Outside my comfort zone
After graduating in engineering, I wanted a job that would push me outside my comfort zone and allow me to explore different business areas with enough responsibility. The traineeship program has given me this opportunity, encouraging me to embrace change as a way of accelerating my personal and professional growth in new disciplines for 18 months. The projects certainly push you outside of your comfort zone. It is a great way to explore and understand what you like and do not like, which helps shape and give direction to your career ambitions.
My projects
My first project was at Trespa in Weert. The project's functional discipline was change management, with a focus on operational process mining. The goal was to improve lead time performance at Trespa. Based on the insights, I defined, prioritized and pursued improvement initiatives in three main areas: operational, financial and order reception. These initiatives achieved significant improvements in terms of waste reduction and served as a starting point for next steps.
My second project took place at Broadview’s headquarters in Den Bosch in the Netherlands. It enabled me to gain a birds-eye view on the business and to support data-driven decision making for all companies in the group, leveraging the use of business intelligence (BI) tools. My analyses during this project were varied, as data is used to facilitate decisions in every discipline within the group, from commercial to financial.
In my third project, I am applying the business intelligence knowledge I gained during my second project to another company in the group: Formica. During this project, I will spend 3 months in Cincinnati, US (Formica North America headquarters) and 3 months in Singapore (Formica Asia headquarters). The main goal of this project is to help these operating companies define their business intelligence strategy and to support them with the adoption of BI tools. In this project, I will contribute to the reduction of repetitive manual tasks, freeing up time to focus on value-creating tasks.
The feeling of community
During my first project, living in Eindhoven, I found a great community – many current and former trainees work for either Trespa or Nemho, which made it easier to integrate and build a social circle in this new city. Other locations and companies in the group may have fewer trainees, but the feeling of community remains, as former and current trainees network during organized ITP training sessions and ITP events. I think this community is not only great from a social perspective, but it also drives business value as it encourages collaboration and synergies across companies. For example, reaching out to other trainees for advice on where to find certain information regarding a company or area you have not worked with can save you a lot of time and gives you immediate direction for your project.
My current position
After the traineeship, I became a Business Intelligence Specialist at the holding office in Den Bosch.
In my role, I actively support the operating companies with digital transformation to enable effective fact-based decision making. While doing so, I also keep an overview of the group-wide data strategy and harmonization efforts. The positive impact of the projects I am responsible for, and the opportunity to solve complicated problems alongside motivated colleagues, is very rewarding.