Business Analyst Review

During my placement I was able to gain invaluable experience and build my skill set to increase my future employability. At Cummins, I was always given interesting work to complete and was involved in a variety of Business and IT oriented projects. The work was always interesting and it kept me busy throughout the year. The team I was a part of were friendly and provided a laid back atmosphere in our department.

The IT department at Cummins hold a strong bond, I was always able to approach members of the team with concerns or questions and I was always helped or pointed in the right direction. Members were always quick to pass of their experiences and knowledge to help build my own understanding.

My manager had an open-door policy, where there wasn't a time during the day where you couldn't instant message / email / visit him for support and guidance. He always stated that "no question is a silly question", which meant that no matter how obvious an answer to a question was, I always felt confident to ask them. My manager was full of IT / Cummins knowledge and guided me towards the projects that would support my career choices.

I always had enough time to complete project work and never felt under enormous amounts of pressure to get it done. I was given tasks that had to be completed on a daily basis which became routine and used to fill my morning hours. During the afternoon I was able to help other employees with any problems / issues they were having and would try to implement solutions to the problems. Work was slow for the first few days, however this can be expected as over time, staff will slowly start to recognise your strengths and will delegate work accordingly.

I was given a lot of responsibility during my placement, one of the largest responsibilities was raising purchase orders for work that needed to be carried out / paying for contractors and cross-charging the totals to another plant. These purchase orders needed to be accurate, they had to follow industry standards and always had to be backed up with quotations for work.

The department I worked for invested heavily into my training. I was sent on a 4 day course to complete Business analyst training, with the hotel, food and travel expenses covered by the department. Secondly, I was sent on IT Project Management training for 2 days, again having all expenses covered. I was also given thorough SQL and HTML training to develop my technical skills. These skills are deemed valuable when employers short list candidates during the recruitment process. These skills are all fundamental to my career ambitions and will surely be attractive to companies that I apply to in future.

The general atmosphere was laid back, you could always joke around with other members of the team . Everyone was always able to make light of certain stressful situations. Interesting discussions were always held between members of the department where you could get in debates about general or IT topics and your own views and opinions.

At first, during my first few days at Cummins, I felt the work was slow and the structure may have been a little disorganised. But once I was given access rights to certain drives and information, the work kicked in fast and I was given plenty tasks to do. Overall the whole placement structure has been well thought about, it has provided me with enough experience to understand the role or a Business Analyst.

The firm invested a large amount of money into my training and development. As explained previously, I was given different types of training.

With the headcount in the IT team building up, it seems employment may be difficult within the forthcoming years. My manager has been told that recruitment into our team will be slow, but there may be opportunities that open up.

Students would get together at the local social venue to grab some food and a couple of drinks. Some of us attended the local gym together to keep active and socialise. Football / cricket events were also held where students could get together at the parks / sports grounds around our plant and play.

The cost of living was average, house shares are a lot cheaper than renting your own accommodation. Students usually join a facebook page and book accommodation together to reduce costs. Apart from that, there is a local Tesco Superstore and other small restaurants that sell food / general household items at regular prices.

Nightlife wasn't great in Daventry, there is one club in town, but this is deemed as quite a rough venue. Better nightclubs can be found in Birmingham and Coventry, which are around a 25 - 40 minute drive from Daventry.

I organised Imagineering with the local school, where placement students were able to build engineering kits such as a robot, robotic arm, motor powered car etc. with year 7 students. There were also sports clubs that were held locally outside of work, football and cricket seemed the most popular events. The leisure centre also held fitness classes which were also quite popular.