My name is Ondřej Žáček and I am a student of ŠKODA AUTO University, field of study Business Administration and Operations. Just like my classmates, I took my obligatory internship in the fifth semester of the academic year 2013/2014.
I wanted to find my own internship and after setting up a few preferences I approached several companies. When going through the options, I mainly focused on the possibility of improving my communication and presentation skills and most importantly, quite naturally, on the possibility of developing my practical and theoretical knowledge acquired either during my previous internships or my studies. And because I don’t like superficiality and wasting time, I was looking for an opportunity that would allow me to have responsibility and not be a mere observer in the corner.
I have been a fan of everything that is new since my childhood, I have always been attracted by information technology, the almost unlimited possibilities of the Internet, robotics or preferably all of those combined and fitted under the hood of an attractive four-wheel vehicle. The selection of companies was therefore narrowed by parameters related to the digital or automotive industries.
Three companies made it on to my narrow selection list. A successful agreement was finally made with a Slovak company called Reco Computer based in Poprad, Slovakia, a city boasting an amazing panorama of the High Tatras. Reco is a medium-sized company with about 20 employees and deals with helpdesk solutions, UNIX system applications, CRM software and applications for team cooperation as well as building and maintaining SAN networks. Major customers include Vodafone Czech and ŠKODA AUTO a.s.
With my new internship supervisor Mr. Roman Poperník, we agreed on the position of junior project manager. Unfortunately, I do not have any advanced knowledge in programming languages, but thanks to my studies at ŠKODA AUTO University and previous experience in the area of cloud solutions and digital marketing, my knowledge was sufficient for the tasks related to the development and management of customer projects. The position therefore worked out great for me.
Initially, my job was to provide support to the development team. I monitored their work and recorded milestones and completed tasks in Microsoft Projects. Mr Poperník required weekly (the company divided development into so called weekly sprints) reports and completed tasks. If any objectives were not met, it was my task to find out what could be the problem and delegate any solutions to the most competent team member.
Together with Mr Poperník, I went on several business trips (mostly Warsaw and Prague) to visit customers and watch applications of intranets on the spot. My presence was then documented in a record containing any non-conformities, removable and irremovable issues and other important points, which were an integral part of the handover certificates. The largest problem for me was communication with Polish customers. Unfortunately, I do not speak Polish and communicating with them was therefore rather difficult as not every customer was willing to communicate in English.
Towards the end of my internship, I was sent to the server room in Prague, where a water accident occurred and I had to identify the extent of the damage and oversee the operational launch of the backup servers. Apart from my office job, I also travelled a lot. Towards the end of my internship, I was in charge of a small team with the task of creating a new web presentation and launching an internet campaign to get the highest conversion. Before I said my goodbyes to Mr Poperník and Reco, I managed to successfully complete several more similar projects.
My internship also had many interesting aspects. Reco Computer supported the initiative of Jindřich Fáborský to organise the largest online marketing conference in Central Europe. The event was called Marketing Festival. I attended the event and had a unique opportunity to shake hands and talk to the greats of the digital world such as Neil Patel, Cyrus Shepard, Brian Carter, Evan Fishkin or the guru of the Czech internet Marek Prokop, and I also learned a lot about online analytics. Mr. Poperník is also a great fan of motorsport and his company has been a sponsor of rally drivers for years.
From a student’s perspective, I can evaluate my internship very positively. I made use of my previous knowledge/experience, gained a richer overview of business in the IT field, managed to combine theory from the basics of management and project management with practical use and thus gain valuable new skills which I hope will be very helpful in my future professional life.
The biggest disappointment, however, was that even though I have always considered Slovaks to be close to Czechs and Slovak never bothered me (in my home town, we had a Slovak police officer and I encounter Slovak every day in shops and also in banks), not every Slovak customer felt comfortable when I talked Czech to them. I therefore often had to face quite a thick atmosphere, when opponents across the table made it clear to me they do not like my language.