ITC Limited | Mar 2006

My Background:

ITC has been my first job. I joined ITC on the 8th of June, 2005 after graduating from IIT Bombay and have been working since in the Foods Division.

I spent the first 6 months undergoing AUT training program in 3 cigarette manufacturing plants and 7 food factories all over India. The next 3 were spent in setting up and stabilising a INR 200 mn greenfield biscuit plant with 30,000 TPA capacity in Chennai. In the 9 months so far that I spent with ITC, I travelled to Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Pondicherry, Munger (Bihar) and Tahliwal (HP). No wonder I got frequent flyer accounts with all airlines. The only city that I missed from the big-6 was my own home town Hyderabad!

Some of my very memorables moments with ITC - 5 star induction in Kolkata, out-bound in Raichak, conference room sessions in B2 Bangalore, parties, snooker and golf in Munger, frequent presentations in Kidderpore, guesthouse food in Bangalore, rains and long hours in Chennai.

All in a Days Work:

A days work will vary vastly from division to division, factory to factory, department to department, and project to project.

A typical day in Foods head-office could be - Walk into office at 9.00 am; emails; work on some files, drawings, presentations, concept notes; have a cup of coffee or hot chocolate from the vending machine; continue working on your files; lunch in office; listen to a presentation from a consultant; call up a few vendors; emails; finish your file work; leave office by 10.00 or 11.00 pm.

A typical day in a new Foods factory could be like - Leave home for factory at 5.30am; reach factory at 7.00 am; allocate manpower and start production at 8.00 am; check for yesterdays issues and try to sort them out; pray that nothing breaks down and that the production runs smoothly; have lunch in banana leaves supplied by the local aunty-da-dhaba; fix broken things and restart production; have a meeting with the owner of your contract factory to highlight issues that need to be addressed; run production; close days production; leave factory at 8.30 pm; reach home/ hotel by 10.00 pm (replace am by pm and vice-versa for night shift; remove the lunch part).

A typical day in Tobacco factory could be more organised. If you are in Munger, it could be like - leave home at 7.50 am; reach factory at 8.00 am; go through yesterdays break-downs and issues and prepare yourself for the morning meeting; morning meeting at 9.00 am; go back to cubicle to work on files, plans; have lunch at home and come back; keep fire-fighting the break-downs and keep production up so as to meet target; wind up by 6.00 pm and head home; go for a swim, play tennis or snooker; have a drink (fresh lime soda for tee-totallers) in the club.

There are several divisions in ITC (Tobacco, Foods, Paper, Life Style Retail, Leaf Tobacco, New Business) and life could be very different in each of these divisions. So its impossible to generalise.

What to Expect at Job:

All of you must have been warned about the 'reality' of work life. You will have a lot of money and no time to spend it. Campus life, that way, is much better. You will have less money but loads of time for yourself. In the initial years in any company, the best way to be happy at your job is to expect the least. Everything then would surpass your expectations and would probably keep you happy.

If you say you are working on your clients expansion plans into India - all you could be doing is look for ideas/ data on google and put them into excel sheets. If you say you are working to stabilise a new manufacturing plant - all you could be doing is working night shifts and shouting in tamil at labour to adopt correct practices of work. You see, every job could be made to sound glamourous. My point is - don't come into your job expecting highly glamourous stuff. Expect some real stuff, because real life is very harsh and hard.

Parameters to Choose an Ideal Job:

My perception of an ideal job for me (please note: for me) has changed a lot now from what it was when I was in campus. Back in campus, the parameters of evaluating a job were very limited.

1. Compensation (80%)
2. Brand name (20%)

Not only the parameters, even the chances of getting a job I wanted were very limited. So in 99% of cases, it works out that you take the job that you get. Nevermind, its okay. You can always mess around with your first job. All I am suggesting is that you do it in a more informed way. Know what you wanted and what you are not getting.

And for this informed choice, increase your parameters of evaluating a company/ job/ role. Here are a few more pointers.

1. Week [5 day/ 6 day/ 7 day]
2. Location [permanent/ moving; city/ remote/ rig]
3. Progress [promotion/ go for MBA/ move to own business]
4. Industry [consulting/ data analytics/ manufacturing/ software/ oil services/ other]
5. Travel [domestic/ international; frequent/ rare]
6. Brand name
7. Compensation

[What I have deliberately kept out of this list is Intellectual Satisfaction. I am not very sure if you can find this in the very first years of your job. And when you start finding intellectual satisfaction, your list of parameters could read like this:

1. Intellectual Satisfaction
2. Money/ Power/ Fame
3. Time for yourself

This is because all other parameters would have more or less stabilised by then.]

A good way to evaluate any company on the above mentioned 7-8 parameters is to spend a couple of days with your senior who is working in that company (shadow him/her). Another very good way to know more about companies/ job profiles is to do good internships (atleast 2 summers).

Final Word:

ITC is a very fine company. Infact, the best in India if you want to be in FMCG and manufacturing. But you must be sure that you want to do this. Be sure that you want to work in a huge Indian manufacturing company with a 6-day week and lots of India travel as opposed to a small multinational consulting firm with a 5-day week and some international travel (note that each word is opposite in the above two descriptions of the companies). Well, neither is good or bad. Its just a matter of what suits you and what you are suited for.

My Two Pence:

In pursuit of your goal, don't stop enjoying the process. I hope you understand what I mean.