Sales Associate Review

The last 13 months at SAP have gone in a flash. The experience, knowledge, skills and friends that I have gained in the last 13 months will be forever remembered and treasured for the rest of my working life. Overall, I cannot recommend SAP highly enough to anyone who is looking to develop a career in software sales.

The managers and team at SAP value you as a full time employee rather than an intern. During my time at SAP I was tasked with real responsibilities which added value to the team and organisation. These tasks include developing incremental pipelines, developing account packs and stakeholder mapping whilst also having the opportunity to lead and run my own deal.

My managers, team and colleagues were always happy to provide me with any assistance/support whenever needed.

Workload varied on a daily basis depending on the time within the quarter. I found that at the beginning of a quarter, there was an increase of workload due to prepping and preparing the team to have a successful quarter. At the back end of a quarter myself and the team may be were less busy depending how successful the month before had been.

SAP gave me a large amount of responsibility and one key responsibility that I was lucky enough to have was my own deal. This enabled me to gain first hand experience in developing a 'bill of material', negotiating with the customer and finally developing all the necessary commercial paperwork. This provided me with a key insight into the role of an account executive in software sales.

SAP provided myself with a variety of different resources and training to develop my knowledge and skills. One key example of this was the sales training which gave me valuable insight into the start and end processes of sales. I am confident that this experience and all the knowledge and skills I learnt will be invaluable in my future career.

The atmosphere in the office was always positive no matter what time in the quarter or year it was. The SAP employees always went out of their way to have a chat/catch up with me. In addition, having other interns/young people around you in the office enhanced the atmosphere/experience.

Overall the placement programme was well organised. This was allowed to happen due to the inclusion of the 'steer co' team which ensured that the 13 months ran smoothly for each intern. This continued to occur even during the difficult months of Coronavirus and the organisation continued to ensure there were activities and calls carried out to make sure all interns were getting enough work and ensuring that everyone was checked up on regularly.

Having the opportunities to go to senior customer meetings with account executives allowed myself to gain valuable insight into a successful sales process. In addition to this, I was encouraged by the fact that the team and the organisation for having the confidence in myself to lead and run my own deal helping me to learn and develop my sales skills for after SAP.

There are opportunities to come back to SAP in the future. This includes Sales Academy from a sales perspective. This is a competitive graduate scheme so their isn't a guaranteed path to coming back to SAP. However there are opportunities for interns to go on to partners or customers of SAP based on recommendations by SAP.

Social scene at SAP was something I will always remember fondly. Interns and teams would have drinks nights as well as off sites enabling us to spend time with colleagues outside the working environment and so allowing yourself to develop true friendships with other work colleagues.

Due to being situated in London socialising and the cost of living is higher compared to the rest of the country. However, the standard SAP wage will be enough to support your cost of living and socialising activities.

Nightlife in the Clapham and Richmond have met expectations. There are plenty of bars and clubs around to socialise with other interns and fellow colleagues. In addition to this, the SAP main office is only a stone’s throw away from central London allowing you to have access to all the largest clubs, pubs and bars the city has to offer.

Outside of SAP, day to day there are multiple activities as an employee you can get involved in. One key activity which I got involved in was 'Monday night football'. This was run every weekly, and was a chance for SAP employees to have a 'kick about'.