What's your job about?
I am employed by The Warehouse Group - New Zealand’s largest owned and operated retail company, I am responsible for allocating the right product to the right stores at the right time in the right quantity.
A common task I have is I get sent an order from a buyer for a certain amount of product, it is then up to me to create a purchase order that will be sent to the supplier. I open my ordering software and create a new order; within that order I need to decide which stores around the country get a distribution of the product. We have a checklist we go through when allocating the order to help us choose, once all this is done the order is sent off to the supplier. As The Warehouse operates agile, we have lots of meetings within our different teams, these are a great chance to catch up on what everyone is working on, and let the team know if we have any blockers or dependencies.
There are aspects of the job that are more challenging than others, learning the specific software’s was one of them. Anyone would struggle to understand this without some training, but with practice it is easy to gain the necessary knowledge. The hardest thing is picking the right quantity of stock to send to each store, this comes with experience and knowledge on locations and being able to interpret past sales data. It is quite fascinating to know that we are deciding on real-life stock levels that go are going out to each store, and that the decisions we are making, although minor, are having a real-life impact somewhere. We are responsible for putting the products into stores hands who can then get it to customers. Something else to be aware of within the job is that stores have different shelve layouts for different products. The different shelve placements and layouts is something that is learnt over time and after a few store visits anyone can grasp it.
What's your background?
I grew up and went to school in Glenfield and Northcote (quite nice to now work in an office located in Northcote), and after finishing Year 13 at Northcote College I went to AUT to study a Bachelor of Business. I am now at the end of my degree and completing the co-operative education placement (7 weeks into my internship at The Warehouse Group). Growing up at school I was always playing sport, this led me to keeping not only fit and active but strengthened my ability to work in a team. Flowing on to uni, this helped a lot as there is a lot of group work that needs a strong level of collaboration. Once I graduate, I hope to get a hardworking graduate job that can kickstart a successful career!
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes, there are both finance and economics interns currently working alongside me and the job is largely taught on the job, so if someone else wants to they can learn how to do it. Being comfortable with maths is advantageous as it will mean you are comfortable with numbers, but the tasks can be managed either way.
As with any job you need to be able to work in a team, collaborating with colleagues is vital for success in nearly any role. Time management is another important skill to have. You should be able to handle a busy workload as location planners receive work that has urgency to it due to working alongside the distribution centre. Therefore, you need to be able to prioritise and complete work in a timely manner.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
The coolest thing about our job is seeing the end-to-end process of a giant retail machine. It was very eye opening to see what goes on behind the scenes to get product to customers, especially on the scale that The Warehouse Group operates at! Working with agile processes allows exposure to the activities and tasks other members in your squad engage in to obtain true value for our customers no matter the product! Being a location planner, it is rewarding knowing that we are assisting kiwi customers engage in a flawless shopping experience by allocating the correct stock to the correct stores.
What are the limitations of your job?
The only limitations here are your ability to juggle and prioritise tasks. We have daily run work that we must get through and may have problems raised by the DC that interrupt the flow of stock and must be sorted quickly. However, The Warehouse Group provides a tonne of support to help us so that we never feel overwhelmed.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...
My first piece of advice would be open and curious, try new things and get outside your comfort zone.
The second piece is to have fun and keep active, your only young once so make sure everything is balanced.
My last piece would be to push yourself; you don’t know what your capable of until you work under immense pressure.