Consumer Market Knowledge Internships

Customer Business Development/Sales Internships

CBD Intern BlogsEngineering Internships External Relations Internships Finance & Accounting Internships Human Resources Internships Information & Decision Solutions Internships Manufacturing Internships Marketing Internships Research & Development Internships Strategic Purchasing Internships Supply Network Operations Internships  

CBD Intern Blogs

[20.11.2009]
Hello readers of my blog,

This week my biggest project, the Sales Meeting, took place.

And I can tell you something: It turned out to be a huge success! Beforehand I couldn't negate my flurry. But minute after minute I was more confident! At the end of the event the attendees seemed quite excited and pleased by everything our team provided to them during the entire day.

Certainly work for the Sales Meeting project is not over. Now it's time to gather feedback from the participants to drive the next event to have even better results. But this is just one example of what is expected of me over the next days to reinforce the event. That's what P&G characterizes. Even after climbing a high mountain there's still even a higher one to mount. In a nutshell: Let's strive for excellent results on and on again.

Now, my focus will shift to the Factbooks I was telling you in my previous statements here. Unfortunately I couldn't work on them during the last weeks due to my strong involvement in the meeting preparation. Now it's time to catch up in order to finish my project on time.

Alright, now I'll start to work on it. I also wish you a relaxing weekend. Let's see what it will bring, I can't wait to watch a football match live at the stadium.

Regards, Martin

[23.10.2009]
Dear readers,

Now, my internship here is at halftime. As I told you some days ago I had my mid-term assessment. My boss was quite confident but still there are some opportunities where I should improve to get better results for me and my projects. The company strongly worships people who lead "their" own project and here I could find my main opportunity to grow. In previous internships I was mainly acting as an assistant to my boss. Here I have full responsibility and people solely support me whenever needed. The accountability implies direct rewards for being successful which can be very satisfying.
On the other hand the amount of responsibility also enables oneself to learn very quickly. Many employees verified my impression of working quicker and more effective time after time. Therefore, P&G can be compared to consulting agencies where people also get a broad insight and learn a lot in a very short time.

Besides my projects go along very well! The sales meeting will be in less than 3 weeks and most of the main organizational stuff is nearly done. Now we’re concentrating on the finetuning to make it exceptional and remarkable for the attendees. Unfortunately I cannot disclose my secrets for the event and show you how excited I am...

Alright, now I leave you for the weekend and which you some joyful days.

Cheers, Martin

[16.10.2009]
Hello everyone,

My 6th week at P&G has passed and time is rushing quickly. Everyone told me before and now I can see and feel it directly. My projects are going along and after getting used to many processes and so on I think I’m completely onboard in the company.

To organize my main project, the Sales Meeting, I’m constantly working together with an agency which helps me to develop and enhance the event as good as possible. We’re trying to set up a remarkable event for everyone so that the Sales People are willing to give the best they have for “selling” it to the customer afterwards.
The meeting will take place in 4 weeks, so now my tension is growing with every day passing by. Let’s see what the next weeks will bring to make it as interesting as possible.

During my days in the company I’m also playing “Kicker” - tabletop football - nearly every day with my colleagues so my skills improved a lot, at least I’m not loosing not every time ;-). This is a very good “sport” and helps me to calm down during the day. Besides it also helps to get to know other people on an easy basis.

Next week my mid-term assessment will take place and I’m pretty curious how my boss is assessing my work and if he’s confident with my delivered results.
I’ll let you know and wish you a nice weekend,

Martin

[25.9.2009]
Hello dear readers of my little blog,

As I told you last week I watched the match of my favorite team on Friday. Unfortunately “we” just played 1:1 but it was sufficient to be the new leader of the league since St. Pauli was beaten by 1.FC Kaiserslautern. You can imagine: I had a really good start in my 4th week here!

During the week I was mainly working on gaining as much information as possible to develop my projects. So I talked to many colleagues from the category to gather data about product basics, competitors, customers and consumers as well as price and distribution. Without the contribution of my very friendly and open-minded colleagues my outcome would have been not as good as it is now. I’m deeply grateful for their efforts!

An important point about the culture here is the lunch and coffee dates. Everyone is open to lunch or have a coffee with you. By chatting with those very interesting people you get to know lots of different characters in a short period and this makes it easier to ask the right person if a problem occurs and you need someone’s help. It is also quite interesting since many employees have different backgrounds and hence your horizon gets broader with nearly every coffee! As you can see the hierarchies here at P&G are very flat since having even our Vice President Pirjo Väliaho D/A/CH for a coffee break is possible.

Besides, some fellow interns and I have started to design a project next to our daily work were students organizations can gain outsourced projects from P&G to work on them. So far we have a pilot project about the austrian pharmacy market. The first telephone conference where the project members discussed about the targets and next steps was this Thursday. Now we’re pretty excited which valuable learnings we can derive from it. Keep your fingers crossed, I’ll let you know about our results.

Ok, so far from here, see you next week, Martin

[18.9.2009]
Hey everyone out there,

my name is Martin Becker and for the next 4 months I’m doing my internship at the German headquarter of Procter & Gamble in Schwalbach near Frankfurt. I’m very glad working here and so it’s a pleasure to share my experiences with all further applicants.

You’re probably wondering how I found my way into the company.

During my studies of Business Administration at University of Erlangen-Nürnberg I was mostly doubtful whether I should start my career in Marketing or Sales. Since I was particularly interested working in the FMCG industry, I couldn’t miss to have a look for job vacancies at the worlds biggest and most successful consumer goods company P&G. There I found information about a 3-day CBD seminar which aroused my interest. The seminar took place last November here in Schwalbach and gave me a very good opportunity to get a real insight into the company since among many many other things like teambuilding via cooking, employees from CBD presented to us their daily work routine and explained how work at P&G feels like. At the end of the seminar the attendees had the chance to do the job interviews. Luckily I passed them and so I signed my intern-contract on my birthday. That was a really nice present from P&G!

On September, 1st I started my internship in the Baby Care team. This means that for the forthcoming months I’m engaged in one of the biggest, most famous and most successful brands of P&G, Pampers. Like only few other brands Pampers became a synonym for diapers all over the world and stands in line with Walkman, Tempo (Hankies in Germany), Nivea and Ipod. As you can see I already identify a lot with the brand and really look forward to learning a lot in the next months. At Pampers I’m working in the department of MS&P (Market Strategy and Planning) which collaborates with the functions Marketing, Finance & Accounting and Product Supply to develop long-term strategies to convince the customer of our products. During my first two weeks I had a very warm welcome from my colleagues and attended many onboardings, where people from other departments not only explain all the acronyms and abbreviations which are used here but also all the fundamental data which help me to develop my projects.

Now you may ask: “Which projects is he talking about?”

First of all I’m with the Baby Care team, so it means that I have to plan a big meeting for all our Key Account and Senior Account Managers. The objective there is to explain and motivate them for a very big initiative which will revolutionize the diapers category. As expected from a company where “new challenges every day” wait for you this means to me that from the first day my boss and my colleagues put full responsibility on me. This is a great reward since they trust me and try to help me at any time necessary. So this helps a lot to feel as a real member of the P&G universe.

Second, I’m also engaged in another project at the Fabric Care team. There I’m responsible to develop a Factbook for the Laundry category, namely Ariel, Mr. Proper and Dash. The factbook’s target is to provide all the necessary information i.e. a general market overview, consumer/shopper psychology, customer analysis as well as a short introduction of the category. It is aimed at P&G employees who are new in this category and need a brief introduction on key figures and product and category details.

Ok, now I talked a lot, it’s time to start the weekend. I’ll watch the match of my favorite football team 1.FC Union Berlin in Koblenz. Hopefully they’ll win and regain the lead of the championship (2.Bundesliga) back. Lets see what the next week will bring, I’ll let you know.

Kind regards,
Martin