Indirect Purchasing (Business) L6 Review

With Indirect Purchasing, i'm responsible for the procurement of all non-production goods and services for the UK and Ireland. Goods and Services include temporary labour, facilities management, IT and construction. We aim to purchase goods and services of the right quality, quantity, time, place and price. Part of my day-to-day activities include supplier negotiations, reviewing supplier databases and creating cost comparisons.

Throughout my apprenticeship so far, I have learnt a diverse range of skills. Personally my confidence has flourished, demonstrated through the confident delivery of presentations and communication with my colleagues across the Business. I have also expanded on negotiation techniques and excel skills. All of which are supporting me in my day-to-day activities.

I really enjoy my business apprentice with the BMW Group. We're able to do placements around the business, this makes everyday so different. I'm able to build a professional network and expand my skills across the business. I also enjoy the apprentice community, employing over 100 apprentices across the UK every year there are lots of people my age and I enjoy the culture this creates.

To ensure our apprenticeship is organised we have training placement plans, in which we our placements are arranged and we know when each placement will be. We also have training placement documents in which we set goals to achieve in each placement which manages our progress. We also have regular check ins with our apprentice training managers.

I have a weekly one to one with my placement manager, every three weeks we have a meeting with all business apprentices and every 3 months we have a progress and pay review with our apprentice training managers, Whilst these are very formal and structured, the apprentice training school have an open door policy in which all members of the team are happy to help.

We have one to ones with our tutor one each semester, we also have designated workshop time at the end of the day to ask for any help we may need. All tutors are easily accessible via teams amd reply relatively quickly. We also have a review every 10 weeks to track on the job training.

The content is interesting and easily applicable. However I am an apprentice and the course is business management, being early on in my career and not doing any management of people I struggle to apply the learning right now. However, it should come in very useful later on in my career.

There is so many at MINI Plant Oxford, some of which include: - Charity team - Newsletter Team - Apprentice SharePoint - Tiny Forrest -School Visits - Open Days -Career Events - society of motor manufactures and traders event - junior campus pilot - apprentice network - girls go technical -MINI socials -Netball -Football -Three peaks challenge -OX4 race team Would maybe be nice to have more professional networking events.

Yes

Being a MINI Plant Oxford apprentice has given me he opportunity to develop both personally and professionally. Everyday is so different and you are able to learn and develop such a wide rang of skills. Working an international compamy as big as BMW there is countless networking opportunities. At MINI the training school have developed a culture in which they really care about giving apprentices the best start to their career.

Make sure to research the company, ensure their RATTO values align with your personal values. Make sure to get involved with the open days, school visit and girls go technical. Also make sure to be yourself and get involved withe extra circular events at school as they will set you apart form others Grades just aren't enough when applying.