Sales Support Review

Overall SAP has given me many opportunities throughout my 13 month placement. The invaluable experience I have gained through this year has been a huge learning curve which I would not have been able to learn otherwise - I hope to apply this experience to further graduate jobs within the IT industry. In terms of sales experience I would not say I have been exposed as much as I would like, however I have gained a brilliant insight into sales operations, commercial and the sales cycle.

I have been valued by my team very much throughout my placement year - often attending out of office team meetings and events. At times it can be down to who you know as to how much you are rewarded. As many people begin to set expectations and may not value you as much.

Within my particular role there was a high turnover of staff this meant management was changed often. Whenever a new replacement came it took time to bring them up to speed I often had no support from management - however i cannot give enough credit to members of my team who have always supported me. Although for day to day support it often was not there.

Sales interns had particular daily tasks that had to be completed on a rolling basis. However other extra work was very much seasonal to the sales cycle. Therefore most of the work that was required was instantaneous depending on what my team members or managers needed at that moment in time. It also depends on who you know within the company to get more involved with other departments - therefore workload does vary on who you know and how much you want to get involved.

Due to my managers changing often the amount of responsibility varied between them. However i was given lots of responsibility in supporting my team with the internal sales cycle. Often working closely with the commercial team and producing forecasts which my manager would use to report above him I feel I have had sufficient amount of responsibility.

I feel the skills and knowledge i have learnt from my placement year will give me a jump start into a graduate job. I know that when going into my fouth year at university i will have a much better work ethic and be much more able to use my spare time more productivly. Overall the experience is brilliant and would highly reccomend a placement year to anyone.

The general atmosphere within the office was often a positive one and interns are always very supportive to eachother. However due to being close to many sales people they were under lots of pressure to meet targets - at times this can affect the atmosphere. However the general feeling was a postivie vibe throughout the whole office.

There is no general graduate scheme at SAP. However there is a sales academy that take on around 6 people a year. This is plugged into us from the very beginning and we are given lots of information about the scheme. Its fairly competitive and you do most of your training in California.

There was very much a big social scene among the placement students - often going out together. There was also a Girls and Boys football and netball team. At lunch we had a free canteen this made the lunch hour very sociable as we all sat down to together with fellow interns, managers and colleagues. SAP often organised out of work social drinks.