21 Aug Hustle & Bustle of London’s Centre
When you come to London, like all tourists – it’s a must do to see all of the iconic sites; Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, London Eye and go to all the little markets. Enjoying the hustle and bustle of the city and trying all the delicacies that the UK has to offer.
Welcome to by backyard – a small start up retail analytics company that helps retailers improve business performance by analysing in-store customer behaviour. They provide retailers with real time consumer behaviour data, that retailers can then use to improve their marketing strategies, store layouts, staff management and much more! It’s fascinating to hear how much data my company can pick up and transform into data that is easy to understand. My company has a relaxed but focused culture – you can wear what you are comfortable in and be yourself, and at the same time be a professional in the workplace.
Our “office” is a little bit different to others, I was a bit overwhelmed at the start, the office floor consists of about 30-50 other small technology start up companies. The best part about where we are situated is that it is right next to Tower of London and Tower Bridge, that’s my view each and every day. Can’t complain about working next to two of the biggest tourist attractions in London.
So you might be wondering what does a typical day of an Intern at a retail analytics company consist of?
Plain and simple – No day is ever the same! With random conversations and arguments over; how many jellybeans can fit into an Olympic sized swimming pool? Or trying to decide what is the right way to call and pronounce words with a British, Australian and American view on each of them. Within a matter of minutes a typical day can turn into a very random and interesting day. I mean who wants to work somewhere that isn’t enjoyable and cant have a laugh every now and then? That’s what I like about this job, everyone is very laid back, approachable and quirky in their own way. Also each day a couple of us will go out for lunch together or on Friday afternoon we head to a little food market near by and have a team lunch together.
Still being a relatively small company – we are trying to find the areas of retail they can excel in selling to – At them moment they are focusing on Fashion Retailers but want to expand into new territory. That’s where I come in – I get to use my knowledge and skills that I learnt while at University and put some of them into practice. I do a LOT of marketing research making sure that retail stores we want to contact outside of the UK meet our “Ideal Customer Profile”. We do a fair bit of outbound marketing, but make sure that every email we send is personalised to the person we are contacting. This makes sure the contact knows it isn’t spam and we do really want to talk to them. An added bonus the meetings that you organised for the Account Managers and Prospective Customer you get to sit in on. My internship in London is more about Sales than anything else – not my ideal position but it will give me skills for the future, through using CRM systems, as well as much more! Within the first month I have learnt a lot from the people and company I’m working with.
Lets see what the next month can bring!
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