Can one company fulfil my ambitions?

I joined dunnhumby in 2006. I think I was in awe of the company when I first joined and remember thinking there were lots of very clever people and wondering if I could ever be so knowledgeable.

I started working on a group of clients including Kraft and Pepsi. I loved working across different brands, being out and about visiting different offices. The variety and exposure dunnhumby provides is something that makes every day interesting and different. I was seconded into one of our biggest clients, Unilever, to embed the dunnhumby Clubcard reporting tool – the dunnhumby Shop - into their business. This proved very successful and the relationship with Unilever has gone from strength to strength. Working client-side gave me great exposure to the way dunnhumby insight is used and how we can work more effectively with our clients.

My most recent role has been as a Client Director in the New Business team, where I work with all the clients who do not have a continuous engagement with dunnhumby. This involves showcasing how we can help clients win with Tesco and providing ad hoc insights to companies ranging from the likes of Dorset cereals to mushroom farmers in Belfast.

My career at dunnhumby so far has been really exciting and challenging. I can’t see that changing anytime soon.

I want to work for a company that supports my long-term ambitions

I joined dunnhumbyUSA as an analyst in 2005. Starting as a member of the Kroger Insights team, I gained an in-depth understanding of dunnhumbyUSA's core client (Kroger) and the solutions that we provide them. This knowledge base was instrumental during a temporary assignment to work with our colleagues in London in assisting the development of the India insights team. This experience was extremely rewarding because I was able to meet and work closely with other team members across our organization.

Following my temporary assignment in London, I returned to dunnhumbyUSA as a member of the Manufacturing Practice Insights team. Here too, my background with the Kroger Insights team was extremely useful in understanding our manufacturing clients and serving as an insights lead for clients such as PepsiCo. My work in the Manufacturing Insights team helped to enhance my analytical abilities, develop a report with manufacturing clients and explain how dunnhumby is uniquely positioned to provide our client's with business strategies and insights.

Having developed such a comprehensive understanding of our clients, I recently moved to the Commercial Solutions team. We develop new tools and solutions that help improve the quality of the work we deliver to our clients, so that they can produce an offer more relevant to their customers.

At dunnhumby, I have had the opportunity to work in various capacities with a very diverse group of individuals and clients. Thus far my career with the company has been exciting, challenging and rewarding. As my career with dunnhumby continues, I know that I will continue to have new exciting challenges from which I hope to continue to learn and grow.

I want to work in an environment where I have a lot of opportunities

I started my career at dunnhumby in 2005 as a graduate with an M.S. degree in Statistics. In my years at dunnhumby I have enjoyed working in various analytical roles across multiple retail clients. Every role gave me an opportunity to get to know more great people, taught me new skills, and expanded my understanding of dunnhumby and how we add value to our clients.

My first couple years on the Kroger team were about being a “sponge” and served as the foundation for developing basic technical, presentation and data interpretation skills. I also gained a solid understanding of how we apply customer insights to grocery retail through customer segmentation. Its impact on areas such as price, promotion and assortment really amazed me.

Using this foundation, I then worked with a non-grocery retailer, which was something exciting and new. It certainly broadened my perspective on what dunnhumby and the basic principle of customer first can achieve in different retail settings.

My most recent role is in Macy’s Communications and Media team. Even after four and a half years at dunnhumby, this was a whole new part of the business for me. Once again, the experience confirms the huge amount of learning and growth opportunities we have at dunnhumby and options for various career paths.

As well as the variety of opportunity, there is one thing that has made it such a great experience so far – the amazing and extremely talented group of people working across all areas of the business.

Will I have the opportunities to achieve my long-term goals?

I joined dunnhumby India as an analyst in 2008 and it’s been an exciting ride to say the least. Ours was dunnhumby’s first cohort of graduates in India. I joined the ranging and assortment work-stream within the Kroger team.

In my year and a half with the team, I did various projects around ranging, assortment and store layout. Due to the mature relationship that dunnhumby shares with Kroger, most of the standard dunnhumby solutions had already been deployed by the time I joined. That meant there was a lot of scope for innovation. Each project I worked on had a different twist to it – if one was statistically heavy, the other had tight timelines or involved huge data extractions. I love facing these challenges on a day-to-day basis.

I then joined a team called Efficient Customer Solutions. The aim of this team is to make repetitive processes better as well as more efficient. Being a part of this team, I, along with my team mates, have picked up skills like process visualization, VBA coding and others that have really stretched me to improve.

I personally feel what I have learnt at dunnhumby in the past two years I could not have learnt at any school or university. Just to end with some analytics jargon – I’m looking forward to taking up different opportunities within dunnhumby and I hope to maintain an incremental learning curve!

I want a career, not just a job

I started as a graduate in September 2006 and my first role was in the UK Manufacturer Practice (MP) team. My assignment to one of our largest clients was fantastic timing as we were about to launch our flagship insight tool, the dunnhumby Shop, into their organisation. The client training and engagement involved was great experience so early in my career. It challenged me to quickly perfect my knowledge of the tool so I could deliver valuable shopper insights that improved my client’s decision-making.

After 2.5 years in the MP team and having extended my knowledge of our solution areas, I took the opportunity to broaden my experience with a move into a Shopping Experience role for one of our International retail clients. My role was to support multiple markets in delivering our insight tools in an effective and consistent way, so the dunnhumby teams in each market essentially became my ‘clients’.

I have been in my current role, as a Global Organisation Engagement (OE) Consultant, for just over a year. Organisation Engagement is about how we help our clients to put the Customer at the heart of their business.

I am responsible defining and improving our approach to OE with new international retail clients. It’s a role that holds great variety, working across different clients and with different parts of the organisation, as well as utilising different skill-sets. One day I may be facilitating a training session for graduates and the next I may be brainstorming our OE ‘strategy’. As such, I am able to use a lot of my existing skills whilst giving me the opportunity to develop even further. Who knows what’s next!