[Note to the reader: Since last week’s entry was pretty concerned with case team events, etc., this week’s entry is much more related to the actual analyses on the case that I’ve been involved with than experiences outside of work. There were case team events/other socializing activities as well, of course, but I’ve touched very lightly on them in order to give a more in-depth perspective on my work as an ACI on the case.]
This week was much more hectic than the past weeks had been, but I got to do a whole variety of things related to the case this week. For one thing, I went on store visits for the first time – it was a great chance to get out of the office, and it was nice to think that I was actually collecting data that would help the client reach a conclusion about their business.
We (being me and one of the client maps) had only a couple of hours, and we were planning to hit as many of 9 stores as we could, so off we went. At every stop, we took notes on what we saw and thought about what the retailer could’ve done better or had done exceptionally well – and all this data ultimately went into an Excel document (which then fed into a couple of slides on “best in class” retailers that the client could emulate that were included in the Executive Team presentation).
Store visits let me get my hands dirty, so to speak, and not stare at Powerpoint all day long, and they were an awesome experience. For one thing, I got to know the client map I went to the stores with really well, and for another, we found some really interesting processes that we wouldn’t have known of unless we had visited in person. Being thorough and collecting this data ourselves let us judge the experience from the customer’s perspective – something that would definitely be valuable when the client attempts to replicate or build on those same processes in their own stores.
In the meantime, it would probably be helpful to get an overview of what my workstream on the case itself has been like so far, and how the store visits ended up being part of what I was responsible for.
First of all, I can’t express how surprised I have consistently been by the amount of responsibility I’ve been able to take on in just a few short weeks. Every step of the way, I’ve felt challenged and responsible for my own work – and my responsibilities have increased as I’ve demonstrated that I both want to and can complete analyses that are essential to the case, whether or not they would be expected at the ACI level.
With that preface, then, my workstream has focused on being responsible for the “master” of my part of the Executive Team presentation. This is a pretty big deal – these slides would become part of the deck that would be presented to the CEO and the entire Executive Team (SVP-level) – and I was very excited to think that I would be responsible for this set of 21 slides.
My supervisor originally blanked out the deck, but I’ve taken the reins since then. Obviously, I often send versions to my supervisor and she’ll send them back with comments, and there’s a consistent cycle of making new slides as client needs change and tweaking as Excel models and the numbers they generate change, but it’s extremely gratifying to know that all the work I’ve been doing is definitely worth in – in the next 3 weeks, the CEO of the client will be looking at these slides!
Filed under: Case team experience, Internships, Week in the life Image may be NSFW.
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