Graduate Rotational Programme

Life as a graduate

Overview of GRP

As a member of the Graduate Rotational Program you will spend 18 months developing your skills through a combination of on–the-job learning and organised training (sometimes in a classroom setting).

You will gain experience across all of our practice areas which will give you an understanding of all aspects of the retail value chain as well as
a broad skill set.

Graduate training

Alongside your project work, you will attend study sessions led by our experienced industry experts. These will enhance your knowledge in areas such as buying & merchandising, catalogue retailing and retail propositions.

Our ‘Working in Retail’ series will allow you to hear first hand from former retailers about their experiences and the challenges they faced on a daily basis.

Study visits are also central to the programme. These will encompass
visits to some of the leading shopping destinations in the country as well as to retailers themselves so you can see first hand how they operate.
For example, you will visit Bluewater shopping centre during your first few weeks and within the first year visit the warehouse and call centre operations of a leading retailer.

What will I do?
New graduates start as consultants, not analysts. This means that you participate in all parts of the project. Typically you will work for a director/ associate director as part of a two/three person team on projects ordinarily lasting between four and 12 weeks.

You will make a real contribution to the project. You may, for example, be responsible for:

  • Determining the size of a particular market

    • What is the total amount of money spent on cut flowers in the UK each year?
    • Where do people buy these flowers from?
    • How has the cut flowers market changed in recent years?
    • How will it change in the coming years?

    Having done this, you may then

    • Evaluate the competitor offers in that market
      • Who are the major players in the cut flowers market?
      • What range of products do they offer?
      • What services do they offer?
      • Who is the target customer?

    Finally, you may work with a director to

    • Assess what cut flowers retail proposition would represent the best business opportunity for our client?
      • What are our client’s existing customer base and assets?
      • How best can we use these to our client’s advantage?
      • Who should be the customer for our new proposition?
      • What should our proposition be (range, price, service)?
      • Through which channels and formats should we offer this?
      • Where should we open or relocate our stores?
      • What ecommerce and call centre operations are needed? 
      • What customer experience is required across channels?
      • What are the operational and infrastructure requirements?
      • What are the investment requirements and payback?

    You will then be responsible for drafting the slides that will be presented to the client, and potentially for presenting part of the deck.