Annie Miller, GlaxoSmithKline Procurement Internship (Buenos Aires)
Ian Wilson (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0] via Wikimedia Commons
Global Challenge: Steak and procurement in Buenos Aires
Tag Archives: Procurement
Making the most of being an Intern in Argentina
We have finished our fourth week here in Buenos Aires. At work, after completing the spread sheets for Argentina, I single handily categorised all the suppliers for Chile and collated them into one spread sheet. After this had been done to the best of my knowledge, it was up to me to arrange a meeting with the Chilean Procurement director: Gonzalo Arcas. I enjoyed the responsibility of having to arrange meetings myself. I liked the independence of this, and how grown up I genuinely felt as it got me ready for the working world. I also learnt about the company’s intranet, something called ‘lync’ where communication throughout the whole Glaxo Smith Kline franchise could be done using this ‘MSN’ like structure.
Argentina is a very interesting place in general. After doing some free tours around the city we had learnt that 200 years ago, a lot of the people that live here were descendants of Spanish and Italians. Hence the Spanish language and the Italian mannerisms. We have also learnt that body language is a big part of communication in this country with people using their hands to talk. This is something that was very interesting to pick up.
Fun with new friends
The ability to speak English generally is very good in Argentina, and there are many social events where one can learn Spanish without it feeling like a chore. These places are bars where drinkers and non-drinkers can go, pizza is given and people very casually learn a language that they desire. This event is called Mundo Lingo. You turn up to the place, and it’s a non-profit organisation, hence is free with its sole purpose is to encourage the learning of languages. When you queue to go inside, there is somebody handing stickers as to what languages you know.
As I studied Russian with my A-levels, and am studying French with my degree I was given a Union Jack sticker, an Argentina sticker so that anyone who wanted to practice their language skills with me could do so given the stickers on me. I met some interesting people and people had different reasons for wanting to learn a language such as tour guide wannabes, to translators and people who were migrating to Montreal, Canada, so needed to practice their French and English.
Discovering attractions
It was from events such as these, we could make new friends outside of work and also be told where the best places to go were. It was also very refreshing meeting other Brits. Other exciting places we would go to outside of work was a religious theme park, where every half hour a ‘Jesus’ would be launched into the air; a boat ride in the very beautiful parks of Palermo. We also on Sunday caught a ferry to Uruguay. This was very exciting, as it meant that we had the opportunity to travel to a new country!
By Navneet Bal
Global Challenge: Procurement internship, GlaxoSmithKline, Costa Rica – Philippa Jones
Philippa Jones (Mathematics, 4th year)
Procurement internship, GlaxoSmithKline, Costa Rica, through Global Challenge
Details of duties / responsibilities / activities
Philippa worked independently on a project to increase the use of catalogues in the Central American and Caribbean region (CARICAM) during her internship.
Her main responsibilities included; analysing the total spend and transactions of suppliers in the CARICAM region, liaising with suppliers and colleagues in other departments to gather rates information for the suppliers, creating Excel spread sheets for the creation of the catalogues, uploading the catalogues onto the system, verifying the catalogues work with internal users, and training others in the department on how to create catalogues.
Main achievements
Philippa believes her main achievement was carrying out successful meetings with a range of people within the GSK procurement departments, and by “being able to liaise with both suppliers and internal users in Spanish.”
Most enjoyable part of the internship
Philippa says she enjoyed being given real responsibility from day one and was made to feel part of the team right from the beginning. She enjoyed the work environment, which was very laid back and friendly and everyone was always “willing to help and give advice whenever I needed it.”
Philippa enjoyed the fact she felt that she “made a difference to the department” by helping them to introduce this new system which she believes will hopefully improve the procurement process for GSK in the future.
Skills developed
Some of the most important skills that Philippa developed was her “communication and interpersonal skills” as she had to communicate with suppliers and internal users on a daily basis in both Spanish and English, effectively explaining the new system to them whilst also receiving information from them too.
Philippa also “learnt self-management skills” by working on the project independently and was responsible for managing her own time and planning the progress of the project herself.
Philippa’s multi-lingual skills were also developed: “before completing the internship I had a good level of Spanish but I improved a lot during my time there as I not only communicated in Spanish during my time at work but I also had to communicate in Spanish outside of work too.”
By gaining a thorough understanding of the procurement process in GSK and an insight into how companies run their business and what methods can be put in place to save costs across the company Philippa has gained important “commercial awareness” from this internship.
How this will benefit me in the future
Philippa believes that because she is interested in applying for procurement jobs in the future “having experience in a procurement department of a well-known company will hopefully benefit me when applying for other procurement roles.”
However, Philippa believes even if she wasn’t going to apply for jobs in procurement “this internship has provided me with skills that are necessary for a variety of roles”. In particular, for jobs that require language skills.
Originally posted on Thursday 17th October 2013
Real Voices 