Anna's internship at the Otto Group in Hamburg
02. Mai 2024
From currywurst misses and Japanese meeting rooms: find out all about Anna's interesting time at the Otto Group and the valuable insights she was able to gain.
Hello Anna, please introduce yourself and tell us about your career at the company.
Hey, I'm Anna and I'm 26 years old. In 2016, I started as a dual student at BAUR with a three-year business studies program with a focus on retail/sales management (B.A.) in cooperation with the DHBW Ravensburg. After my Bachelor's degree, I completed a dual Master's trainee program in Marketing Management (M.Sc.) with the Hof University of Applied Sciences. During my years of study, I worked in various departments in the Brand and Sales department at BAUR. Since 2020, I have been supporting Customer Experience Management and have also been taken on as Customer Experience Manager. Since then, I have been working on behalf of customers and focusing on customer satisfaction and customer orientation at BAUR.
Last year, you were an intern at the Otto Group in Hamburg from September to November. Why don't you explain what an internship is?
A work shadowing placement can be compared to an internal internship. During this time - in my case it was two months - you get a taste of a department in another Group company, learning by doing so to speak. This gives you new insights into other departments and companies and also expands your network within the Group. And, of course, the work shadowing department can also gain impulses from BAUR's perspective. 😉
Please describe in more detail how this job shadowing came about.
Even after completing my Master's degree, it was still very important to me personally to be able to develop myself further. That's why I spoke to my manager at the time. Together, we drew up a development plan for me, defined goals and discussed areas of development in which we saw potential for me. One area in which I wanted to further my education in order to work even more efficiently and achieve even more successful results was the topic of Pareto, efficient working methods and project management methods. Instead of registering for a traditional training course, I then spent two months as a trainee at the Otto Group in the Digital & Consulting department, or DC for short, in Hamburg.
Of course, there were a few things to clarify internally beforehand, but I can also say that my employer was very supportive of my internship. My accommodation and travel costs during my time in Hamburg were also subsidized by BAUR and the Otto Group. In addition, I had various contact persons on both the BAUR and Otto Group side and a mentor at DC who I could turn to with any concerns, such as organizational questions. I never felt left alone at any time.
What is the Digital & Consulting department and what were your tasks?
DC is an in-house consulting agency of the Otto Group. As an internal management consultancy, it carries out strategic and operational projects for the entire Otto Group. It is split into the Project & Product Team. As the name suggests, the Product Team is more concerned with product development.
I myself was able to support the Project Team. I deliberately supported a project that was not directly about the end customer and their customer experience - in other words, far removed from my usual day-to-day work. Roughly speaking, this project was about an organizational transformation project of a subsidiary of the Otto Group operating in several countries.
You lived in Hamburg for two months - what was that like for you?
I looked for an apartment to sublet, which works relatively well in a big city. Of course, I was able to benefit much more from the internship on site and also get to know the city after work and at the weekend. We also had regular team events where I was able to expand my network. I quickly made friends here, which is why it was naturally difficult to say goodbye at the end of my internship. I am still in contact with some of my colleagues.
How did you like the Otto Campus?
I felt very much at home on the campus in Hamburg. But as big as it is, you can easily get lost.
My department was in one of the more modern buildings. I liked the variety of different meeting rooms here, which were well equipped. Of course, there were the classic meeting rooms, but there were also cool "social spaces" for meeting up. There are also telephone booths on campus where you could retreat and rooms with modern technology for hybrid meetings.
A little anecdote here: Each floor in the building is named after a different theme. My department works on the floor with the theme "Japan". Since even the meeting rooms had Japanese terms, it was a real challenge at first to remember which room was "Haiku" or where to find the room "Kendo". But I improved my Japanese skills even during my stay in Hamburg 😉
What experiences are you taking with you?
As I had hoped, I was able to acquire many new skills and methods. Especially on topics such as self-organization and project management. But also smaller things, such as tips on how to conduct and lead meetings or how to use ogGPT or other AI tools. I also used it to create some test images for my time in Hamburg - they turned out quite well. 😄 I also found it exciting to see which tools my colleagues in Hamburg use or which meeting formats they have.
Was waren deine 3 Highlights?
- The numerous internal seminars that I was able to attend. I particularly enjoyed the CLAP (Consult like a pro) training. I gained valuable practical and theoretical knowledge on the subject of management consulting. But I also found other workshops, for example on PowerPoint skills from a consultant's point of view or the best practice exchange, where consultants share their current topics with each other, very valuable and interesting.
- The project that I was allowed to accompany during this time: I was able to help prepare and moderate an important workshop for this. We also reached another milestone for the project in the process. That was an absolute sense of achievement after the often hard work.
- Team evenings: After work, we sometimes met up and spent the evening together. Once, for example, we went bowling - I had a personal sense of achievement here too, as I scored 154 points in the first game. I'll never break that again. 😉
What are your lowlights from that time?
Phew, I honestly can't think of any lowlights off the top of my head... at most, I locked myself out of my apartment once and the locksmith had to come. And the horizontal rain in Hamburg - I won't miss that either. 😄
In your opinion, how does working in Hamburg differ from working in Weismain?
The campus in Hamburg is of course much larger, so you can network with significantly more departments on site. On the other hand, it is of course much more anonymous than at BAUR, here you get to know everyone more quickly. The Thursday currywurst was also not so present in the north, there was at most a poultry currywurst. 😉
Is there anything else you would like to get rid of?
I would like to thank BAUR and Digital & Consulting again for the opportunity to work shadow and all the colleagues from whom I was able to learn. 😊
Would you like to find out more about our seminars & the opportunity for lifelong learning at the BAUR Group? Then click here.
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Welcome to our BAUR Group JobsBlog. My name is Sophia and I am currently supporting the HR Marketing team as part of my dual studies at BAUR. Look forward to interesting blog posts and take a look behind the scenes of our company with me. 😊
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