It was a valuable journey equipping me to join the Consulting Industry.

Throughout my virtual internship at Aello Consulting, which focuses on helping overseas FMCG companies to enter the ASEAN market with ease, I have accumulated many professional experiences and interacted with clients from different industries, such as Food & Beverage, EdTech, and Fashion.

One of the projects that I assisted with was to source Indonesia agricultural projects for a client based in Hong Kong. In this project, I had to find and connect with the agricultural aggregators and distributors to source products with certain specifications. It was quite a challenging task when I began contacting them as most of them took very slow to respond and seems not to understand the specifications required by the client.  Thanks to my supervisor, I learned to take time to engage and explain the details of product specifications to them. As having certifications, e.g. the USDA organics, is one of the requirements, I realized that most Indonesian agricultural distributors didn’t obtain certification or conduct any quality assurance process even though they had commodities with excellent grades. Eventually, I could explain the details and share how the distributors could expand their market reach greatly by certifying their products.

That particular task has taught me how to communicate better with stakeholders as we should not be afraid to present from different perspectives if that would benefit both sides of the table. Our engagement could only be sustainable in the long run.

This is one of many instances throughout my internship that I could not only learn how to work with various stakeholders but also gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and the opportunities found.  This is one of the most valuable aspects for me to work in the Consulting industry.