Description:
For my STEP project I chose to intern at Aware, a cybersecurity startup headquartered in Downtown Columbus. Over the summer, I worked full-time in finance and accounting helping the business run more efficiently.
Transformation:
While completing my project, I was able to increase my self-confidence in solving hard and unfamiliar problems. In class, you’re shown a problem and taught how to solve it in a safe environment, and any proceeding ones will just be a variation of the first. In my internship, I was given problems I had never had to deal with before and so had no reference for coming up with a solution. This is more reflective of what happens in real life and being able to solve the ones given to me was a big accomplishment.
Activities:
A lot of the projects I worked on had to do with process improvements. First, I was shown how to complete a task according to how it’s always been done. Then, I took it upon myself to make it better. This involved a fair amount of self-teaching excel formulas and even learning a bit about coding macros. There was typically a lot of manual input in the tasks to be completed and that’s prone to human error. By automating as much of the calculations and double checking as possible, it not only cuts down on the time it takes to complete, but also the accuracy.
An example of a process improvement was payroll. Previously, we took a payroll summary report in Excel and manually calculated totals to reconcile our accounts. Through automation, a simple copy and paste of the data now completes the reconciliation instantaneously and organizes the data in an easy-to-read format for review.
However, the biggest project I worked on involved rethinking the pricing strategy for Aware’s software. Previously, pricing for each deal was verbally discussed and was not very consistent when similar opportunities were compared. After compiling a list of all current and past customers along with all the characteristics of each deal, I was able to create a data-backed formula to calculate how we should price each customer. This not only made turnaround for pricing requests much faster, but also made it more consistent and prevented underpricing.
Significance:
Self-confidence is an incredibly valuable thing to have. In a professional environment, it allows me to take on challenges instead of passing them up from fear of failure. Taking advantage of every challenge you’re given provides more opportunities to prove yourself and can open a lot of doors. Being able to solve problems at Aware has been a great accomplishment and provided be with what I need to be successful.