Business Analyst/Project Specialist Review

My placement year on the Audi network undergraduate scheme was an invaluable experience in terms of my career prospects, and my own personal development. I have enjoyed the analytical aspects of my role, and I now plan to apply for the Volkswagen Group Graduate scheme after my final year of university.

My continuously developing Microsoft Excel skills have seen me become a valued member by directors and higher management, who have entrusted me with a number of on-going projects during my time here. I settled in quickly and got to know everyone as all the departments work closely together, and I was able to pass on my knowledge from university.

I have had quarterly reviews with our Audi Brand Director in order to review my experience throughout the year to focus on developing my areas of weakness. I worked closely with directors and line managers on tasks over the 12 months which gave me opportunities to ask questions and improve my knowledge of the industry more efficiently.

I was responsible for producing in depth sales, stock and product reports for the group across all 18 of our sites on a weekly basis which took up the majority of my time during the week. For the rest of the week I would work on other on-going projects, take part in training courses or develop my product knowledge and commercial awareness on our e-platform.

I was instantly given a lot of responsibility from the start as it has been my job to complete sales and stock reports for all the sites and work on other projects that involve the group's accounts. I also had to work alongside other organisations to work on joint reports for our product sales.

The continuous development of my Microsoft excel and analytical skills have been the key learning point throughout the last year. My knowledge of the motor industry and commercial awareness has probably been my greatest development area since the beginning of the year having started with very little knowledge of the sector prior to employment. This skillset gives me a good chance of getting a graduate role but also gives me a lot of transferable skills moving onwards.

The atmosphere of the office has a good professional / social balance and everyone was very welcoming from the start of my time here. As it is a fairly small team at head office it was a very comfortable environment, and was easy to get to know everyone and get involved with conversations.

Overall, I was able to achieve everything that I wanted to get out of my placement year, and was given a lot of responsibility. However, understandably as it was the first year my group had taken on an undergraduate in a role like this; I feel there could have been a little more structure in my development throughout the year.

In my first week, I had an induction week that prepared me for my placement and I learnt how the group operates across the different functions. I was able to visit the Volkswagen group head office and national learning centre for a number of sales related training courses throughout the year.

I am interested in the Volkswagen group head office 2 year graduate programme that guarantees you a role at the end if successful during your time there. I am interested in both analyst and marketing roles. The perk package is also very generous as you get more annual leave, company car, healthcare etc.

I was the only undergraduate placement student in the group and due to the location of the head office, like me, most people commuted from longer distances so was difficult to organise out of work social events. I met the other undergraduates on the network on a number of occasions when on training courses and was interesting to see how their experiences differed from my own.

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