Internship Experience with Walmart Labs,India.
Interning with Walmart labs, one of the giants of eCommerce industry was like a dream everyone desires to live some day. Summers of 2019 gave me this opportunity to join Walmart as a 2 month intern. Not accustomed to the professional world I was a bit nervous for my first ever intern, but today I know I could not have got a better experience. The on boarding presentation itself starts giving you opportunities to come up with ideas and present them to the audience. There are activities which allow you to think and go beyond the box to come up with new and innovative ideas. At Walmart we have four basic beliefs but making these beliefs known to the on boarders is also interesting. It involves the activity of just placing the points on the screen and allowing everyone to come up with the possible meanings of the phrases. An extremely engaging discussion of the thoughts from these phrases makes the on boarders extremely comfortable to the beliefs. It also helps them to step ahead and keep their views which is given great importance and heard as a new opportunity to enhance the belief as well as a new thought that comes to mind when common and new people go through the four beliefs of Walmart’s Success –
1. Service to the Customer
2. Respect for the Individual
3. Strive for Excellence
4. Act with Integrity
We are welcome to what you think about the meaning as well. 😊
Next day I saw the coolest working environment which welcomed me to be a part of the team. It started with “Not Sir! Call me Parvesh!”. Everyone in the team is treated equally. Even the interns are given great importance. There are no strict office timings, the work does not demand long stressful hours, things go easily which keeps you motivated to keep serving with full dedication to achieve high and give your best. 24*7 open pantry, Carrom, Table Tennis, Billiards and many more game playing spots are the entertainment attractions. Tasty Lunch with the entire team and the sweet conversations is also one of my major liking. Whatever it be, you get a chance to have new experiences, learn new things and improve yourself. Even the weekly sync-ups make everyone aware of what everyone else is working on, what problems they are facing, give suggestions for improvement and learn from the discussions. It is a great ground for showcasing talent and handling responsibility and excelling in every aspect.
My project was to analyze Grocery Data and come up with a model to recommend items dynamically while the user is building his cart. For the project I was given full opportunity to analyze the entire Grocery Domain and get a very clear understanding of all the tables whichever I needed. I could go to anyone for help anytime, be it my Manager, my Mentor or my colleagues, everyone was always ready to help. Within the first week itself I was well conversed with my entire team. There were no restrictions on things that I could analyze. There was great freedom and I was just told to prepare a set of results which could help to get a clear understanding of what items sell the most, which are the main revenue boosters and what could be possible loopholes. This analysis could help in improving the traffic of orders. For me this was a great opportunity to grasp the entire workflow of the entire Grocery Domain and get accustomed to all the tables which stored any of the Grocery data.
In such a big company I had not expected such great freedom and the liberty to access such a vast information domain. Different teams sit side by side and this even shows inter-team bonding which definitely deserves a huge applause. Associates at Walmart are not just co-associates, they are a family ready to work together for the betterment of their home, Walmart. Truly it feels like home with friendly, helping, cheerful people around with accomplishable work, with no strict deadlines and an admirable culture which keeps celebrating events like World Environment Day, World Health Day, Ask Us Anything etc. The list goes on to even include events like “Bring your kids to work” where associates bring their children to office and special activities are arranged for them, a number of games and even more gifts, the kids too love Walmart the way it is. Specially for interns hackathons and engaging sessions are also held. Some glimpses of the hackathon-
I even got a chance to go on a two day team outing with my entire team to Coorg, a beautiful place near Bangalore, sponsored by Walmart and this was the best outing experience I ever had. Even seniors in the team are so cool! Everyone enjoyed to the fullest and contributed to the many memories I bagged back from the trip.
It was a great two-month experience and for me Walmart is a giant not just in eCommerce but also in providing job satisfaction and learning opportunities.
Thank you Walmart for giving me such a great experience.
