Tuesday marks the completion of my third week as an intern with Sabre. It’s going very well so far, and the people I work with are a big part of that. In the Sales Center of Excellence for Sabre Airline Solutions (AS), the responsibilities of our department run the gamut. From working with our marketing teams on ways to best describe the features of a particular product to a strategic discussion of how to educate some of the largest legacy airlines in the world on our ability to perfectly provide solutions to anything that might be keeping them from excellence in their chosen market position; it is never boring.
While I’ve been encouraged to learn as much as possible about all facets of the AS business unit, I’ve also been given the opportunity to complete a project that is impactful to a large faction of stakeholders within the company. The customer-facing teams of Airline Solutions are located in offices in every corner of the world. As such, it’s often difficult to reach these team members with things like product descriptions, executive presentations, contractual assets, internal updates, as well as the provision of the training necessary to stay current on the company and the market.
New ideas, processes, and standards will need to be implemented in order for this area of the business to reach its profit potential through better efficiency and cross-silo interface. In college, you’re not given a step-by-step manual on how to practically implement new processes in large organizations. Regardless, that is what I hope to do, even if it means learning some things on the fly. I’m grateful for the responsibility that I’ve been entrusted with, and hopefully I can look back knowing that I helped make our team better.
It’s easy to put a dollar value on the ten weeks spent as an intern with Sabre; just take a look at your banking app every other Friday. That’s the intrinsic value. The extrinsic value is just as obvious, and possibly even more valuable. I guess that’s arguable though, as a seat to the Hugh Jones Executive Forum doesn’t bring much on eBay… heard it from a friend.
But seriously, the access that interns have to the wisdom and perspective of the executive team is special. Their willingness to listen and accept feedback on the program and our projects shows how much our contributions to the company are valued. Similarly, the case competition is another great asset to the intern program, where interns are given the opportunity to present solutions to emerging market problems across all areas of the travel industry.
It’s early in the process for our team, and strategy and research are still in a formative stage. In a later post, I could possibly share some things about our ideas and experiences as a team. But to be clear, we’re in this to win. We’ll have to make sure we don’t provide any bright ideas to our competition. It’s not personal, friends, just business.