My Internship Experience at Safety Carb

In this article, Marine SELLI (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), 2020-2024) shares her professional experience as a Strategic Financial Planner at Safety Carb Additifs.

About Safety Carb

My father founded Safety Carb Additifs as an entrepreneurial venture in 2015 to produce French industrial additives. It is a company focused on environmentally friendly additives while reducing their negative ecological impact. Over the years, Safety Carb has developed itself and reaffirmed its positioning earning eco-certifications that also allow its customers to benefit from eco-primes.

Logo of the company.
Logo of Safety Carb
Source: Safety Carb.

My internship at Safety Carb

Joining Safety Carb Additifs as a Strategic Financial Planner gave me the opportunity to contribute to an entrepreneurial venture which is a stimulating and ever evolving environment. My role encompassed many day-to-day recurring tasks such as inventory management, issuing invoices, it was mainly centered around developing a comprehensive business plan, which served as a foundation for the company’s strategic initiatives and future growth. Yet being in a small corporate setting, in rare moments I also had to bring support in other areas such as operational tasks.

In the end, this internship allowed me to delve into the company’s financial operations and understand the unique challenges faced by entrepreneurial ventures.

My missions

One of the main parts of my internship was the creation of a detailed business plan with the CFO ( Chief Financial Officer ). I had to do in-depth market research of this process in which I had to assess growth opportunities and identify the company’s competitive advantage. We looked to determine the possible market expansions and the need to incorporate the sustainability metrics into the plan. Safety Carb emphasized the use of its eco-friendly products to break new market segments in this business plan.

It also featured financial projections of the company’s growth potential and indicated the company’s ability to achieve profitability while conforming to his sustainability objectives, and used scenarios useful for external financing like investors.

I was also responsible for helping to synthesize accounting data and to create tools to monitor inventory so that the company’s operations could be kept efficiently and on track with its financial achievement.

Required skills and knowledge

Reflecting on it, my internship at Safety Carb Additifs required a combination of technical and analytical skills. Developing the business plan required me to acquire a comprehensive understanding of financial modeling and market analysis. Moreover, I needed a strategic mindset to balance the company’s entrepreneurial objectives with its operational constraints. For instance, while drafting the Business Plan, I had to consider the company’s limited financial and human resources, ensuring that proposed initiatives were feasible within budget and staffing constraints. Additionally, the production capacity of the company’s facilities imposed limits on how quickly new projects or expansions could be implemented.

What I learned during my internship at Safety Carb

This experience enhanced my understanding of how financing can support entrepreneurial ventures and fast-track its success. I also learned to develop business plan creation skills, from market analysis to financial projections, and gained an overview into how sustainability can drive growth in competitive industries in today’s environment. On a more personal note, working closely within an entrepreneurial team also gave me a deeper appreciation for the challenges and opportunities that come with running a family business.

Financial concepts related my internship

Business Plan Development

One of the key financial concepts I applied during my internship was business plan creation. This involved integrating various components into a cohesive Excel that reflected the company’s strategic direction.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

I also relied on cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the potential return on investment for market expansion initiatives and the need for a validation of other eco-certifications. By assessing the trade-offs between costs and expected benefits, I was able to provide actionable recommendations backed-up by several hypotheses.

Cash Flow Management

Cash flow management was another important concept. For any entrepreneurial venture, it’s necessary to understand how to project and monitor cash flows and ensure that the company’s operations were financially sustainable.

Why should I be interested in this post?

If you’re interested in an entrepreneurial venture, finance and sustainability, I think this post provides a great ground to demonstrate how finance can serve as a catalyst for both business growth and positive environmental impact.

Useful resources

Safety Carb

About the author

The article was written in December 2024 by Marine SELLI (ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor in Business Administration (GBBA), 2020-2024).