4th year - comments and observations report

8/12/2019 4th Year - Comments and Observations Report

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Karim Ballout

[email protected]

1

- COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS -

After two months of intense learning and professional experience, I have seen positive

sides as well as bad sides in Schneider Electric. Several observations can be deducted from my

business knowledge as well as from my point of view. I will start listing and explaining several

defaults I have experienced as well as some handicaps.

Issues with regulations application

I realized that there was inadequate knowledge of policies or governing regulations. I heard

many people saying “I didn’t know that!” to policies that were introduced to me in the

beginning of the internship. Also, I feel there was inadequate segregation of duties. The

sentence “We trust ‘A’ who does all of those things.” caught my attention many times. Lastly, I

noticed that there was inappropriate access to assets, such as password sharing or access not

removed and people signing on each other’s accounts.

Use of unprofessional tools

Schneider Electric is known to be the global specialist in energy management. In the Finance

Department, specifically in the Internal Control Department, an Internal Controller’s mission is

to assure achievement of an organization's objectives in operational effectiveness and

efficiency, reliable financial reporting, and compliance with laws, regulations and policies.

Therefore, since security is the primordial goal, it was surprising to notice that the Internal

Control Department, in fact the whole Finance Department, was using Microsoft Excel to draw

tables and generate calculations. For a company that has a big name worldwide, it is essential



Karim Ballout

[email protected]

2

that security should be the number one priority. After two years of professional experience in

more than four companies, it was unfortunate to notice that Schneider Electric was the only

company that did not show me its own personal system tool in the Finance Department. I

found that quite disappointing and unprofessional.

Problems with Information Transfer

One of my missions during the Schneider Electric training program was to manage a warehouse

that was burnt because of a weather overheat, by taking out all the items that were not

affected by the accident and organizing them with the help of a data sheet that would count

the numbers of items found as well as the item type. I had a team under my supervision whose

mission was to go to the warehouse and inform the warehouse workers about the current task.

When the mission was thought to be completed, another team was responsible for double

checking if any item unaffected by the accident was still in the warehouse. They found a set of

Items of the same type that was still in the warehouse and was unharmed. At first, I questioned

my sheet for there might be an error. But after making sure that my sheet was accurate and the

items found should have been transferred to another warehouse, I verified with my team to

understand what went wrong. There was clearly a miscommunication between my team and

the warehouse workers. I believe it is because in my team there were mostly Egyptians whereas

in the warehouse there are from Philippines.



Karim Ballout

[email protected]

3

Communication Barriers

I am very thankful that my CFO was the one who made my internship possible. However,

looking at my experience from a professional perspective, I noticed that there was a lack of

communication between him and his employees. First of all, coming from France, his native

language was French and I was the only “employee” who was able to speak his language. All the

employees were either English speakers or Arabic or both. My colleague was only an Arabic

speaker and I never saw him speaking to the CFO, although we were all in the same room. We

have learned in our school that communication between supervisors and employees is

mandatory to have a successful business. I felt that communication was poor in my department

since there wasn’t one common language that all employees spoke to the CFO.

Dull Environment

I am a believer that everything is related. If you are mentally healthy then positive situations

start to happen, therefore productivity increases and tasks decreases. I was very disappointed

to see that going to the Schneider Electric Financial Department is as if I was going to the

hospital. Walls were bright white with no decorations whatsoever except for some average

Schneider Electric advertisements and the company’s logo everywhere. Since tables were grey

there were literally only three colors in the office: White, grey and green. Even if the

department is not meant for creative purposes, I think a touch of art is mandatory to achieve a

certain level of comfort for the eyes, therefore for the mind, in order to work in a suitable,

healthy, environment.



Karim Ballout

[email protected]

4

As far as the good sides are concerned, I felt that there was a positive environment at

work, making people much more enthusiastic. At each end of the months, there would be a

gathering in the kitchen to celebrate all employees that’s birthday are at this month. Making

people communicate and give them more space for themselves. I felt that the close relationship

between the employees is one of the most important aspect for keeping the company in Riyadh

at top levels. There is a very fast interactions between them and a lot of help between each

other. For example, we had a colleague that was very good in excel. He voluntarily suggested

that he would make a weekly session after work for those who want to learn more about the

program. I realized there was much more people who developed their excel skills since I started

my internship, and I was one of them.



Karim Ballout

[email protected]

5

- MAJOR/INTERNSHIP RELATIONSHIP -

Overall I am quite pleased with my internship experience at Schneider Electric. By being

part of a small financial department, I had the chance to understand the fundamental and learn

things from scratch. I was able to understand the basics of a financial service organization and

elaborate on them. By understanding the processes first hand I was able to apply the

knowledge acquired from my finance books onto real life situations and make educated

decisions. Moreover, I had to work under tight deadlines and juggle through different tasks

which helped to improve my organizational skills all through-while delivering an excellent

outcome. I am proud to say that I proved to be an asset for the company by bringing value

added to their already established work processes, while my experience at Schneider Electric

helped me reinforce my passion about finance and the banking industry. I achieved this by

applying thorough knowledge I had acquired through my ABS studies, mostly in academic

courses like Finance, Management and Investment. The right directives given by the professors

and pedagogical team has helped in achieving more self-assurance about my professional skills

and critical thinking towards problem solving. And, although this internship consisted of long

hours of hard work it was all worthwhile considering the immense knowledge I acquired as well

as the great pleasure of working in a team setting by well-rounded and friendly colleagues.

4th year - comments and observations report

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