TSS (MTS) Sales Operations Review

For my industrial placement; I worked for TSS (Technical Support Services - formly MTS) in Sales Operations. My job role involved sales reporting to high levels of management and dealing with CRM tools for our sellers. I enjoyed my day-to-day activites as well as getting involved in long term projects for the benefit of my business unit.

For my jole role I support several different sales teams who require daily information from me; in order for them to feedback to senior management. The information that I provided is crucial in order to understand the current position of our business unit in comparision to others.

IBM have setup this buddy scheme; whereby we take-over workload from the previous industrial trainee. My intern fully helped me to understand the business that I work in and helped me understand the role I play within the business unit. Other than the buddy system; an industrial trainee is aligned to a PDM (Personal Development Manager) who's purpose is to provide additional support and help you to continously develop throughout your tenure.

Just like the real business world; there would be days when I'm incredibly busy and days when I wouldn't be so much. Personally, I would rather be too busy then have no work to do at all because, I'm only ever once going to be an industrial placement student working for the world's 2nd Biggest Brand! When there were times when I wasn't so busy; I would go out of my way to find more work in order to expand my current job role.

As I work in quite a small business unit in comparision to others; the sales reporting given to me provided a crucial role in senior management meetings. Though it may appear quite a simplistic thought that sales drive everything; they really do! and the figures I provide greatly influence the future direction of the business unit.

Since I've been at IBM; I've had the great opportunity at learning new skills and techniques which can be used in my daily job role. I've learnt to become Visual Basic fluent - useful for any serious spreadsheet manipulation.

I sit with other industrial trainees so as expected; there's always banter flying around the office! Everybody here is really chilled and laid back so it's easy to get along with everyone!

The Foundation Team rally do run the show behind the scenes! They are an excellant support network and have helped the whole Industrial Placement process run really smoothly.

There are so many different courses that IBM offer that it's impossible not to find something you might be interested in!

IBM offer graduates jobs which is something I find very attractive! However; the process can take quite a long time to find out whether they want you back or not. It would be a great idea to actually let the IT's know whether IBM want them back, just before they leave. Also, I have noticed that IBM seem to have reduced the variety of different graduate roles. Though I believe it's good to 'keep it simple', I know many current IT's who have found this potentially offputting as it's not the line-of-work they want to do. On a positive note, IBM do offer a mass of opportunity to let you venture into different areas of the business i.e. applying as a business consultant can lead to a finance / marketing job role etc etc.

All the placement students here are from university so we have a great laugh; organising socials or nightsout! In Southbank, the pub is only on the other side of the road - fantastic for students!

Expensive, expensive, expensive! .... London is an expense place to live and even more expensive for a student. Rent can be quite high and travelling around London is likely to hit your bank account. The thing is though, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity here at IBM. At the end of the day; it's not about the money but about the experience you get here!

London and Clubbing is a match-made in heaven. I'll only say one thing ... ZOO Bar. Trust me.

This is London. Loads of opportunity, you just have to get out there!