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“Once in a lifetime,God gives us an opportunity

to create a dent in the universe.

This is ours.”

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|| THE WINTER INTERNSHIP PROJECT ||

Name: Ahana Sarkar

Stream: Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM)

Semester: 2nd

Enrollment Number: 12015008012041

Year: 2015-2017

College: Institute of Engineering & Management, Saltlake (Kolkata)

Name of the Company: Paytm

Department of Internship: Marketing & Sales

Project Assigned: Paytm Wallet Sales

Dates: 21st December, 2015 to 31st January, 2016

Duration: 6 weeks

Company Guide (Team Leader/Mentor): Mr. Anil Kumar Ray, Senior Associate

Faculty Guide: Ms. Anuradha Saha

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|| Introduction ||Paytm is an Indian e-commerce shopping website headquartered in Noida, India, launched in 2010 as a prepaid mobile recharge website with Android, Windows and iOS applications. Paytm is an acronym for "Pay Through Mobile". It was founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, incubated and owned by One97 Communications. Paytm is One97’s flagship brand. The firm started by offering mobile recharging, adding bill payment and e-commerce, with products similar to businesses such as Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal.

In 2014, the company launched Paytm RBI approved semi-closed Wallet - inspired and driven by a commitment to great consumer experience. Paytm is also a leading payment solutions provider to ecommerce merchants and is now India's largest mobile payment service platform with over 40 million wallets. The service became the preferred mode of payment across leading consumer internet companies.

In 2015, it added booking bus travel. Also in that year, Indian industrialist Ratan Tata made personal investment in the firm. The company received a $575 million investment from Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group. After Ant Financial Services Group, an Alibaba Group affiliate, took 25% stake in One97 as part of a strategic agreement.

Paytm works with the all mobile operators in all states in India for prepaid mobile, DTH, and Datacard recharges and postpaid mobile, landline, and Datacard bill payments. It has partnered with multiple national banks for credit card, debit card, and net banking payments. Paytm also works with various billers for utility bill payments. In 2015 Paytm received a license from RBI for starting India's first payments bank. The bank intends to use the Paytm’s existing user base for offering new services, including debit cards, savings accounts, online banking and transfers, to enable a cashless economy. The payments bank would be a separate entity in which the founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma will hold 51%, One97 Communications will hold 39% and 10% will be held by a subsidiary of One97 and Sharma.

Paytm holds the title sponsorship rights from Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for all international and domestic bilateral series hosted by the BCCI for a period of four years (a total of 84 matches) starting from August 2015 for INR 203 crore (32 Million USD), or INR 2.42 crore per match played in India. The rights include sponsor branding of series with the title sponsor logo, designation as the title sponsor of the series, visibility at the stadium, and broadcast sponsorship rights. This also includes all BCCI domestic (Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy etc.) matches in India. Previously, Paytm had spent about INR 50 crore during 8th season of Indian Premier League. Paytm also served as an associate sponsor on Sony TV network (which has the telecast right of IPL) and was the official partner of the IPL team Mumbai Indians.

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|| Summary of the Project ||

Thirteen of us were selected by Paytm from Institute of Engineering & Management, Saltlake to work as a Marketing Intern for our Winter Internship Programme. On 21st of December, 2015 i.e. the day our Internship Programme started, we were all advised to report at the Paytm office at 10 o’ clock sharp. The Paytm office is situated not very far away from our I.E.M Management House. The address that was given to us was “One97 Communications Ltd. 6th Floor, Eco Station. BP-07, Saltlake, Sector-V, Kolkata – 700091.”

On the first day of work, the HR, Mr. Debojyoti Das, who had also taken our interview, introduced us with the company i.e. Paytm, the rules, the regulations and the company norms that we had to follow, the job that would be assigned to the trainees, some his fellow colleagues who later became the Team Leaders of the respective teams, the Head of all the Team Leaders, Mr. Ankit Agarwal and also, Mr. Nishith Sinha, the Deputy General Manager of Paytm.

Now let me introduce the Team Leaders (TLs) under the constant guidance whom we worked.

Group I – TL, Sounak Banerjee: Group II – TL, Anil Kumar Ray1. Shobit Chakraborty 1. Ahana Sarkar2. Rishav Sharma 2. Bhagyashree Roy3. Arpan Sengupta 3. Raazib Khan

4. Souradeep Paul 5. Supratik Das

Group III – TL, Tania Bhattacharya: Group IV – TL, Chandan Chauhan:1. Moumita Mandal 1. Ria Sen2. Rupsha Banerjee 2. Piu Kola 3. Debopam Ghosh

The job that was assigned to each of the Interns at Pay tm :

The thirteen of us were offered the position of a “Trainee – Wallet Sales with One97 Communications Ltd.”. As the designation depicts, we were given the job of Wallet Sales. Now what does the terms Wallet Sales actually mean? For that I need to give a brief description of the Paytm Wallet application, which is available on any smartphone using the operating systems like Android, Windows, iOS. The Paytm Wallet application helps individual customers or business merchants to transact without hard cash. One can Add money by means of Credit Card, Debit Card or Net Banking. Send money to someone who

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also has access to Paytm Wallet and internet connection. Also, one can Request money from someone if the person who is requesting has low balance in their Paytm Wallet and needs it for an emergency. The other most vital facility of the Paytm Wallet is that the user can also transfer their balance in their bank accounts by simply providing the Account Holder’s Name, Account Number or IFSC Code and the amount that they want to transfer.

Since, at the individual level there will be very much less transactions, so the job of the Interns was to visit shops, convince the shop owners to download the application and accept money from the customers who are willing to pay them in exchange of an item via Paytm Wallet. This way, at the end of the month they won’t have to stand in a long queue in the bank to transfer their monthly income. They would also get an additional 1% cashback in their Paytm Wallet when they transfer the Wallet balance in their bank account. Sounds easy? Well, no. It wasn’t.

PLOT TWIST: In order to link up their bank account, and transact via Paytm Wallet, they needed to be authorized Paytm merchants, which was only possible if they filled up a not-so-simple KYC (Know Your Customer). It was then that their glad and “Oh-so-nice!” faces turned into a gloomy and “Its-interesting-but-I-am not-interested.” faces. And this is because, they compulsorily needed to provide a Proof of Identity (PoI) and a Proof of Address (PoA) for the purpose of filling up the KYC form. The only reason they overlooked the benefits of using the Paytm Wallet was because of the very obvious trust issues. We were not provided with an Identity Card, or with any such Paytm goodies, like a bag or a t-shirt or maybe a hoodie, with which the employees of Paytm blew their own horn. More so, because the KYC form did not have the company’s name mentioned in it. Neither Paytm, nor One97 Communications Ltd. For some it was ছাতার মাথা, while for the others it was দু নম্বরী। But of course, there were exceptions and it for these exceptions that we did not get laid off from Paytm.

Here is the filled up KYC form of the very first customer that I managed to get hold of:

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|| What I learned.. ||The internship was beneficial to me for a number of reasons. To begin with, I learned basic responsibilities of a job such as being on time, keeping a near perfect attendance record, and knowing that if I did not finish my work there were real consequences (instead of possible extensions for assignments). I learned to be my own boss because my boss would not stand over my shoulders all day; the responsibility was now on my shoulders. This was very different from completing assignments for classes in college because in college you get a syllabus, you have friendly reminders from your professor and classmates, and you are generally given extra time if something comes up. In the internship, I got a little taste of how that all ends when you get a real job; everyone expects you to be an adult by then and delegate your time properly. Time management is a necessary skill that develops through internships.

In addition, it taught me to make the most of my opportunities. The internship I held was somewhat flexible in the tasks that I could take on. The door was open for me to choose or suggest other projects that the organization might not have listed. People have such freedom is many jobs in that your work is what you make of it. If you sit back, you will have work given to you. If you go after things, you will get to pick your own work. For example,

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our Team Leader, Mr. Anil Kumar Ray, had put on area limitations i.e. Group II could only survey in Burrabazaar. At first, we abided by the restriction for a few days but later on this limitation was removed as they saw us perform better in the localities which we knew better. This is a great lesson that can also be considered a life lesson: you can live a life as it comes to you, or you can go after what you want and make a life as you want it to be.

|| What I need to learn.. ||Working as a Marketing and Sales intern, I learnt that communication skills are very important. Unlike other designations, my job was not to sit back in a fully air-conditioned office and work on a computer from which an ordinary Bengali would call a দশটা- পাাচটা duty! Instead, my job was market acquisition and market mapping, which is commonly termed field-work. One needs to communicate extremely well in order to understand the mind frame of the merchant. Being well versed in English, Hindi, Bengali or any other language does not in any way mean that he/she has the convincing power to influence a merchant. Communication is how you will be able to cultivate loyal employees, charm customers into coming back time and time again, and court investors and other sources for increasing revenue for your business. This skill can come in handy when dealing with vendors or any other necessary business services that may apply to your venture - being friendly in business-to-business relationships is a sure-fire way to be treated a little bit better, therefore making at least one aspect of your job a little bit easier. So, this is one aspect I need to

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improve to work in an industry. For a job in Marketing one just NEEDS to ‘Stop stammering and start talking!’

|| Conclusion ||Pictorially summarizing my project:

“All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance between the characters in this picture and any persons, living or dead, is a miracle!”

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Kamal Kapoor throws some money at Amitabh Bachchan and tells him “Aaj tumhare naye kaam ka pehla din hai. Yeh lo, rakho.”

To which Amitabh Bachchan replies “Main aaj bhi pheke huye paise nahin uthata.”

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Stunned? Solution?

#Paytmkaro

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|| Acknowledgement ||I would like to thank all the professors of my college and also my fellow colleagues in Paytm for helping me to bag this Internship offer and complete it successfully. Without their help, this would not have been possible.