Ben Markham

Country of origin: United Kingdom

Placement: Audi UK

My role was within the Customer Quality & Network Development team of Audi UK. My responsibility was to provide technical assistance and reporting to this team and also to the wider Audi UK management team. Our teams’ responsibilities covered a variety of different areas. The network development aspect involved working with our dealer partners. Our strategic goal was to have the optimum number of retail centres for our customers and ensure that these centres were in line with our brand aspirations. My role within this was to generate business cases to support strategic decisions and reporting to support operational decisions.

The CQ&ND team was also responsible for people development and customer quality. I was involved in a number of project teams to develop customer quality best practice based on both analyses of qualitative and quantitative data. People development involved planning to make sure that the Audi dealer network had the optimum number of people at the appropriate level of training. This was of a particular focus during my year due to the explosive growth in vehicle park because of Audi’s recent success.

My placement experience was nothing short of excellent. I was lucky to have an extremely interesting role that evolved throughout the year. Not only did the role evolve but, I was able to make many decisions on how the role developed as I was lucky enough to be part of a very supportive team. In addition, I was given real responsibility and able to make a significant contribution to a record breaking year for Audi.

What I liked most about the placement was the variety of work I was able to become involved with. My team was cross-functional and as such meant I had exposure to all the different aspects of the business. This meant that the projects I was involved in were always fresh and interesting. Also, my team were incredibly supportive and were keen for me to gain as much from the year as possible.

The support of the placement team was invaluable in helping me secure my placement. Their advice and the workshops provided were a huge factor in being selected for my role. Also, the Preparation for Placement course gave me the insight to make a good first impression. This was critical, as it made the transition in to the work environment smooth and less stressful.

I hope to complete my degree in 2015 and then go on to take up a graduate position within an innovative forward thinking company. Hopefully, this will be within the automotive industry as my placement year has shown me that this will be a very exciting industry to be in over the next ten years! The skills gained from my placement will help me immensely. Not only will it be a positive point on my CV but gives me excellent examples for the interview process. But, more importantly, it will give me a great head start when I gain a graduate job and mean that settling in to the work environment should be smooth!