect the gaps to those of other workstreams. Hearing certain things in one meeting could very much apply to what is being discussed in another and I was able to find these relationships and advise people on who they can get clarification from. Next week is the 6/30 milestone I mentioned earlier in this post, so it will probably be a busy time at the client office. Let’s see if I can decrease the number of times I re-read an e-mail before sending to the client…

One last thing I would like to share with you is another perk! This weekend is July 4^th so all Deloitte employees get Friday and Monday off. With this rare 4-day weekend, I decided to book a trip to Myrtle with no out-of-pocket costs to me! We have this nice policy that allows me to take weekend trips to anywhere I want and I can apply the cost of the airline ticket that I would have purchased if I decided to fly back to Pittsburgh. It’s called alternative travel and if the ticket ends up being more expensive, you simply pay the difference. So with that, have a fabulous and safe 4^th of July weekend!

-Jamie

Week 2 of Consulting with Jamie Yieh

Hi everyone,

Here’s another update! This past week I was in Hartford on Monday and Tuesday working on my project at Aetna then flew to Atlanta for the two-day Deloitte National Strategy & Operations (S&O… acronym!) training. There were about 55 other interns from all over the country attending this training. I met people from offices in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Kansas City, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, D.C., New York, and even Houston.

Over the two days, we received coaching from 2^nd-year S&O Business Analysts (BA’s), senior managers and partners of the firm. The BA’s were once interns and so were able to relate to our experiences and provide great feedback on what it’s like to work at Deloitte. We received training on PowerPoint and Excel as well as on soft skills such as electronic etiquette and interviewing tips. Lastly, we broke up into 10 groups and worked on a strategy case, which we all presented at the end of the 2^nd day in front of a panel of senior managers and partners.

It was interesting to see the different speaking styles and analysis from all of the groups as they presented one by one, but it was nerve-racking for me to present in front of Deloitte leadership and receive feedback. We were taught how to “storyboard” our thoughts, or in other words draw out an outline of our reasoning, before finalizing an argument and putting together a slide deck. It was difficult to brainstorm that way since most of us were used to diving right into the research, but we were warned that if we did not know what to look for, we would easily waste hours of time filtering through unnecessary information. Overall, training was a great learning experience and I was excited to meet two other interns who were staffed on the same Aetna project in Hartford!

I was back in the Pittsburgh office on Friday and had a meeting with my counselor to update him on my experiences these past two weeks. I remember during my first day on the job, there was a guiding principle that everyone kept referring back to when speaking about Deloitte and consulting in general. It went something like this: “You shape your own career.” It’s short and it’s somewhat catchy but as I am progressing through my internship, the more truth I see in it. As an intern, I am given a whole lot of autonomy and independence over how much I want to do and what I want to do on the project. In just two short weeks, I have learned so much about the healthcare industry and the consulting lifestyle but it was up to me to choose my pace and show some self-initiative and intellectual curiosity to “shape my own career”. Talking to my counselor, he admitted that finding a good pace is apparently the hardest thing to do as an intern and new hire BA but he nevertheless challenged me to find that balance between wanting to learn and being a living human being who still talks to her family and has a social life.

But anyways, my goal for next week will be to interact with the client a little more (maybe even independently lead a few small meetings!) and better understand the company’s problem areas in order to receive more responsibility in the following weeks. Wish me luck!

- Jamie