Learning story

Learning story: What Colleges Don't Teach You, the IC Operations Project Does!

I never studied past midnight during my school, engineering, or MBA days. Despite hearing daunting tales of late-night work at ZS, I joined in November 2015 because the direct project involvement and good pay were appealing. 

However, in February 2016, I was about to have the biggest learning experience of my life.

During the annual Circle of Excellence (COE) or Presidency Club award processing, the Senior Associate on the project noticed something was amiss. The issue stemmed from different people processing Q1 and Q2 IC, Q3 and Q4 IC, and COE, which also included a percentage attainment and payout component. 

This Senior Associate had a unique way of explaining problems, often leaving the listener to piece together the issue. In this case, the problem was multifaceted, involving past quarter adjustments, changes in commission rates leading to incremental payouts, and errors in calculating IC eligible units for the current quarter.

Our onshore manager, an IC expert, spent an entire night pinpointing the problem and two more nights systematically presenting the issue to the partners. This period pushed my mental faculties to their limits, working from 11 AM to 5 AM to support the root cause analysis. 

What four years of engineering and one year of rigorous MBA couldn't achieve, four months on the IC operational project did—it made me work overnight that too with full mental capacity.

"Follow" me for more such stories

Read past stories like above at https://lnkd.in/d9ijze8r