Business Operations Intern Review

I loved my placement at Nike UK. The work was challenging, insightful and crucial for my development as an employee. The team which surrounded you were friendly and helpful which meant you always had support on placement. No matter how ‘silly’ the question you could always count on the team for support.

The team in Operations were always happy to help when needed. It was an enjoyable atmosphere to work within. I made some friends for life on my placement and I will ensure to keep in touch. Even when I experienced a burglary in my home, my team were so supportive for matters which occurred outside of the office!

I felt that the training I was given was not great as I was trained by the previous intern. I believe this operation is still in practice however there has been a new onboardkng process for new team members. Management were helpful for day to day support and showing you how to conduct the work however the training should’ve been more structured.

The work which I conducted at a base level was enough to keep me busy. However there were periods when I became more skilled and quicker at my role that I became bored. In these periods I would ask team memebers to pick Up their workload if needed. My workload was often impacted by events which I ran every quarter so it did pick up again.

I was given a lot of responsibility. I was in charge of 4 running accounts inventory management from DC to retailer. I was their point of contact for the business for all queries. I also facilitated in house trading between accounts which became my project. My managers did not micromanage me.

The skills I gained on my placement will be essential in my future career. I gained confidence and developed myself as an employee greatly over the year. Nike allowed me to undertake an excel course which means I am now trained to an intermediate/advanced level. I also developed presentation, organisation and communication skills.

Everyone was always happy. Operations had times of high pressure and the praise which we received when we succeeded in hitting targets was great. There was never a bad day in the office. They often ran competitions for all of the teams to win awards and prizes. The team were always up for a laugh.

My placement was split between business management/sales and operations. This was well set up as I understood the basic essentials for operations and then how this reflected into sales. The workload was probably slightly weighted more to operations and there was a potential for more business management to happen. Overall I loved the spread across departments.

I felt that Nike took an arms length approach to development. It was very much up to you if you wanted to develop more. If you asked your manager what you wanted to develop, they would point you in the right direction or set up training meetings for you. I felt as an intern, they could have been more supportive but on reflection, their hands on approach worked to an extent.

Depending on the state of the organisation when I would be looking at applying for a job, if there is a position available, I would be offered this job. On exiting the company managers had to rate their placement students on whether they would like them to return. The intake of previous interns in operations is very high.

It was limited between the interns. I imagine if you were based in London it would be better as there are more interns and it is centrally based. However, in Sunderland there were only 3 of us and we were not based in a city Center. This meant that meeting up was more difficult as we were all in different locations.

Newcastle was the nearest city and it was incredibly cheap for socialising. There bars, clubs and restaurants often had deals on which made it even cheaper. The cost of living was cheap, I paid £365 for a house share in Heaton, this included rent, bills, a cleaner and council tax.

I lived in Newcastle so the nightlife was great with lots of places to go. However it was very Geordie Shore, so it would depend on what kind of night life you like as this was not for me. However there were some nicer bars to go to as well.

There was not a lot of opportunities to be involved with the team outside of work. Again, I imagine if you were based in the London office it would be more advantageous for the interns to be involved in events as it was one of the key cities for events.