Shopper Insights Executive Review

My placement at GSK in the Consumer Healthcare Great Britain & Ireland division was certainly the most exhilarating and challenging experience of my young professional life. Having never experienced working for a giant corporation before, I was awestruck by the dynamic and fast-paced nature of the business. Working in Shopper Insights (Consumer Insight research), aligned with the Marketing and Sales team, my work was project-based, and no two days were ever the same as each other. My days at the office were generally busy, and the research I worked on constantly varied because of the vast portfolio of GSK brands and the number of market categories (e.g. cold & flu, sports nutrition, allergy, skin care, etc.) in which GlaxoSmithKline operates. The nature of my role, thus, allowed to gain an incredible insight into a variety of different categories of products, and channels through which these were brought to market.

The first months of my work placement were spent integrating myself into the GSK culture, developing my knowledge of existing insights research and how to be most-effective in my role. Once this was achieved, I rapidly begun to take on more and more responsibilities, and therefore become more dependable by stakeholders within the business. While the tasks and assignments I was given were all really exciting and formative, these were generally challenging and unlike anything I had ever tackled before. Brilliant! Luckily, the colleagues in my team were always on hand to advise me when needed. With becoming more comfortable in my role, I was also happy to try and help out my line-manager and fellow team colleagues by take on small admin tasks or lending a hand on their own projects. This, I felt, was always greatly appreciated by them and certainly a means for me to develop stronger and long-lasting work relationships. Thus, by being comfortable in my team and feeling like a valued member of it, I was often lucky enough to be given the opportunity to be exposed to the work of colleagues within my team, and learn from it.

My line-manager certainly surpassed any expectations or hopes I had for my placement year. He was a great mentor, a caring manager, and a great friend. From day 1, it was clear to me that he was fully committed for me to get out of the placement year as much as I wished. He was always very happy to discuss my Personal & Development Plan (PDP) with me, generous in giving much appreciated constructive feedback, as well as coaching me through any challenging work-tasks I may have been having trouble with. With his support, I devised an ambitious PDP for myself, and he facilitated me in achieving some of my objectives. Having made it clear that I was hoping to get some experience in working with customers, he helped me in arranging a day out shadowing a sales rep and for me to present to customers on various occasions. I have no doubt that I will be keeping in touch with him for many years to come, and that he will be approachable if I am seeking additional advice in future.

Like many things, placement at GSK is as busy as you wish for it to be. Because I was determined to make the most of every possible opportunity at this exciting company, I would often be excited about taking on extra responsibilities or projects. While I do certainly not regret this, it often meant that my hours were not exactly 9-5, and that work would sometimes go on in the early evening. This sort of experience taught me a great deal in terms of increasing personal work efficiency and my organisational skills. The nature of my work was eclectic: handling admin jobs, managing own research projects with agencies, elaborating and cascading key findings of these across the business, and sometimes presenting these to key stakeholders.

During the initial stage of my placement, I was working closely with my line manager and shadowing him on his projects. Within 3 months though, I was expected to show more initiative, write research briefs for new projects (although getting final sign off on these from my manager) and facilitate the fieldwork of these research projects. Soon after that (4/5 months into placement), I was effectively working alongside my line-manager, running my own small research projects, and consulting my line-manager when any concerns or doubts arose. As previously mentioned, I was also given the opportunity of joining the sales/cat team in visiting some of the GSK customers at their headquarters to present back the findings of research projects I worked on. This was an incredible developmental opportunity! My manager generally had faith in my judgement, and was supportive of my decisions.

Both, the formal GSK training and time spent working in my role, taught me an incredible amount about the working of giant corporations, my own personal/professional aptitudes and weaknesses, as well as allowed me to further scope my future career plans. The array of experiences I was part of, allowed me to develop my personal skills in terms of: leadership, creative problem solving, critical thinking (challenging processes when needed), communicating and presenting effectively, and managing my workload effectively. I now return to University more focused than ever, certainly more analytical in my approach to my studies, and highly determined in paving a career in Sales and Marketing for myself, as part of a FMCG company.

GSK Consumer Healthcare experienced a lot of change during the 12 months of my work placement, due to the divestment of Lucozade/Ribena, and necessary restructure of the business. As a result, moral in the office was up and down for a while. However, the people were always wonderful and great to work with. Things have stabilised since, and I feel that the office is now a vibrant place, pleasant to work with, and generally buzzing. The office really reflects the GSK culture, having at heart great interpersonal relationships and championing processes that ensure the pipeline of talent.

Highly organised. The company put on a great recruitment program for hiring interns like me, and made the whole hiring process seamless. While with the company, I had great support from HR on all matters.

Greatly. All the resources and training I wanted were made available.

GSK remains a wonderful and exciting company to work for, and I would thoroughly recommend my experience to any prospective placement student.

London prices. However, we put our savvy University student ways to good use.

Adequate.