Customer Business Analyst (CBA) Review

I have thoroughly enjoyed my year at Intel, I started not knowing very much about the products or the business but having worked in a job role that supports customers in different regions such as Turkey, South Africa and Russia I've gained a breadth of knowledge about Intel specifically but also a great deal about office culture. I started out as a complete new hire so was obviously given a small amount of responsibility. As I progressed through the year I was trusted with more and more to the extent where I was actually doing a full time employees job as they left.

Almost from the beginning of the internship I felt like I was a full time employee. You're entitled to all the benefits that full time employees are, such as bonuses, free events, freebies from the 'Great Place To Work' team, access to the deals through the Sports and Social Club and much more. Because you're doing the same job as full timers you have the same influence as them, so when it comes to forecasting numbers for the week your numbers can affect a whole region. My colleagues never really challenge this as they know they can trust me with what I'm doing as I understand my customers wants and requirements. Your colleagues even rely upon you for many things also, such as daily reports, meetings that you hold and as interns in my department we are responsible for creating a presentation that is shown to senior management each week. You definitely become a valued member of the team and because they're quite young we quite often go for meals or nights out together.

We have weekly meetings with our managers called one to one's (1:1), during this time we are able to share anything and everything with our managers. Whether its concerns about training, workload, other colleagues, the organisation or university all the managers are very open and friendly. If you have an issue that can't wait until your organised meeting you can always go to them for 5 minutes as they try to make time for you. Alongside this, we are also each given an On The Job Coach who helps you throughout the year to understand things that are maybe more job focused - for example if you're struggling to use one of the systems properly, your OTJC will be able to help you as they do the same job. more often than not, you'll be sat near your OTJC and they help you out day in day out with any little queries you have. They also organise weekly meetings with you so that you can progress through the job and take on more responsibility.

Every day is different in my job. Monday- Friday we have different meetings depending on what has been reported to us and what other things are required from us by other teams. There are one off meetings every week also depending on what is happening in the business. we have tasks that we have to do each day and presentations or reports that need creating that need uploading each day. As well as this, we receive customer requests all day from our customers. When I started I had only 1 customer and so there weren't that may emails but I was new so everything took a lot longer. As I went through the year I was covering for other colleagues in different teams and eventually moved full time into another role and found myself with 4 customers and 4x the emails as well as my daily tasks and meetings. This meant that for 3 weeks I was very busy and after coping for that long I was able to hand off some work to another colleague thanks to my Manager. It was great to get the experience of all different customers as they all have different requests and all need handling differently.

I was given a lot more responsibility that I ever thought I would as an intern. As I said before you may be an intern but you feel exactly like a full timer and you're expected to act and perform to the same level as a full timer (after all the necessary training and experience of course). I started with one customer in Russia and built relationships with the people at that business. I also was trusted enough to cover other colleagues whilst they were on holiday so for a few weeks I was looking after another customer as well as my own. When a colleague in another team fell ill and was off work for 4 months, I was asked by my manager to step in and cover him. This meant I joined a new team looking after customers in South Africa and Turkey. Again, I had to build whole new relationships with the people at the businesses whilst reporting all back to senior management and my team. Because I had been at the company for about 6 months at this point I was much better equipped to work at this level than I would have been at the start of the internship. The level of responsibility you're handed is so high that people often come to you ahead of your longer term colleagues as you may know something they don't know. I fully feel that I have the same work load and exactly the same say people who have been here 10 years. I've even given ideas as to how to change processes or reports that have since been implemented. I've created reports and presentations that are sent to people close to the CEO and are used by hundreds of people. I can't stress enough how much responsibility you're given.

I've only had very little office experience in my working life so it was strange coming into this environment from University. There's obviously a level of etiquette that you have to adhere to as you are in a working environment but you don't have to wear a suit everyday, smart casual is great. My excel skills have developed so much due to how much I rely on it. I never used to use it that much but now I'm extremely confident in my skills. This also goes for emails, having only used it for personal use I quickly learned how to communicate with customers in the correct manner. Everyone is on email, you simply have to be, so it becomes an essential part of the job and obviously a skill you can take forward with you into your professional career. Having sat near my manager and interacted with them, I have taken their behaviour and decision making methods on board to use back at university and apply to the theories we learn there.

The atmosphere in the office is very relaxed and fairly informal. Obviously because its a working environment there is an expected level of professionalism but the people you work with are all fairly young, in my department at least, so you quickly become friends with them and often go to the in house coffee shop together or go and play table tennis. table foosball. There have been occasions when nerf gun fights have broken out across the office, or a desk football tournament started. We have things called 'MBA's' which we give to each other for helping us out with something, we can then trade these in for snacks that we often put on the table in the middle for the people in our cubes to enjoy. We also have a 'Recognition Card' which is a debit card you are given, if you do something really helpful for a colleague they can give you money on this card £8/£10/£20/£40/£100/£250 which you can then go and spend on literally anything. It's a really fun place to work and not quiet as it is all open plan really with everyone have their own desk space and chest height walls. Often I will put my headphones in if I need to concentrate on a report or some work I'm doing and other colleagues are always more than happy to help you out if you get stuck on anything. Discussion is often encouraged so everyone learns.

Within my department the hire back rate is 50-70% on average. The organisation is often changing and positions are either created or roles open up. The majority of the full time members of staff started out as Interns and have stayed for 10+ years. Because they've invested so much time and training in you and obviously like you working in the organisation they are more willing to give positions to interns. It also helps that you understand the Intel 'language' of acronyms and know how the business operates.

There are 50 interns each year across the building in multiple job roles, from customer facing operations, supply, pricing, marketing, finance to engineering, IT solutions, HR etc. This means there are a wide range of types of interns and we all have a really good bond. During the 5 week handover period from Intern to Intern we organise lots of events to help them socialise with each other as they are all strangers. We have an intern Sports and Social Club that organise events and sports for us all. Currently I am the head of the club and so I have helped to organise weekends away for us all, nights out, trips to Bristol and London and of course our Handover period. We also have done charity netball (Boys v Girls), rounders, football, badminton, tennis etc. Our teams often go out with the company sometimes paying if it is a team event. Even if its not you become such good friends with your colleagues you go to house parties or nights out. Quite often we go to the pub together after work or go to gigs and events together.

There are plenty of opportunities to join in on activities outside of work, there are multiple sports teams that are always wanting more people to join. On Monday nights there is always a 9-a-side football game that is open to all employees if you want to play. Quite often you make friends with people in entirely different departments through playing football with them. there are also netball, badminton, tennis teams. Some times other interns will need help with events, for example I helped a marketing intern by going to an event in London called DreamHack, Europe's biggest eSports event and spent a week representing Intel and helping out. I've also been lucky enough to be given a free weekend ticket to Reading Festival and was given a day off to go enjoy myself!! The opportunities are endless at Intel as there are so many things going on and they often need volunteers. I've also helped to do mock interviews with Yr 10's at a local school which was great to help give back to the community. We also have multiple volunteering days as a team where we go and help at local charities doing things such as painting care homes/churches, clearing over grown paths for elderly people etc.