Graduate Case Studies
You’ll be among the first graduates to join this specific programme and experience both the Marketing and Product sides of our business. Previously, graduates joined only Marketing. However, here two of our current graduate recruits give you a good idea of how their careers have developed across these areas.
On working across Marketing and Product
As someone who’s worked across both Marketing and Product, I can vouch for how complementary the skill-sets are – understanding customers, products and what drives performance is a powerful combination whatever role you take on.
An educational start
My first role after the graduate programme was in Marketing, working on a variety of Current Account projects. The main one focused on educating customers about the benefits of using debit cards. It was the first time we’d done this, so we carried out customer research and behavioural analysis to understand how and why customers used different payment methods. Then we used this to create a marketing programme that explained why it was good to pay by debit card.
The marketing activity was extensive and ran over several months. It culminated in a big advertising promotion run in conjunction with Barclays sponsorship of the Premiership. It felt great to own a project from start to finish, including working with lots of people to get TV ads and an award-winning website live.
A strategic move
After that I moved into the Current Accounts and Savings product team. Building on my previous experience, the first thing I did was produce the debit card strategy for the next three years.
Coming up with the strategy was the ideal opportunity to influence the way the business approached these products. I worked in a team of two, getting involved with everything from generating high-level ideas through to analysing and validating ideas and business cases.
Several of my ideas and developments have now been implemented. And just as in Marketing, it’s been really satisfying to see my ideas and solutions make a real impact on our customers and the business.
Channelling my knowledge
Following the strategy work I got involved with the channels, helping them understand sales performance for our products and spot business opportunities. I broadened my product knowledge to include the wider Current Account and Savings business, while learning about our channels and how they serve our customers. I did everything from consultancy work, where I helped the channels plan how to capture £multi-million opportunities, to briefing our MD on weekly sales performance, to building new tools to expand our understanding of the business, to designing the metrics we use to track new product ranges. It’s all helped me understand how banking works, and how commercial our products are.
Broadening out
Recently we merged with the Mortgages product team. So now I have a new role that requires me to build mortgage product expertise while also taking on line management responsibilities. The opportunities for development keep on coming as the business continuously evolves to meet our customers’ needs. But the complexity of the challenges remains the same. Finding solutions that meet both the needs of customers and the business is, for me, what Product is about.
On specialising in a specific product
I joined the Mortgage product area fresh off the graduate programme and I’ve been here ever since. One of the best things about working in Product is the sheer variety of activity you can get involved in. The other stand-out positive for me is the number of opportunities to grow and develop outside your day-to-day role.
Supporting the senior team
As Executive Assistant to the MD, I provided strategic business support to him and his management team. This included writing Exec briefing papers, managing the internal communications agenda and working alongside the Mortgage Board from a governance and monitoring perspective. This gave me a great insight into how a business is run at executive level. But after nine months or so I was itching to get closer to the coal face and examine the relationship between our product area and the people who sold our products. Having shared this with my line manager, I was basically told “Great idea, get on with it”. So I did.
Taking the team on tour
I was conscious that, going into one of the busiest times of the year for mortgage sales, we needed to build a better relationship with our contact centre colleagues to be successful. The first thing I did was set up a small project team to work out how we could strengthen the relationship. Realising that no-one from the Mortgage product team had ever visited the contact centres, we planned four road shows (one per site) so that the agents on the phones could actually meet us face to face. Four weeks of planning later, we hit the road. Our team covered four sites in four days; drove over 700 miles; presented information about our mortgage products and the market to over 1,500 people; carried out over 150 hours of call listening to help spot mortgage leads; and gave away what felt like several tons of chocolate.
Reaping the benefits
The road shows increased leads from the contact centres by 30% and paved the way for sustained business levels throughout the rest of the year. Just as importantly, it gave Mortgages a face within our contact centres. We were no longer a product area that sat in head office – we were real people who understood the challenges they faced daily.
Strengthening relationships
Running the road shows was exhausting but highly rewarding. It also gave me a much clearer idea of what I wanted to do next. I now look after Commercial Delivery for Mortgages, strengthening the relationship we have with our branch and contact centre teams, and making sure they have the support they need to meet their sales targets. I need to understand how the business is run from a back office perspective (so meet regularly with Marketing, Performance Planning and Product Development) and then translate that into something that will motivate our frontline teams.
Looking ahead
My two years in Product have been a real rollercoaster. I can’t believe how much I’ve learned and achieved, and yet there’s still so much I want to do. The nature of the mortgage market, combined with working with the front line means that often I can’t predict what will happen from one day to the next. But I know that I’m well placed to add real value to our sales force and the wider business – that’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.
