Operations Finance Analyst
Andrew Yarosh
Operations Finance Intern
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.
May 21, 2018 – August 9, 2018
This past summer I had the privilege to work for Norwegian Cruise Line at their corporate headquarters in Miami, Florida. Norwegian Cruise Line is the third-largest cruise line in the world and a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. My position as an Operations Finance Analyst Intern fell under the Operations Finance team, specifically managing all revenue earned onboard Norwegian’s 26-ship fleet.
My overall role as an intern consisted of many different functions and projects. First, I was to familiarize myself with the multiple different databases NCL utilized. This list included Quick Base, an online database software as well as low-code application creation tool, and Hyperion Essbase from Oracle, a large-scale data warehouse. I did the majority of my work in Microsoft Excel, a tool I became advanced in using, as well as SAP Analysis, a Microsoft Office add-in that pulled NCL data directly into Excel. I was assigned numerous tasks, such as automating the process of paying concessionaires (or retailers selling goods aboard the ships) by pulling live data from the different databases and comparing that to the amounts the Chief Accountant of each ship calculated. If there were any discrepancies, I would communicate with the accountants both on the ship and on land to locate the variances in the data. I finished this process by coding the invoices for those payments using a program named Recall. My other roles consisted of contacting different teams within finance, accounting, and information technology to solve problems such as data variances or missing data.
I had many projects throughout my internship. One project I worked on was preparing the onboard revenue category of “Miscellaneous” for the second-quarter budget model. The team I worked on was creating this model throughout my twelve weeks, and I sat in on weekly meetings about revenue updates and budgeting calculations, as well as participating in the build of the model for my assigned revenue area. This included doing a deep dive to find what drove “Miscellaneous”. I then categorized this data, which in turn resolved which revenue streams to focus on for the budget. For my largest project and greatest achievement, I created an automated revenue pacing workflow which paced onboard revenue and alerted management when projected to flux a predetermined threshold. This workflow used historical data from previous year’s day-by-day revenue recordings to give management an update on how better or worse every single onboard revenue area was fairing that day for the entire fleet. If a revenue area was doing substantially better or worse than the historical data projected it should be doing, management was sent an email notifying them of the exact ship, sailing, revenue area, and the amount in which it was producing. I then presented the on standby workflow to my manager and it is a tool she continues to use today.
Being that I am a MIS major, I believe my internship was extremely relevant. I learned to analyze data and how to present it as business information to my colleagues and clients. I put the skills learned in Data Analytics to use by modeling and designing different database centric solutions for Norwegian Cruise Line. My position led me to manage multiple database systems, source that data, make it homogenous, and generate an analysis and visualization to communicate the data as information. I applied JavaScript knowledge and logic to help create my on standby workflow within Quick Base, one of Norwegian’s databases which also utilized low-coding application services. Creating this data driven application which connected with Norwegian’s database helped me learn and practice debugging techniques to help identify errors and make improvements.
I am extremely grateful for my time as an intern at Norwegian Cruise Line. My summer experience taught me many technical and applicable skills imperative for my future. The knowledge gained and corporate exposure Norwegian provided me with greatly strengthened my professionalism.