INTERNSHIP REPORT

Project Management Internship at

Sochitel UK Limited

Submitted by:
Sudhanshu Kumar
Student ID: W19034839
Module Number: KB7056
Academic Supervisor: Hazel Ponton
Company Supervisor: Stephen Walters
MSc. Project Management with Advance Practice
Northumbria University

Word Count: 2715

(Excluding acknowledgement, executive summary, content table, references)
No. of Figures: 11

Date of Submission: 22nd January 2021

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I, Sudhanshu Kumar (W19034839) would like to convey my gratitude to James Martin, Michelle
Littlemore, Anne Macdonald, Shahid Rasul and the entire Advance Practice Team & Placement
Centre of Northumbria University for all the support, necessary tips and guidelines, through which I
was able to get this 3-month Project Management Internship Program that provided me with the
platform to interact with industry professionals and real-life projects.

I would also like to thank Stephen Walters (Chief Product Office at Sochitel UK), my company
supervisor, for teaching me all the fundamentals of my duties and patiently showing me every
detail and guiding me during my internship time. I am very much thankful to Sochitel UK and its
management, especially employees of IT, Product, Sales and Marketing department for their
cordial support during my Internship Period.

Finally, I would like to thank my university supervisor Hazel Ponton who also supported and
guided me during the preparation of this presentation and report. Also, I extend my warm gratitude
and regards to everyone who helped me during my internship.

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is a detailed report of my internship experience at Sochitel UK Private Limited. I learnt
a lot about leadership, communication/change management, technical delivery, team-work,
documentation, project & programme management and its numerous implementations in general
during my internship. I also learned about the team's workflow, operating remotely around the
world, along with their effective collaboration.

As a project manager, I have learned to work on telecommunications-based projects that not only
enriched me professionally but have helped me grow personally as well. My contribution was
appreciated by my supervisor and other members of the department. The career path I would be
selecting for myself is quite influenced by my internship, as I have had a great opportunity to
practically see how project management in the telecommunication sector is essential for the
successful development & delivery of projects. However, this report has been written in a short
time. I have tried my level best to make it meaningful by reflecting my works at the Sochitel UK.
Also, I have summarized my overall experience, with my learning and challenges faced as an
intern.

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 TABLE OF CONTENT
S. No. Particulars Page No.
1. The Organisation 5-6
1.1 Introduction 5
1.2 Vision 5
1.3 Service offerings 5
1.4 Operational network 6
2. The Internship Role 7-8
2.1 Description & Nature of role 7
2.2 Specific responsibilities of the role 7
3. Assigned Project 8-13
3.1 Description 8
3.2 Objectives 8
3.3 Methodology 8
3.4 Limitations 13
3.5 Project management software 13
4. Lessons Learned 14
5. Conclusion 14
Reference 15

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 LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Sochitel's digital service platform………………………………………………………………………….5
Figure 2: Organogram of the operational
network……………………………………………………………….6
Figure 3: OST Bill Payment project.………………………………………………………………………………………8
Figure 4: Identified stakeholders and the project team.
……………………………………………………….9
Figure 5: Monitoring and Project management application using MS Planner.……………………
10
Figure 6: Website checklist. ...……………………………………………………………………………………….
…...10
Figure 7: Conversation with IT team member for the QA process. …………………………………….11
Figure 8: QA process feedback form.
………………………………………………………………………………….11
Figure 9: Company update of OST Bill Payment launch...
…………………………………………………….12
Figure 10: Final Product (OST Bill Payment Website).…………………………………………………………
12
Figure 11: Plan for adding new billers.……………………………………………………………………………….13

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1. The Organisation:
1.1 Introduction:
Sochitel UK is a rapidly growing digital distribution platform which enables digital services
like virtual airtime, data updates and billing payments across borders via a single-point API
for distribution and supply.

Sochitel was established in 2007 and its first integration was with MTN Nigeria. Sochitel’s
headquarter is in London with its extended footprints in Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Kenya, South
Africa, Liberia & Bangladesh with 400+ providers across 150+ countries worldwide
connecting millions of customers.

1.2 Business philosophy and core values:

These are the core values we strive to achieve in all areas of our business with our
customers, our network suppliers, and amongst our employees (Sochitel UK, 2020).

 Transparency and Openness: “Have a look at my work, I have nothing to hide.”

 Truthfulness and Responsibility: “I own up to my mistakes and take responsibility to
put it right.”
 Relaxed and Friendly Dispositions: “I want others to benefit positively from dealing
with me.”
 Creative and Constructive Input: “I have an idea of how we can do this.”
 Product Innovation and Delivery: “What could the customer need or want.”
 Quality Service: “What will make the customer experience easier and better.”

1.3 Service offerings:

The digital services have become an integral part of our lives. It enables us to communicate
and interact with people, product & services in many ways. It is a unique, efficient and
exceptional communication solution for the clients, users, communities and businesses to
interact and transact value-added services. We at Sochitel UK thrive to provide these
solutions and we are positioned to help our clients in achieving their business goals to
diversify their portfolio, enter new markets and grow their sales.

Figure 1 - Sochitel's digital service platform.

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 Sochitel provides digital services (airtime, data, utilities, lifestyle bill payments) from more
than 400 suppliers in more than 150 countries worldwide, as shown in above Figure 1. Our
most popular items are:
 Domestic Top Ups
 International Top Ups
 Direct Data Top-Ups
 Lifestyle VAS and Bill Payments
 Rewards and Incentive Programs
 Diaspora Pay®

A list of companies in the network and distribution partners for Sochitel UK Private Limited.

Our physical distribution partners include:

 United Kingdom – over 12,500 post offices across the UK.
 Canada – over 7,500 Canada Post locations across Canada.
 South Africa – over 7,000 Pay Spot locations across South Africa.

Over 29,000 Pay point terminals in the UK (Sochitel UK, 2020).

1.4 Operational network organogram:

Figure 2 - Organogram of the operational network.

“We believe in thoroughly understanding our client’s needs and adding value to their
organization's through innovative communication solutions”. – Sochitel UK Private Limited.

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2. The Internship Role:
2.1 Description & Nature of the role:
I started my Internship in Sochitel UK from 23rd September 2020 and continuing since then.
In my internship role, I always try my best to gain absolute knowledge and experience. I
coordinate with the company's operations, information technology, product, sales and
marketing teams, which are highly significant departments. There are two types of jobs exist
in my internship role. These are typically performed by Microsoft office, through virtual
communication & document sharing. Firstly, the productive part and secondly, the
organisational part. The productive part is engaged in project work, developing new ways of
an agile approach and other confidential practices. On the other hand, coordination through
the Microsoft Planner is the organisational part, responsible to update the progress of the
project, and also to establish a proper network through virtual communication with the
team members using MS Teams.

My company supervisor is Stephen Walters, Chief Product Officer at Sochitel UK. My

working hour is very flexible, but officially it begins at 9:30 AM and continues to 5 PM. My
days in the Internship didn’t go well for the first week as there were fewer works for me and
some instructions to observe the office working environment. I was asked to use a laptop
from the 1st day of my joining and also was instructed with the current and future work
details.

From the date of joining, I found that everyone in the company is welcoming and
supportive, especially my supervisor. Soon, I was assigned a project after my first week.
Later, I did little research and gathered the necessary information about the project by
interacting with the team members associated with the project. A few weeks later, I used
the essential documentation, reporting and managerial skills to keep the project's
development in the right direction. Meanwhile, I was busy taking notes from my supervisor
and in organising the meeting minutes. Days were getting changed when I started to learn
the practicality of the project management activities.

From the second month on, my supervisor Stephen Walters provided me two weeks of basic
training on the project manager's duties, on the procedures to complete specific tasks and
on the requirements that must be met in certain tasks. I had to learn cooperating with
different types of tools and software, which is essential to execute a particular operation.
After that, he organised some weekly 'internship catchup meetings', in which he discusses
about the internship, like how it is going, what problems are coming and what is going well.

Later, I worked with the team members on the workflow of the project and was successful
in assisting them and collaborating with them to bring the project to the final stage. And
finally, by the mid of 3 rd month, we completed the first project with a successful product
launch. As days passed by, I became more attached to Sochitel and definitely with my
supervisor. I got appraised for many times from my supervisor and, that made me feel
proud that my work is adding significant value to the company. It is an immense pleasure to
me for working in such a well-organised company. I have enjoyed every moment in Sochitel
UK and achieved so many experiences that will absolutely help me in my future career.

2.2 Specific responsibilities of the role:

In Sochitel UK, my roles are:
 To manage the ongoing project that will deliver a new product for the company.
 To arrange meetings with the project team.
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  To coordinate regularly to keep a track of project development.
 To implement a Programme approach to the delivery of a number of projects
focused on operational improvements.
 To work collaboratively to develop a better system of dashboarding and information
views, project status reports, for the Senior Leadership Team of the company.

3. Assigned Project:
3.1 Description:
As we know, from the initiation stage to the closure, all the stages are an integral part of the
project management, which I practised in Sochitel to take real-life exposure of the activities
of an organization. During my internship, I handled two different projects for the company.
This report has been originated as the course requirement of the MSc. Project Management
program. In this report, I have given reflection about only one project which was my first
project named "OST Bill Payment", as shown in Figure 3. If I include the second project
which is operational optimisation programme, then the report will go outside the word
count, but I have taken a similar approach in both projects.

Figure 3 - OST Bill Payment project.

I hope this report will give a clear idea about the project and my project management
practices at Sochitel.

3.2 Objectives:
The main objective of the OST Bill Payment project is to collaborate and manage the
development of a bill payment website for Sochitel.

To achieve the main objective the following specific objectives have been taken:
 Practice project management studies.
 Explore a theoretical aspect of project management tool.
 Know how MS office and its elements work.
 Highlight some implication of this project.
 Gain an understanding of team management.

3.3 Methodology:
3.3.1 Planning & Data collection:
Initially, the need and goal of the OST Bill Payment website project were understood, in
which the matter was taken up with the company supervisor Stephen Walters, and then
the basic plan and objectives of this project were understood and adopted. Then I began
to ensure my involvement with the IT and Product team. After that, for the data

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collection, we identified the stakeholders and we drew up strategies for dealing with the
project’s development, as shown below in Figure 4.

Figure 4 - Identified stakeholders and the project team.

3.3.2 Initial design concept & website structure:

In this stage, development deliverables were defined, such as initial design concept &
website’s structure, by communicating with each other via kick-off meeting using MS
Teams. These deliverables also include work breakdowns of tasks associated with
planning, Gantt chart and project dependencies. Also, the plan was explained to the
project team which includes the details of the projects, frequency of the meetings, and
the details of how the team can proceed by updating each other and working remotely
on website structure.

3.3.3 Execution & Implementation:

In this next stage, the Implementation of the plan took place and then the project’s
development started. From here the IT team came into the picture, which was highly
responsible for the development of this project. Here the focus of the IT team was on
the layout, content, design and functionalities of the website.

Meanwhile, as a project manager, my focus was on monitoring the team's progress,

ensuring full adoption of project management elements, and removing any ‘risk’ which
team members have pointed out during the project development, see Figure 5.

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 Figure 5 - Monitoring and Project management application using MS Planner.

Every week, Stephen and I had several meetings with the IT team during the
development period and in which we used to take regular updates from the IT team so
that we can complete the work within the time and budget constraints. The thing to
note is that all the communication is happening virtually and the company is using MS
Teams internally to communicate with each other.

3.3.4 Reviewing & User Testing:

Next stage was designing review and user testing in which, Steve and I asked team
members to review the developed website so that we can optimise and bring the
website up to the highest standards. For which I prepared an updated website checklist
which was proposed to the IT team as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6 - Website checklist.

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Later, they thoroughly went through the checklist successfully and later we carried out
successful user testing.

3.3.5 Quality Assurance (QA) & Beta testing:

In the next stage, I organised a QA session to finalise the website for beta testing. As
shown in Figure 7, the QA session was with the IT team in which we identified bugs and
issues that arose after the final development of the website. Later, I shared the feedback
form of this session, as shown in Figure 8, with the project team to eliminate the
problems. After that, all the bugs and issues were fixed and then the website was beta
tested, which was a successful test.

Figure 7 - Conversation with IT team member for the QA process.

Figure 8 - QA process feedback form.

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3.3.6 Go Live:
The first part of this stage was the second round of testing, covered aspects of the site
ranging from SEO to security. And finally, after optimising the website well and fixing
minor bugs, on 18th November we launched this OST Bill Payment website successfully,
which is now LIVE and is working perfectly fine as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9 - Company update of OST Bill Payment launch.

And the final product of this project can be seen in Figure 10. After this, to add new
billers to this product, I prepared an Excel spreadsheet-based plan, as shown in Figure
11, that I handed over to the product team as soon as I got the approval of my
supervisor.

Figure 10 - Final Product (OST Bill Payment Website (Overseastopup, 2020)).

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 Figure 11 - Plan for adding new billers.

3.4 Limitations:
During my internship, I have encountered several challenges & issues that may be termed as
limitations of the report. These were:
 Due to time constraints, couldn't spend enough time to make an in-depth study on
such an important project.
 It was initially quite difficult to get the actual details about the project.
 There were not enough documents available, and the respondents avoided or not
exactly answered several questions, perhaps because of a lack of clear idea.
 Although IT and product experts have tried their best to help me, their work nature
gives them little time to discuss.
 Extreme pressure at work restricted officials to spend much time, even if they had
sincere intentions to provide information.
 External sources of data relating to bill payment websites are very limited as
sufficient articles, publications and journals were not available.

Despite all these limitations, I have given my best effort and have tried to make this report
as informative and comprehensive as possible.

3.5 Project management software:

Most software used in project management can manage estimation and planning,
scheduling, cost control and budget, resource allocation, collaboration, communication,
decision-making, quality management and documentation. However, my company
supervisor allowed me to use 3 Microsoft software during my internship. The software along
with its details are:

 Microsoft Planner - With MS Planner, the project team can work on plans, assign
tasks, track tasks, and see charts of the team's progress.
 Microsoft Teams - The project team can communicate with the document sharing
option with MS Teams. It also offers online meetings and even other extremely
useful business communications features.
 Microsoft Outlook - With MS Outlook, the project team can send and receive email
messages, manage calendar, store names and numbers of contacts, and also track
the project tasks.

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4. Lessons Learned:
While working with Sochitel UK, I have learned a lot about project management and gained new
experiences. The analytical data and working methods of the assigned projects have given me a lot
of idea about the overall project management process. In this context, I’m mentioning the lessons
learned during the internship are as follows:
 Project management - Methodology, Timeline, Risk, Meeting & Task Management.
 Change management - Communication planning, Status report.
 Programme management - Planning & control, Organizational matrix structure, Benefits
management.
 Reporting & Documentation - Effective documentation, Audit & Review reporting, Support
Documentation.
 Technical execution – Testing, Quality Assurance, Use of technical tools.
 Teamwork – Collaboration, Ability to work together, Functional/Technical cooperation.
 Requirement standards - Clarity of requirement, Functional/Technical requirements
gathering
 Managerial tools - Reducing project risk, Future project performance improvement.

5. Conclusion:
My internship at Sochitel gave me the chance to explore the real-life project management situation
in depth. It is fair to say that in this Covid 19 situation this type of internship is beneficial and
informative for any project management intern. My goals as an intern are to obtain skills that will
transfer to my future entry-level position, as well as to work on projects and be able to explain
them well enough that the experience will be considered valid and valuable by another potential
hiring firm. A company like Sochitel providing airtime and data top-ups across borders gives its
customers value-added products and services. As a result, the importance of digital services in the
market is also increasing. Moreover, the company has a significant reputation on the market and,
its consumers are reasonably satisfied with the service that they get from Sochitel. This makes the
company more sustainable and allows it to maintain its lead on the market.

Moreover, I would also like to add that every day in my internship I am delighted to learn new
things and meet new people. I enjoy diverse and supportive environments to build stable
relationships. I'll look forward to opportunities that provide a similar environment in future
employment. I have noticed another significant feature of the relationships that are essential to my
personal goals throughout my career: my collaboration with my supervisor. The motivation and
support that a potential supervisor can provide is an essential part of my future job and career
goals.

The jobs that I do in this internship allows me to develop my professional career goals more closely.
The particular role or position I like to achieve at this point is a project manager role. And my
internship helps me to reflect on what I really want to cover in my future carrier, particularly on
connections, wellness and skills.

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REFERENCE LIST
Overseastopup (2020). Overseastopup. [online] www.overseastopup.com. Available at:
https://www.overseastopup.com/billpay/home.html.

Sochitel UK (2020). Home - Sochitel UK Ltd - Win with Us. [online] www.sochitel.com. Available
at: https://www.sochitel.com/.

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