Practical Training: Marketing and Research Intern in TBM Evolution Group
“The best way to predict the future is to create it”
This summer I had an opportunity to work for a Czech event organizing company TBM Evolution Group which is located in Prague. For three months, I was immersed into friendly and warm corporate culture, met interns from different countries (e.g. India, Italy, Turkey, Egypt), and were in touch with the mentor and other marketing managers. Experience of the office work helped me to become more confident with my competences, and understand my career preferences better, therefore I came back to JAMK University of Applied Sciences with a clear comprehension of knowledge I want to get from the studies.
Job Duties
I was working in the Marketing Department as a Marketing and Research Intern. The main responsibilities were to search for people in appropriate job positions who may fit to the conference’s topic (e.g. Strategic Partnership Director is likely to buy a ticket for the “Merger and Acquisition” forum to learn and extend networks) via various search engines. In other words, either my mentor or I created a research formula, put it to search, assigned a campaign with the right people and transferred the vital information about them to excel sheets in order to find contact information. This was the hardest part as some email domains are not verifiable, and other techniques must be applied to come up with qualitative and quantitative results.
During the first two weeks, and throughout the three months, I was trained and taught the main concepts of a lead generation process and marketing campaigns conduction. I also was explained the TBM Evolution Group’s organizational structure, business event production concept, and the main values that drive the company to success, keeping employees motivated. The working routine was new and complex, but I did not feel neither confused nor lost due to excellent and immediate support of the mentor and helpful advices from other marketing managers.
Outcomes
- Professional
In the very beginning of the internship, I was assigned the “Master Data Excellence Forum for Life Sciences” conference and had a Marketing Brief at the same day where the topic’s importance, the Master Data notion, and appropriate job titles were presented. I primarily investigated Pharmaceutical industry and became aware of the leading companies (e.g. Teva, Novartis, Bayer). During the practical training, I also worked on the “Project Finance and M&A Forum” and the “Innovative Tire Production Forum”, learnt more about Merger & Acquisition (e.g. different ways of merging) and memorized which employees are responsible for different processes. The diversity of job positions showed me the value of a properly functioning corporate governance and proved my belief that everyone can find a place in business. In addition, I covered several hundreds of small, medium, and large companies all over the world (from USA to Japan) that helped me to comprehend and identify competitive edges of organizations in pharmaceutical sector, financial and tire production fields. Overall, I learnt and experienced such important things as Corporate Culture, Master Data and M&A concepts, B2B email marketing, lead generation, and contact information search and verification.
- Transferable
Staying in another country, it was a great chance to improve spoken English and enrich personal experience with new attitudes towards languages, hence, next time travelling I will pay more attention to local cultures in order to be prepared for new people.
At the workplace, I improved computer skills like Microsoft Office (Excel, in particular), Google search (formulas, contact information search), email verification, and learnt new tools for data management and extraction. In addition, I believe that my communication skills and ability to maintain intercultural intercourse were developed, as I worked and conversed closely with people who have different backgrounds, beliefs, religions, political views, and manner of information conduction.
- Personal
Even if I had enough support from the supervisor, the workload was large, and to achieve the set objectives I had to do more than I thought I could. This is how I developed stress resistance, experienced work under the pressure of deadlines, and finally understood that some tasks cannot be done quickly and qualitatively no matter how hard you try and want it. I also experienced the feeling of entire responsibility for own life, improved self-discipline and endurance in terms of assignments number. Due to the practical training and moving to Czech Republic, I feel more confident and independent, ready to take responsibility for complex work, and continue my career development in either marketing or project management fields.