DB 495 Student Internship Paper Guidelines
This paper assignment orients you to the learning opportunities through your internship. This experience allows you to apply your classroom learning and see, first-hand, how your organization is conducting its business based on these classroom principles.
Look for insight to these answers as you conduct your internship. Do not wait until the last week to begin to assess the answers to these questions. You will lose the richness of the experience by not fully appreciating it through-out.
Below are the categories to clearly cover relevant topics. All of the information has been covered in previous classes so refer to previous notes or textbooks if necessary. It is meant to be straight-forward. Also provided are specific formatting instructions. It will help you structure your paper and write the content, and it will help your reader process the information easily.
In formatting your paper, please use the bolded headers similarly in your paper so the written work is in paragraph form under each bolded section, in the same order as below. The bullets exist to give you an idea of what to include, but write in paragraph form, not with bullets. Pay particular attention to sections C (Nature of the Supply Chain) and D (Nature of Customer Facing Efforts). Most of your research efforts should be focused on these sections.
The paper should be limited to 10 – 13 pages, using 12 point Times New Roman font, double-spaced type with 1 inch margins.
1. Company Situation
A) Description of the Company
• Name of the company.
• Historical background. (how the company began, how it grew, how long in business)
• Brief list of major products/services offered by the selling company.
• Briefly describe the niche that company is marketing to. (i.e., what generally are the target customers)
• Pertinent physical facts. (e.g., size of company in terms of revenues, number of stores, plants, employees, geographic market coverage, etc.)
• Image, status and reputation of the company in the industry.
B) Major Competitors
C) Nature of Supply Chain
• Approximate number and types of suppliers (Give examples)
• Describe the channel of distribution. For example, describe how your company’s products get from the manufacturer to the end user or OEM. Is there anything different or unusual about how the industry moves its products through the channel? Do you see any ways to improve efficiencies in the channel? Be creative here.
• Where does your firm fit in the channel? Describe how your company adds value in the supply chain, or does it?
• How important is channel equity and channel relationships to the success of your firm? For example, in what ways does channel equity provide a strategic advantage to the firm? How does the firm leverage its equity in its supplier relationships?
D) Nature of Customer Facing Efforts
• If your firm is a distributor or manufacturer, describe the ultimate demand drivers. In other words, which ultimate product industries demand these products (e.g., demand for autos and construction drive steel sales)
• What are the key target market segments or customer types (or key customers) that define the firm’s marketing strategy? Give examples.
• Does the firm focus on transactional customers, relationship customers, or both? How does the firm acquire customers? What specific customer acquisition strategies and programs are used? Is there room for improvement in these policies?
• Does the company systematically try to learn about customers? Does the firm capture customer knowledge? What type of knowledge is collected (e.g., sales data by customer, types of products purchased by customer segment, customer demographics)? How is it stored and shared (e.g., in a company data set/CRM program or does it reside in the minds of the salespeople?) If the data resides in a program, who has access? Has it been used to guide marketing or sales investments?
• What is the nature of the sales force and the selling function in this firm? Examples of issues you might consider are:
a) Describe the selling model used by the sales force (e.g., value added selling vs. low price leader, service oriented vs. no service).
b) How important are sales force product expertise and customer knowledge in the selling process? How is the sales force evaluated and rewarded? Is product expertise and customer knowledge and service rewarded?
c) How important are cross-selling and up-selling in your business? In retaining customers? In ensuring customer profitability?
d) Do you classify customers into profitability “groups” and provide different service levels for higher and lower profit customers?
e) Does the firm have an understanding of what makes a customer profitable? If you do not classify customers by profit category and treat them differently, then why not?
2. The Internship
A) The specific Internship Role
• What was the description of the role?
• What did you specifically do?
B) Applications from ID program
• What if anything from the ID program were you able to apply or benefit from?
C) Assessment of the Company Business Model
• What might you believe the firm should do differently? Why?
D) Future Internship Recommendations
• What would you recommend the firm do differently in the future with another ID Intern?
3. The ID Program
A) Overall opinion of the ID program
B) Assessments of Strengths and Weaknesses of the ID program
C) Recommendations for Improvement
Thank you and have a great experience!