SUMMER INTERNSHIP AT FUTURE BRANDS

My Summer Internship was the short term experience that provided me a real insight into what its
actually like working in a brand management firm for a career. I was interned at Future Brands, Delhi.
I am a management student at Myra School of Business, Mysore. My institution helped me to escalate
my market opportunities and to intern with one of the leading conglomerates of the country. Dr.
Nagananda Kumar- Executive director, Myra found my skill set suitable for brand management and
thus suggested me to write to FB expressing my interest working with them.
Future Brands- is a subsidiary for Future Group of companies and is one of the leading houses in
the country for brand solutions. As soon as I was suggested for FB, I went hurriedly through the
companys web-site and its presence in social-media. What I found there was real attention-grabbing!!
Future Brands doesnt only provide solutions to nationals and multinationals but also create and
maintain their own brands. The subsidiary establishment is an owner of almost 85% brands of Future
Retail. Apart from these, it also provides services for Indian and global companies on conceptual and
operational brand challenges, helps them to recognize consumer insights and provides brand
strategies. In simple language FB supports these companies to succeed in business through insights &
knowledge-based brand solutions. Not only that my further secondary research on Future Brands
projected me an insight about the firms passion in construing socio-cultural changes, while applying
the understanding to design and nurture brands. FBs way of brand designing, brings alive the brand
world for companies, who can build deeper brand connections with consumers and as a consequence
escalate their brand value.
Along with me were five more of my management school cohorts, interested to intern with Future
Brands. Most of us matched the same interest and were ardent towards the learning experience yet to
come. Our curriculum vitae was now already shared with FB. One fine day e-mails popped-up from
Mr. Atulit Saxsena; Chief Operating officer; Future brands, who asked us to position a Skype Call
meet the same evening. As informed the on-line call meet took place exactly at 6:00 pm the same
evening. All of us were equally excited for this meeting. The conversation started by introducing eachother and unfolding about each-others strengths and weaknesses. After an exhaustive discussion, and
analyzing everyones strengths; Mr. Atulit, proposed our team to author a book on Private Brands
and its scenario in the Indian Market. Mr. Atulit also agreed to guide us for the project from the start
and promised to design the content of book for us.
This blog post is a reflection of the experience we had during our internship at Future Brands..
Amaresh Panda

As promised, the content for the book was available with us the next morning. The content was well
designed, that covered almost all possible aspects for the topic Private Brands in India. As soon as
the content was available, our team decided to meet and plan for possible ways to undertake this
research project. The discussions were boisterous and everyone was excited to select individual
portions of research for the book. The whole content was scrambled to decide and finalize individual
topics as per interests, and of course by supporting each-others strengths and weaknesses.
The project proposed was highly research oriented. Mr. Atulit also recommended us to visit couple of
retail outlets in and around Mysore and Bangalore. The idea was to observe to differences in from
consumer to consumer, brand to brand and place to place. These store visits were to be planned and
done just a week earlier we would report Future Brands office at New-Delhi. Accordingly we divided
out team into three groups, and allocated places, to be capable of casing maximum retail outlets of the
region in a week time. The visits were really knowledgeable, exciting and fun. It was the first time I
tried to discover differences in psychological behavior of consumers at a super market. These visits
gave me a lot of insights on why branding is necessary! What I observed during these visits, was really
breathtaking. Every retail store I observed not only differed in brands and themes, but also had
differences in store aesthetics. Every other store was providing a different sensory experience. Of
course these differences always existed, however it was the first time I looked at it so close and
differently. In the meantime we were also active in daily discussions on Skype calls with Mr. Atulit
about our visits to stores and outcomes from it. As promised, Mr. Atulit guided us on discrete topics,
one for the day, and relate our outcomes with those. The procedure followed was a practical way of
learning, which helped us to absorb and realize our research areas soon.
We as a team succeeded to cover maximum leading retail outlets of the region and presented reports
individually on our findings to Future Brands, and certainly also shared the same amongst us. The
research topic on Private Brands was very fresh to all of us, however we gradually realized our areas,
and recognized what we lacked in vision during the first couple of store visits. Our visions exposed
the manner consumers look towards the retail brands, and was well appreciated by our project lead.
Nevertheless by the end of our initial store visits, our team was cognizant with the definitions,
concepts of Brands and Private Brands. We were also aware of the facts and reasons behind the
sudden upsurge of these brand techniques in the modern retail industry.

This blog post is a reflection of the experience we had during our internship at Future Brands..
Amaresh Panda

We were required to report at Future Brands office, New Delhi on 21st April 2014 and thus all of us
were likewise excited and well stable at the destined place by the previous day. The first day at FBs
office was incredible. I never saw such a cool office in my career, or had never imagined of. The
culture followed at FB was totally different and new to everyone in our team. More than cubicles the
office people preferred large conference halls, where all of them can sit together and discuss on any
project. The environs around the office was much different than other work places. We were allocated
cubicles to work from, in the basement of the office. Our cubicles were just behind an innovatively
designed conference hall named as Chai per Charcha. The office was full with an energetic mix of
Brand strategy and management expertise who take on brand challenges in various categories of
products.
As we were getting ourselves known to the place, we saw Mr. Atulit walking towards us, it was still
the first hour at office. He started the conversation by interviewing our knowledge level with the
individual topics chosen, however, he also guided us the way to follow and the books to refer from
available at office library, in order to reach our goal correctly. Mr. Atulit in full swing explained us
about Future Brands. He said Future Brands, is a brand consulting firm that provides total brand
management solutions based on deep cultural insights. He continued the conversation by explaining

First Day at Office.

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Amaresh Panda

us about Brands and the importance of having those. He alleged Magic dies when we stop believing
in its power to transform things and amaze us with possibilities. A brand, similarly in its true sense is
an idea that we can see only if we believe. And an effective brand strategy plays a significant role in
building brand beliefs in the mind of the consumer. His knowledge about brand management was
amazing and sprang our brains with lots and lots of imaginations and thoughts. Our excitement up
surged to the higher limits to work on the emergent concept of Private Brands that is still very fresh
in the modern retail Industry, including the e-commerce. He ended the meeting by explaining us about
all the five verticals Future Brands works with i.e. consulting, Licensing, Partnership, Insights and
India Entry: The talk lasted for around two hours and then we started our project by initiating with a
well-planned schedule.
The first couple of days were spent with secondary research and exhaustive discussions with the brand
managers and experts present at Future Brands office. The idea was to acquire perfect knowledge
about our individual areas of research. The other six weeks ahead led us to primary research; visits to
various outlets across the city, surveying retailers and consumers, online and offline meetings with
various project heads. The meetings with project heads were arranged with recommendation from
Future Brands, these meetings provided us real time inputs supporting our content. In the meanwhile
we were also drafting our reports with the ongoing research. The last one week was spent with adding
additional contents, designing, proof reading, layouts, and template groundwork for the book. Mr.
Atulit used to guide us on our works done on a day-to-day basis, which facilitated us to structure our
notions in a better manner. I generally was very lucky to be occupied for the majority portion of the
Book, my contents of research included four chapters, three in the initial section of the book and one
chapter at the extreme section and four case studies that was presented as the real time examples for
the chapters.
Ample time during this internship got me into a regular work routine. The two and half months at
Future Brands was the most brilliant days of my life. It equipped me with the required valuable
knowledge and skills of brand management. Theres was no better way to acquire these skills without
jumping into a corporate environment.

This blog post is a reflection of the experience we had during our internship at Future Brands..
Amaresh Panda

CHAI PER CHARCHA- The creatively designed Conference hall at Future Brands Office.

Our Team with Brand Managers of FB.

Final Presentation of the Book at FB Office.

This blog post is a reflection of the experience we had during our internship at Future Brands..
Amaresh Panda