Based: Bury, Manchester
Duration: 10 weeks
Start Dates: Monday 30th June 2025
Annual Salary: £24,570 pro rata
The intern will join a four-person team within the PPD Customer Supply Chain, one of three teams under the Customer Care structure. They will report to the Senior Customer Supply Chain Manager.
The primary objective is optimizing indirect and e-retail channels by analysing customer ordering patterns and identifying opportunities to shift towards more cost-effective methods like standard shipper or full pallet orders. This project aims to reduce costs while maintaining excellent customer service. Key stakeholders include:
•Internal: Operations, commercial teams, finance department.
•External: Customers utilizing indirect and e-retail channels.
Daily Responsibilities:
You'll gain a deep understanding of our customer structure and utilize SAP to extract historical order data and analyse purchasing patterns. This analysis will inform the development of best practices for order optimization. You'll then identify key focus areas and present these findings to our Senior Customer Supply Chain. Streamlining the customer receiving process through optimized orders will foster stronger partnerships.
Additional Projects:
You'll have the opportunity to contribute to ad-hoc projects, such as evaluating our haulage order picking process and incorporating customer feedback to suggest improvements.
Success Measurement:
Success will be measured by your collaboration with the Customer Supply Chain team to identify data-driven opportunities for implementing order optimization strategies with our major customers.
Impact on the Wider Business:
By improving order efficiency and reducing costs, this role directly contributes to the company's overall profitability and strengthens customer relationships, leading to increased customer satisfaction and potential business growth. This work will also enhance interdepartmental collaboration between Supply Chain, Commercial teams, and customers.
You will...
The top 3 skills candidates will have the opportunity to develop…
•Data Analysis: Extracting, manipulating, and interpreting data to identify trends and opportunities..
•Project Management: Supporting a project from data analysis to implementation.
•Presentation and Communication: Clearly articulating findings and recommendations to different audiences.
Day-to-day you may be...
- Performing a competitor analysis: pricing and market awareness/tracking
- Managing projects; including adaptation of international product concepts/advertising to the UK
- Budgeting; forecasting costs accurately, tracking spend and ability to save costs where appropriate
- Data analysis; extracting the correct data for analysis, and ability to interpret and relay the data.
- Creative strategy; manage campaigns with both clear strategic and innovative input.
- Designing; briefing artwork agencies on designs for product packaging and point of sale materials and supporting the process through design and print until the materials reach the retailer
- Brainstorming new ingredient and name ideas, reviewing product submissions, evaluating the beauty market and voting on final product names and packaging
You have...
In order to be successful in this role you will have:
- Sense of initiative and problem solving
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills
- An ability to work to deadlines whilst under pressure
- Proactivity, with a keen eye for improved efficiency
- Strong attention to detail
- Able to work autonomously
You are...
- Returning to university following your summer internship (unfortunately if you have graduated already or will graduate before the start date you will not be eligible for this role).
We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic and disabled candidates as they are currently under-represented in our organisation. We are signatories of the Race at Work Charter led by Business in the Community and are committed to improving employment opportunities for people of colour across the UK. We also welcome applications from LGB and Trans and non-binary candidates.
Next steps...
Once you click apply you will be asked some questions to check you are eligible for this role. These will be questions around your current situation, whether you’re happy with the salary, location etc.
If you are eligible to apply, you will then be sent a link via email to ‘Step 2’ of the application process; the online assessments. Keep an eye out for this (it might even land in your spam folder!). Although there is no deadline for completion, the quicker you submit your answers the quicker we can continue to move you through the process!
Once we have your results, our recruiters will conduct a final review of your entire application and if successful, invite you to an Assessment Centre. Please be patient with us as we receive a high volume of applications and want to spend time going through each of them.
Our Assessment Centres this year will mostly be in person, they will be running from when applications open until the roles are filled. These Assessment Centres are specific to function, so please be patient if you don’t get invited straight away – it might just be because your function’s Assessment Centre date isn’t until later on in the recruitment period!
Please note, if you apply for more than one role you will be put forward for the one we deem most suitable for you. If you have a strong preference, please only apply to that one role to ensure you are considered for the correct role.