COVID-19 has turned the world upside down. Everything has been impacted. How we live and interact with each other, how we work and communicate, how we move around and travel. Every aspect of our lives has been affected.
Last summer was very unique and special. We stayed quarantined, but the lockdown has been fortunate for me as it has allowed me to work remotely with one of my favorite authors in the Supply Chain Management field.
The story behind my internship at SCM Globe
Before jumping to the story of this remote internship, I want first to introduce myself. I am Mohammed Boualam. I am an industrial engineering student from Morocco, and I’m very passionate about Supply Chain Management and Logistics.
One day last summer, I picked up a book titled Essentials of Supply Chain Management by Michael Hugos, the CEO and co-founder of SCM Globe. Reading the first chapter was very enough for me to start wondering who is the author of this book. After doing some research about Michael and watching one of his videos on YouTube, I decided to try to connect with him through LinkedIn. (My LinkedIn profile – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammed-boualam-52138418a/). Fortunately, he accepted the connection, and after some days, my remote internship journey started. It was unexpected.
Michael reached out to me with this message:
“Hi Mohammed, We are looking for someone with your qualifications to be an intern at our company for 6 – 8 weeks this summer. SCM Globe develops a supply chain simulation application that is used in training programs, universities and graduate schools around the world. Logistics consulting firms also use our application to model and simulate operation of existing supply chains and design new ones. Our website – www.scmglobe.com .
The intern we are looking for will work remotely. We think you have good qualifications for this internship. If this sounds interesting, we would like to schedule a video call to discuss this further. Please let me know.
Best regards,
Michael”
I was shocked, it was difficult for me to believe that Michael had contacted me. I said YES, I am interested, obviously. How can I miss such an opportunity?
Fortunately, after passing the interview, I was accepted for the role.
What it’s like to work at SCM Globe
In the beginning, I was very stressed. I didn’t have either the experience of working with professionals from abroad or the experience of working remotely. It took a few zoom meetings before I started feeling confident and more comfortable.
Participating in a remote internship has meant adjusting to working online and talking with the team over Zoom. Having the privilege to work closely with the CEO, the COO, and the director of sales and marketing of the company meant a lot for me. In other words, I learned from the BEST.
Every Monday and sometimes Wednesday, we schedule Zoom meetings, and we also use emails and an app called Slack to discuss ideas and ask questions. This helped me to become more organized and more disciplined. It has given me a taste of the working life, providing me with appropriate tools and transferable skills essential for working in a professional environment. I learned the importance of teamwork, the importance of being customer-centric, and so on.
SCM Globe is a stimulating workplace. I was very fortunate to belong in such a team, where all ideas and suggestions are discussed and taken seriously. We millennials want to belong to something special. We want the company to do well so we can be proud of our contributions.
Morocco Supply Chain Competition
I like to take initiative. One of my ideas led us to organize a Supply Chain competition here in Morocco. Even though we had many constraints, including tight timelines, the team trusted me, and that really motivated me to do my best.
We organized our first Supply Chain competition in Morocco. There were 86 students registered for the contest, and 64 went through the training and participated in the two days contest. For more about the competition and the winning teams, you can visit our blog post: https://www.scmglobe.com/winning-teams-in-morocco-supply-chain-competition/
The feedback from my team
Here is some feedback from the team about my contribution to this competition:
- “… Mohammed demonstrated the ability to take directions, to work on a tight timeline, and to apply his engineering and supply chain knowledge for creating a realistic and challenging case study. He was central to the success of the competition.”
- “… the supply chain competition in Morocco was due to your initiative and it would not have happened that seamlessly without your efforts.”
- “Mohammed Boualam did outstanding work as an intern at SCM Globe in the summer of 2020. We are very pleased with his performance.”
Conclusion
In brief, working as an intern at SCM Globe changed a lot of things in my life. It’s one of the best work experiences I’ve had. I look forward to working together again.
[Editor’s Note: Mohammed’s timing was good – we were expanding into the Middle East and North Africa. And he had the talent we were looking for. We asked him to continue working with us and he’s doing another internship now – Spring 2021.]