Work Based Experience: A Report on Cisco Internship

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report details a student's work-based experience at Cisco.

Unit 50: Work Based
Experience

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
LO1 Be able to negotiate industry experience.................................................................................3
1.1 research and evaluate suitable organisations that could provide industry experience......3
1.2 negotiate with work and academic supervisors a proposal for the work experience........5
1.3 recognise the business constraints on the work experience offered..................................6
LO2 Understand the specific requirements of the placement..........................................................7
2.1 agree and prioritise the tasks and responsibilities involved in the work experience.............7
2.2 produce a plan for the work experience.................................................................................8
2.3 analyse the benefits of the proposed activities to the business and the learner.....................9
LO3 Be able to undertake work experience as identified..............................................................11
3.1 fulfil specified requirements of placement conforming to all related codes of practice......11
3.2. Produce systematic records of work undertaken................................................................12
3.3 revise the initial plan as required.........................................................................................13
3.4 make suggestions for improvement and review these with appropriate supervisor............14
LO4 Be able to monitor and evaluate own performance and learning..........................................15
4.1 monitor progress against original proposal..........................................................................15
4.2 evaluate the quality of own performance.............................................................................16
4.3 Analyse the learning which has taken place during the work experience using suitable
reflections..................................................................................................................................17
4.4 make recommendations on how the experience could have been enhanced.......................18
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................19
References......................................................................................................................................20

Introduction
Work-based experience helps to understand the time which is provided by the employee. It is
very important to gain experience in industry. The gained experience that can help in future to
work in a firm or company. This helps to gain skills and knowledge and also to understand the
working environment and working process. it is helpful to determine the caliber of the candidate
to perform a task.
On the basis of given scenario, the research report is focused on work-based experience. It helps
to build professional and personal development. It enhances the employability of the students.
Worked based experience shows the reality of working life to the students which helps them to
ensure employment. This involves review different companies and making a plan on the basis of
work experience, work proposal and then recommendations. It also includes determination of
various business constrains during the work experience also impotence of the training to the
business and the trainee.

LO1 Be able to negotiate industry experience
1.1 research and evaluate suitable organizations that could provide industry
experience
There are a number of sectors which can provide an industry experience such as Hospitality,
management, IT and many more. There are a number of job roles such as assistant, analyst, IT
support specialist, IT reporting Analyst, administrator, technician, developer and so on.This task
involves the research and evaluation of IT organizations which can give experience of IT
industry. Some of the organizations are listed below:
Willis Towers Watson is a company. Around 140 companies are serving by 40,000 employees
of it. The provide and design solutions for risk management, benefit optimization, secure and
protect individuals and institutions. They use a combination of operational expertise and user-
focused design which helps organization to improve benefits and satisfaction. It also helps
organization to transfer, mitigate and evaluate the risk. They reveal new opportunities to improve
performance. The job role is for IT supporting analyst who will be responsible for design
reporting solutions, collect requirements of stakeholders and generate reports etc. (Willis Towers
Watson, 2019).
Zepto Systems is a UK based company which provides services to create values and produces
solutions that are cost effective. They are working in IT industry from year 2008. The job role
offered by the company is IT services sales associate executive. The requirement of the job role
is to pitch services, identify sales leads, opportunities and build a healthy relationship with the
clients. It is an outsourcing company which provides services for development of web
application, management of infrastructure, mobile apps and support for cloud services.
Outsourcing provided by the company saves budget and time (Zepto Systems, 2019).
Cisco is a company which was founded in 1984. Number of employees is 35,000 in 115
countries. It provides solution for networking services which is used to connect devices, persons
and networks. The headquarter of Cisco is in San Jose, California. The job offered by Cisco is
Cloud IT analyst (Intern). The role requires to unleash the data power, offer Analytics solutions,
accelerate strategic and operational decision making that is driven by data (Encyclopedia
Britannica, 2019).

Black country housing group provides affordable homes and other various range of services. It
has been working for the same for over 40 years. The job role offered by the company is ICT
support assistant. The role is to provide ICT support to the colleagues by setting up new users,
conduct ICT inductions and documenting the ICT systems. The job location is based in Rowley
Regis, working hours 35 hours per week, and salary offered by them is £18,145.28 per annum.
Reactive graphics is a London based company which provides services for website development
and design, design graphic. The headquarter of the company is situated in London, England. It
was founded in year 2005. The job role offered by the company is Web design assistant. Salary
offered by the company is £15,000.00 to £25,000.00 /year.

1.2 negotiate with work and academic supervisors a proposal for the work
experience
To negotiate with the work and academic supervisors a good proposal plan is required. This
proposal plan helps to showcase the skills, ability, capacity, soft skills and past experience in the
IT field.
A proposal is necessary to ensure the placement in the company. Proposal should be in such a
way that it will show the contribution to the company’s mission. A cover letter plays a vital role
to express the interest in the Cisco company. The proposal also includes the learning outcomes
that can fulfill the job requirement. This adds value to the proposal. Proposal includes
clarification of duties. The cover letter includes the overview of skills and the reasons behind the
intention of applying for the post. Then in next step, a strong resume also helps to strengthen the
proposal. This reflects the personal skills which include technical skills and soft skills, also the
past experience, educational qualification, and other things. The resume should be in such a way
that it has relevance with the job and company objective. The job role required an interest in
machine learning and data applications, enthusiasm about technology, a mind set to learn
continuously, passionate to communicate ideas and concepts. This technical knowledge also
requires the knowledge of various cloud service models, cloud architecture, software and
hardware knowledge, virtualization and so on. Cisco is one of the leading companies that provide
network solutions.

1.3 recognize the business constraints on the work experience offered
different business constraints which should be recognized on the work experience are listed
below:
Availability of the trainer: The job requires dedicated training and there might be the
possibility that resources and instructor are not available to provide training to the staff daily.
Because training requires lot of efforts, time, resources. There are many areas which need
guidance of experts in that field.
Limitation of cost: To ensure proper training there is a need for sufficient budget or fund. Also
for resources, budget is required and this can be a point of concern as a constraint.
Availability of time: Some organizations do not prefer to invest their time in training. This can
be a constraint for the interns. To overcome this limitation technological advancement can be
helpful. As there can be webinar or online tutorials that can help the interns to be familiar with
the tasks.
Other constraints are:
Figure 1 ratings of cisco
(Source: Indeed.co.uk, 2019)
 Salary hike is less
 Frequent layoffs
 Compensation correction is not good
 Sometimes work is repetitive
 Career progression is less
 Working hours are high
 The level of management is not up to the mark (Indeed.co.uk, 2019) (Glassdoor.co.in, 2019).

LO2 Understand the specific requirements of the placement
2.1 agree and prioritize the tasks and responsibilities involved in the work
experience
Work experience in Cisco is very fruitful for the future prospectus. As a cloud IT analyst in
Cisco company, role is to provide data analytics solutions to the problems to optimize the
operations of cloud infrastructure. Also, it involves redesigning the analytics. This is important to
achieve a high-quality solution to the problem. The responsibility includes completing the task in
the given time limit. Planning skills is necessary for the job role as it requires in-depth planning.
The next responsibility in this job role requires the identification and prioritization of technical
and business requirements. Another responsibility is to accelerate decision making. Prioritization
of the task involves identification and definition of the problem, then adopt solution of that
particular problem, apply the solution that should be adaptive in future also.
Priorities of the work Task name Responsibility in the task
1 Finding loopholes for existing
cloud project
Find areas of improvement in
the project and recommend
suggestions to improve.
2 Develop a project to provide
data analytic solutions
Provide solutions to enable
the business
3 Improve the project Suggest recommendations to
improve the data analytics
project a

2.2 produce a plan for the work experience
Planning is the process which tells about what we need to do in upcoming days. (Kotler,
2019) .The planning in every organization or in every person’s life is very important. This is a
crucial part of every person’s life. This is important because it helps t cover all risks and proceed
towards goal.
1. Setting goals, aims, objectives, and purpose: The purpose to work for any company should
be clearly defined so that we can accomplish goal of work experience. If goal is cleared then
road to accomplish that task can be planned accordingly.
2. Plan: Generate various alternatives so that particular task can be accomplished. From various
alternatives, particular solution can be selected and planning can be done accordingly.
3. Design: The design of particular thing or component should be done according to plan.
4. All based components should be evaluated and studied and according to the work experience
it could be procured
5. Work should be done by analyzing all internal and external factors so that particular task can
be accomplished and a person can reach great heights.
6. Maintaining at particular pace is important so that all tasks can be accomplished.
7. All tasks performed should be evaluated and improvised so that all issues can be resolved.
8. Enhancements are important in every aspect. This is crucial to work experience.

2.3 analyze the benefits of the proposed activities to the business and the learner
After the training session one gained a lot of knowledge about cloud computing and cloud
analysis. It also includes the knowledge of various cloud infrastructure management, knowledge
of python and data visualization tools. It also improves the technical as well as soft skills such as
behavioral skills, communication skills, team management, time management and so on. It helps
to gain the real-life work experience in an IT industry. This live experience helped to gain the
skill in the field of the cloud. It also improved the problem-solving skills of individuals.
Training is beneficial for the business as it helps to improve the performance, benefits, and
morale of the staff. Training helps the organization to determine the new skills that are required
for business operations. This also helps the business to create improved customer service and
improvement in productivity. This also shows the employees that the organization cares for them
and providing training. Thus it helps to maintain a healthy relationship between organization and
employees. This is beneficial for the learners as this will maximize the contribution of them in
the business and build self-confidence. This will help the learner to learn new skills that can be
beneficial in promotion and improve the payment. The ability to solve various problems and
perform various tasks keeps learners motivated and energetic. This helps to increase the
efficiency in the process which will result as a financial benefit. A training program reduces the
weakness of the employee and helps to improve the level of the employee’s skill. A training
program also encourages creativity (Skills.sa.gov.au, 2019).
The benefit to the business:
 Determination of new required skills and technologies
 Improve customer service
 Improve productivity
 Shows importance to the trainees
Benefits for the learners:
 Improves the contribution in the business
 Improves morale and confidence
 Helps to address the weakness of the employee
 Increases efficiency

 Improve employee performance
 Improves productivity
 Reduce the cost to hire new employees, thus, reduces employee turn over
 Improves the reputation of the company
 Keeps employee motivated (Managementhelp.org, 2019) (2020 Project Management, 2019).

LO3 Be able to undertake work experience as identified
3.1 fulfill specified requirements of placement conforming to all related codes of
practice.
1. The main aim of the CISCO Organization is to be ethical in nature which comprises various
qualities such as:
2. The alternative which is selected from various alternatives should be effective and efficient
in nature.
3. When any disruption occurs, then the organization know when to take action and when not.
4. The concerns by employees are circulated so the problem could be solved efficiently and
effectively.
5. The quality is main element which should be delivered through our products.
6. The main principle which is followed while dealing with clients is Honesty and Integrity.
These values of company lead to greater heights in this competitive world.
7. If someone has suspect on something which is illegal or not right can be share with top-level
persons so that all rules are compiled and in return that will not harm the company.
8. The work place where various employees are working is convenient, responsive, forward-
looking, innovative, and fruitful in nature.
9. There is no discrimination against employees. The hikes and salaries are paid according to
their experience and capabilities.
10. The workplaces are safe and secure.
11. The conflict of interest is generally avoided by employees in company to build a positive
environment and to continue in long run.
12. The employees in company are paid for their extra work in form of gifts, travel,
accommodation, etc.
13. There are various opportunities that can be gained by employees for their
enhancement.
14. There are various laws and rules made by company. The employees need to follow
them.