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Blog from Ireland!
Posted by Nicola on 28 Aug 09
It’s only been a few months since I moved over to Dublin, but with the welcome I’ve received, I already feel like a valued member of the team! Looking back, I’ve managed to pack a lot into the past few months, with some of the highlights including:
- Getting an introduction to the activities coming up in the forthcoming year at our 2010 commercial planning day at the fantastic Croke Park.
- Spending a day out in the field seeing what life on the front line is all about.
- Reviewing marketing strategies, advertising concepts and sales execution plans for a new product.
- Reviewing and finalising Easter 2010 plans and strategy.
- Seeing the flake manufacturing process in action and finding out how an experienced operator knows exactly how to get the best from the product.
- And of course witnessing the great hula hoop competition between the Finance Director and the Head of Manufacturing at the Great Place to work bbq!!!
Of course there is also the more routine work which isn’t quite so glamorous or exciting to get through too, such as preparing forecasts and, my particular favourite, the detailed month end reporting, which can be particularly frustrating if the numbers don’t reconcile and the B&I central reporting team are waiting!
The size of the Irish business means that it is possible to see every aspect of the company and really get an understanding of the “bigger picture”. Any one day could see me talking to the FD about the commercial performance of the business, a factory operative about his day, the head of customer operations about service levels and the impact of new delivery solutions, and then a national account manager about planograms and merchandising.
It’s the chance to get this kind of full business understanding and get involved in activities beyond the remit of the role that makes the job so exciting not to mention providing invaluable experience!
Reflections of Devon
Posted by Nicola on 21 Apr 09
Sitting on a ferry to Dublin, at 6pm, 13 hours after first getting up, and with the prospect of unpacking everything in front of me, I’m keen to try and think about something else, so I’m reflecting on my packed 18 months in Devon. In theory I was an operations analyst, but the size of the business means there was scope to get involved in more than just material and labour variances!!
Some of the more varied tasks included:
- Giving input into all areas of the supply chain strategy and not just the cost aspects.
- Reviewing Environmental, Health and Safety packs with the Ops Manager for presentation and ease of understanding.
- Learning the ins and outs of payroll and rewriting and rolling out a new expenses policy.
- Getting to grips with the different types of Omega, and learning the difference between fish and algae derived oil, as part of a project I was leading.
- Helping organise and manage a full stock take.
- Participating in taste panels for new vitamins!
- Taking part in ideation sessions organised by marketing to pull together new product suggestions.
- Providing comments and recommendations on the advertising campaigns for one of our top brands.
- Reviewing the complete P&L with the MD and finance team on a monthly basis.
- Picking pharmacy orders at the warehouse.
- Packing zubes on the bagging line.
- Negotiating sales of one of our products to the Cadbury staff shop.
- Undertaking a commercial evaluation of a new product.
- Clearing a cliff path on the coast - well 1 square metre of it, but it was the best square metre that was ever cleared!
- Helping decide on a new vending machine supplier, and sampling all of the drinks on offer to help inform this decision.
- Chairing a regular Supply Chain P&L review with the 3 heads of department.
- Introducing a new, more accurate method of product costing.
- Helping out with HR processes such as grievance investigations.
Some of the things I’ll miss about living in Devon:
- Timepiece, possibly the best nightclub in the world (or maybe just Devon).
- The various kebab shop, pizza place and fish and chip shop owners of Exeter – some of the friendliest takeaway staff known to man!
- The tradition of buying cakes for everyone at work for the slightest reason.
- The ratio of men to women in Exeter – it makes you feel like a princess!
- All the people who used to pop into my office for a chat and 8.30 meetings by the coffee machine.
- Being able to walk into the city centre to go shopping – I can’t quite afford to live that close to Dublin city centre.
- The nice temperatures and Summer sun
- Going for lunch with the Operations team and being given a high visibility jacket to wear so I didn’t feel left out – lunches are much less colourful now!
Irish sayings noticed whilst in Cadbury Ireland!
Posted by Kim on 11 Mar 09
As I’ll be leaving Cadbury Ireland in under a month to move onto pastures new, I thought I’d write a BLOG to capture the great Irish sayings!
‘You’re very good’
‘Grand’
‘To be sure, to be sure’
‘Thanks a mill’
‘The craic is ninety’
‘hotpress’
‘deadly’ –I was worried about this at the beginning until I realised it meant ‘brilliant’
‘locked’
‘Jesus Mary Joseph’
‘Now listen’
‘Come ‘ere’
‘that kind of way’
‘O sweet mother of divine God’
‘There you are’
Buying Power
Posted by Marianne on 04 Dec 07
9am on my second day at Cadbury and I'm heading south on a train, away from Bournville. Getting on the wrong train wasn't quite the first impression I had in mind. When we do finally turn up at the office a few hours late disbelief turns to laughter and doesn't stop for the next few months, with people I have never met recognising me as 'The one who ended up in Cheltenham'.
Despite this initial mishap, I'm really enjoying my PBS Finance role, it's really varied and it has enabled me to increase my responsibility throughout the role.
I business partner the Purchasing Team who buy all the ingredients and packaging that go into our chocolate. With the recent high focus on Commodities it is more important than ever to provide the business with accurate commentaries and forecasts. I work closely with the buyers to understand where we expect to spend more or less than we expected, and why. Many external factors such as typhoons, bad harvests and alternative uses for our ingredients (such as bio fuels) all impact the raw materials that go into our confectionery.
I also work with Treasury to build up a picture of forecast Currency requirements based on what we plan to buy in from abroad. The uncertainty behind this due to new products, discontinuing products or switching sourcing locations makes this a complex task. There are large amounts of money at stake so it is crucial we take out the right cover for business needs.
Responsibility for costing new products also falls within this role. I liaise with the sourcing country to understand and accurately communicate costs to the business. The latest influx of products I had was for all the new Trident lines, as we entered the UK chewing gum market.
Outside of the role, highlights for me have been becoming an official chocolate taster, being the first to try all the new products we launch and a great graduate social life.
One year older, one year wiser... or so I thought!
Posted by Andrea on 07 Oct 07
Six months into my first placement in CTB, I was really starting to reach a point where I had a mutual agreement with debits and credits to get along and the job was going very well. I'd settled into life with my team and was even managing to answer the dreaded audit queries about the company I was looking after, which to my great disappointment, but everyone else's great satisfaction, was due to be transferred in to CTB over the next six months. It became my personal mission to close the company with a profit. The experience I gained from helping wind a company down through the Probe Go-Live set me up phenomenally for the future and I left the role on a high, feeling like my mutual agreement could now have turned in to real knowledge. Perhaps I would move on to conquer the world!
Three days later I turned up in my new Supply Chain Finance role in Dublin feeling highly motivated and full of the knowledge that I am now a "Second Year Grad". It came, then, as a bit of a shock to me to find myself sitting in a meeting after only a day or two in the role, where I was the only person not in a white coat and hat, who didn't understand the whole new set of acronyms that the manufacturing world has to offer.
It's great getting back to the heart of the business and seeing the process right from the beginning. I'm currently on a new beginning to a very steep learning curve but it's going well so far, and I'm even learning to appreciate those moments when you learn about the finer points of making chocolate. I may not be any wiser in this area of Finance, I may not conquer the world quite yet, but a year at Cadbury has certainly taught me a lot about myself and the kind of company I hope to work for for a long time.
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