Customer Availability Leader Review

I really enjoyed my internship with Procter & Gamble. From day one I was given accountability for supplying 5 brands with one of the UK's major retailers. Over the course of 15 months I progressed and finished the placement in the role of Availability Leader, responsible for service and on-shelf-availability for the entire brand portfolio. There was never a dull moment and I was always able to collaborate as part of team when tackling problems.

My role was an integral part of the customer supply team making me the single point of contact for different scenarios or sets of data and results. I was able to represent the team both to the customer and the wider internal network of departments as well as take part in quarterly and annual working sessions and events and activities outside of work.

My manager helped me build a development plan to track my progress and results across the course of the year as well as providing weekly and monthly catch-ups to prepare me for my mid-point and final reviews. This included helping me come up with improved strategies for my projects and ways to improve my technique handling day-to-day situations.

Days were normally filled with activity with multiple situations and projects in play. Sometime this would require putting in the extra effort to deliver the results but this was well worth it. Crucially, I was always able to choose my working hours so long as they met the minimum weekly duration and included core working times. I never noticed or had any queries regarding my hours over the placement.

Whilst I wouldn't want to take credit for the work of my team, I was directly responsible for the top 3 supply measures for the major retailer I worked with. As well as being the point of contact for this customer for the rest of the organisation, I also designed and developed my role, deploying it to the rest of the organisation and training employees on other accounts. I also designed and deployed tools to track progress of activities on customer teams and provided training to delegations from Germany and Russia.

The direction setting technique employed daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly will assist both personal study and team projects which are a core component of my degree programme. Tools built to track and improve supply metrics involved key excel training which will likewise enable better process engineering modelling at the mathematical and theoretical levels. The training I received also included the roles of other departments with a view to ensuring I could contribute in the future across every function in P&G supply.

There was always groups of people travelling to visit retailers and open discussion as encouraged. During the morning, often people focused on tasks and were respectful of others but there were no restrictions on collaboration style. Fun was the key theme including competitions, team meals, physical activity and comedy email chains. This promoted a sense of security and well-being enabled improved performance and a feeling of belonging to the wider team.

The person in the role previous to me, trained me and led my on-boarding with a well-prepared plan that prompted me to seek out training and how to find it. I was able to access a wealth of knowledge and tools from experts in different fields and ask advice from different customer teams to improve. The role I had was specific to me so I wasn't dependent on someone creating content for me to work on. My manager had a clear plan and goals for me to reach with the objective of being recommended as a permanent hire.

I had access to an employee training database 24/7 as well as dedicated training on company and retailer software. Multiple sessions were taken to show me previous projects, techniques and results as well as allowing me lead such sessions. I was able to have as much training and development as I wanted and was encouraged to go beyond my perceived boundaries, presenting to experts and stake holders. The goal of all time spent with me was to enable me not only to fulfil the role but also be able to start a successful career.

I was able to secure a permanent position with P&G in the production supply function. This was my objective and all different roles offer a variety of working locations and tasks with key metrics to support the supply chain and improve the business, collaboratively. P&G also encourage employees to develop their career plan and technical skills so that someone can change roles as they progress in their career.

There were regular dinner clubs and sport activities taking place which anyone was free to join. Work parties and events were organised including travel encouraging. This included dinners, conferences, hotels, spas and guest speakers. Local sports teams including cricket, rugby and football, also offered regular fixtures and a relaxed environment with colleagues outside of the office.

The area I worked has expensive property prices but is also near a city centre with affordable housing and apartments. Socialising was no more expensive than at University and was not a concern. The company always paid for evening activities following work events. While I lived at home and did not have to rent an apartment, I was told that council tax was expensive relative to other locations around the UK.

There was only 1 night club in the town where I worked but the city nearby had a variety of clubs and bars which we were able to frequent with work on multiple occasions. This offered everything from quiet jazz to the more traditional student scene and dance parties. There were also novelty bars which had facilities for organised beer pong, table tennis, bowling and other pub games.

Alongside watching sports like football, rugby and cricket, there were also charity runs local to the area and the option to play sports both against other companies and within the intra-company tournament which travelled to different locations to play. Dinners were organised weekly to different restaurants where spouses and partners were also invited to attend.