My name is Oyinkansola Adebayo. I am a penultimate year student at Nottingham Trent University studying Business Management and Economics. I have just had a yearlong internship as a project management placement student at Rolls-Royce and am now currently on an 8-week internship at Lose the Box.
Introduction
Having worked in various start-ups from an early stage in the past and also just completing a challenging year in a large corporate organisation, I was very excited to embark on yet another journey with a small start-up with a corporate view. Lose the Box is a creative solutions consultancy in Nottingham which supports small and medium enterprises across the East Midlands through change and transformation.
A summary of my experience so far…
Working at Lose the Box as an 8-week business development intern has stretched me personally and professionally, after leaving an organisation where I worked in bigger teams. This is exemplified by:
- using my creative skills and knowledge to add value to a small organisation
- working in a small team that is made up of myself and Maureen
- and having authority to execute my responsibility with a level of freedom.
The nature of working with Lose the Box has been easy to adapt to as every time I commute from Birmingham to Nottingham (on average of three days a week), I am excited to go work because I know that there will be a new challenge that I would embark on. Every day at Lose the Box is completely different, I get the opportunity to deliver excellence in my own way.
A summary of what I do…
After describing my experience with you so far here at Lose the Box, it is important that I expand on these descriptions. Highlighted below are some of the exciting things I have been working on.
Tasks that I have done
- Drawing up a plan for the 8 weeks
- This has helped in bringing structure, and has helped the business to really focus on the aims that Lose the Box has at the end of my internship
- Designed new business cards
- Market Research
- We needed to do this to understand what exactly the market needs and how Lose the Box’ business model could contribute to this need or rather to solve the problems that organisations face.
- Competitor Analysis
- To find out the strengths and weaknesses of the competition to make knowledgeable decisions about Lose the Box’ marketing strategy.
- GDPR & mailing list management
- Stakeholder Management
- To analyse how to better engage all stakeholders that Lose the Box works with.
- Social media analysis
- To understand how Lose the Box can use all its social media channels to engage with all its target audiences
- Target audience spotting using data streamlining.
- To better focus the business model to a targeted audience
Tasks that are ongoing
- Video production and editing for the Founder – Maureen Whyman
- To have greater visibility of the brand through the founder.
- Thorough business strategy and planning for Lose the Box
- To further increase the ability for Lose the Box to scale up and increase its customer base from the streamlined vision.
- SEO management – using Ubersuggest
- Assisting Maureen in the business as usual tasks
- Going to Networking events all across Nottingham to represent Lose the Box.
- Contributing to streamlining the vision of Lose the Box as a change organisation
- East Midlands Productivity analysis
- Website & Blog management
- Increasing my knowledge of Lean, digital transformation and business development
Although I have been involved in doing all of these activities, they will be nothing without the invaluable lessons I have learnt, the relationships I have built and how I have had to be solution oriented.
Things I have learnt so far…
Below are some of my learning points from working here at Lose the Box.
- Being a change agent is dependent on your ability to adapt: I have had to adapt to a new environment from the corporate setting and also threw myself into every task, willing to take corrections and recommendations so that Lose the Box can deliver the best to its clients.
- Ask questions: Questions inspire change and bring solutions of problems that businesses face. The questions I have asked has allowed me to clarify how Lose the Box can move forward in growing as a business and also has helped me in understanding processes of thinking
- The skills I use in the other parts of my life are very much applicable in Lose the Box. I have been able to draw on my experience from my own business, Rolls-Royce, being an administrator at my church to add immense value to the company.
- I have also learnt that working relationships can be dynamic. Maureen has been very welcoming and also been a great leader in encouraging the work I have been doing.
- Using corporate tools to get creative solutions from businesses
- The increase of my knowledge on applying the Japanese lean principles for business benefits: I am currently reading the Lean Start-up by Eric Ries and one key message I have been learning is the urgency of SMEs to simplify their processes to avoid business downturn.
- The increase in my knowledge of how important human engagement is to digital transformation.
Conclusion
To conclude, this has been a unique experience that I wouldn’t have gained from another organisation. I have learnt a lot about myself, about the nature of a start-up and I have met many incredible people. I would recommend an internship in a start-up like Lose the Box to any young person wanting to apply their studies to the business world.