IRIO Second Placement Report:

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University of Groningen Faculty of Arts

IRIO Master Programme

IRIO Second Placement Report:

Global Marketing and

Communications Intern

at Philips International B.V.

Student: Veronika Skorobogatko Student number: S2267101

Placement period: September 28, 2016 – August 31, 2017

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Introduction

Last year, in September 2016, I was finishing my Placement #1 at a cultural non-profit organisation in Amsterdam – Prince Claus Fund. As I have learned that my internship at the fund cannot be prolong further due to their policy of having different interns and trainees, I have decided to look into more opportunities.

Main motivation to search for a second placement was my desire to get more hands-on experience and realising that only 3 months of the first placement was not enough. Moreover, I wanted to widen my horizons in terms of the area of the next placement in order to learn more and acquire (or develop) additional skills that could help me more to find a secure a job in the Netherlands later on. The latter – to develop professionally in the Netherlands (at least, for the upcoming 5 years) is my overarching goal and the

placements are part of this plan.

Therefore, I began my search for the second placement in the Netherlands in both non-profit and business spheres, yet with a definite emphasis on the international or global character of the organisation.

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Preparation for the placement

The preparations for this placement took me less than in the case with the first placement I did last year as part of the MA programme.

During the months of July and early August 2016, I have been monitoring different Dutch and international websites with internships’ opportunities, as well as regularly checking LinkedIn for any new opening. Being determined to proceed with the second internship after the ending of the first one, I have also set the notification alarms and messages from the recruitment and employment agencies to receive the fresh updates. The latter were on not only the open positions but also regarding the development of the Dutch job market, some tips and recommendations on the CV and cover letter, etc. In order to be prepared for any of the application process, I tried to also keep my LinkedIn profile updated, as well as my CV.

As already mentioned above, I have widen my search area, looking into not only

organisations that are directly related to the IR, Cultural and/or Social sphere, but also into the bigger companies that have international direction of its activities. Therefore, my attention was also driven to the companies that have their headquarters in the

Netherlands and possibly branches/offices around the world. Thus, I have applied for the positions at the Publishing House, media agency and International school.

The position of the Marketing and Communications intern at Philips I found through the general Dutch website that posts vacancies – Randstad. The initial application was the standard one when applying through the employment agency: upload the updated CV and motivation letter. When I did that, the reply from Randstad came quite fast – in a couple of days they sent me an email asking some additional information about me: whether I was a student, for how long was my programme and visa, etc. After, they have requested to send the confirmation of enrolment and copy of my residence permit. As I have learned afterwards, Philips does the primary sourcing of candidates through Randstad and the agency should collect all the documents and information first to check if the candidate meets the formal requirement (e.g. being a student in this case), and only then would send the application package to the company for consideration. A few days later, Randstad finally forwarded my application to the hiring managers at Philips.

Surprisingly, one of the Philips employees got in contact with me very quickly – the next day and scheduled the interview over the phone for the day after. As it turned out that was my future colleague, who conducted the phone interview with me, not the HR manager. To be honest, I did not have much time and resources to prepare for the interview, because it all went quite fast. Moreover, the position ad did not even have the information of which department the intern would be assigned to, just basic requirements for the position. That information was my basis to get my thoughts around before the actual interview. The interview went well and interesting – talking about my previous experience in Marketing and communication in the international environment, and my future colleague was friendly and inquisitive over the phone. Then, it took her only the weekend to get back to me saying that they have decided I would be there new intern.

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5 Yet, there were still some details regarding the position and work that I had to figure out. As the recruiting procedure of the interns at Philips is the standard one, my future colleague and supervisor requested some documents from my side to be sent to the HR team and from then onwards I was in contact with the People’s Services team (i.e. HR team for the entire Philips) regarding the conditions of ‘employment’. This process

included signing several documents by Philips, me and my university supervisor, as well as filling in some forms specifically for the Philips’ records: ‘tax form’, details on the address and bank account, etc. I should have also negotiate and learn regarding the employment conditions from the People’s Services directly. Thus, the remuneration for the non-Dutch interns is fixed at Philips and is 900 EUR a month. In addition to that, there is also a possibility to get a small amount of accommodation allowance for living in Amsterdam – 185 EUR, which I also have received as I was coming from another city (city of my University). The initial term of the placement was 8 months – up until end of May 2017. This appealed to me because I found it useful to have a placement for some longer period (than 3-4 months) to get more possibilities to run the projects and learn about the

organization, professional sphere and colleagues.

The signing and further validation of all the documents prior to the placement start took a couple of weeks. At the same time, my future colleagues at Philips and I were discussing when I could start. As I was still working and had contract at my other placement organisation until end of September and they wanted me to start earlier than that, we agreed to have an introductory meeting on September 21, 2016. That day I came to the office to meet my future colleague for the first time, sign a few more documents and already get some documents to read to start familiarising myself with the organisation and team. That is also when I learned that I would be working at the Business Group Health & Wellness that has two brands: Sonicare (oral health care brand) and Avent (Mother & Child Care brand). More details on the organisation and structure of the placement provider will follow in the paper.

As already mentioned, I did not have much time and sources to learn about the organisation and particular department I would be working at prior to the start of the placement. Only in the last week of September I got some materials created previously by my department to see what they were doing in general, what is the business, etc. In

addition, I tried to search online for some more information on the business department I was going to work at, but, to be honest, all of knowledge about the organisation and its work I could embrace only after working a few months at Philips already.

Running a little ahead of time, I need to say that in May 2017 when my initial placement contract with Philips was finishing, my supervisor and I mutually agreed that we would like to extend it for a bit more. As it is a requirement to be officially enrolled at the

university for the entire duration of the internship, my contract was extended for another 3 months – until August 31, 2017 (end of the current academic year). For me it was a good opportunity to continue learning in the field, get more experience, finalise the projects that I was responsible for and try to be promoted for the employment at Philips (or at least search the position further). In this case, my university placement coordinator was

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Living in Amsterdam

The moment I started my internship at Philips, I have been already living in Amsterdam for almost 3 months. Thus, I have accustomed to the city more or less, knew the basic things around here. Yet, there was still a challenge with finding the affordable

accommodation in Amsterdam. The financial remuneration I was receiving at Philips was quite generous (comparing to the majority of other placements), but there is definitely a shortage of the right accommodation in Amsterdam for everyone. At some point, I got lucky (after 2 months of search) and moved into a new place in the Eastern part of the city (Oost) that is closer to the office. Therefore, I could get to the office in less than 15 minutes biking.

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The Organisation

Philips International is a well-known Dutch company that produces consumer goods of different kind. Just recently, the company celebrated its 126th_{anniversary. Back in time,} they have started with production of lightning products and some small personal and household devices (like irons, shavers, etc.). That is how I also knew and pictured Philips as company: the producer of the electric household items of good quality. That is why when I got started working here I was quite surprised to learn that now Philips is positioning itself as a health tech company, providing innovative solutions for different health areas: cardiology, sleep, respiratory, oral health, etc. At some point, Philips acquired and developed further different other brands in various spheres (such as Saeco, Sonicare, Avent, and others). Therefore, nowadays, the company combines the production of household items and electronics, and high technology devices to be used by consumers and medical professionals.

Primarily, the company is based in the Netherlands, having its Head Quarters for all the Business units in Amsterdam, production sites in other Dutch cities (Best, Eindhoven), as well as local offices and production sites in many countries on all the continents. In the Head Quarters in Amsterdam, we have all the Global Marketing and Business

Development departments for the Business Groups. The Global HQ acts as the main point for deciding on what the products should be launched per country (with the consultation with country, of course), what Marketing strategy should be in place, produce many of the Marketing materials that are then provided to the countries to run the local campaigns. In other words, the HQ is the brand positioning and ‘brain centre’ for all the company’s campaigns and activities around the world.

The Business Group I have been working at consists of two business parts as mentioned above: Oral Health care (OHC) and Mother & Child care (MCC). Further on, there is a division to Business Development team, Market to Order (M2O) team (which I have been part of), Business Transformation team. At some positions (especially in the M2O team), people are working for the two business, like our Social Media Manager, PR Manger, Digital team. In total, we are around 40 people in the M2O team.

My smaller team that I was assigned to is called Marketing and Communications (MarCom) and covers both business having different people for that. Thus, we were 4 people in total in MarCom in the beginning and then got the Head of the team joining in April 2017. The MarCom is focused on the strategizing campaigns for any product

launches and create any necessary materials from the Global standpoint, thus guiding the markets how to launch and present the products locally. I was working for the OHC

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8 In addition to the corporate structure, there is also a learning platform and social activities in place. The former is based on the online platform called ‘Philips University’ that

provides different courses either on general business issues important to the company or as addition to the professional sphere getting more qualifications. The latter consists not only of simple socializing meetings (like lunches, dinners or drinks together), but also from the volunteering activities, participating in the marathons as part of the Philips team, fundraising events, etc. For example, our colleague has been organizing a volunteer

activities for the whole M2O team at least 2-3 times a year – ‘Random Act of Kindness’. This could be different activities – organizing a day at the zoo and Christmas lunch, celebrations and presents for kids from poor families, helping elderly people in the care-home for a day, and some other activities. This together with various workshops on the work topics are called to bring the team together, understand more about how to work together more productively and keep the nice atmosphere.

On the level of the entire company, Philips is trying actively be devoted and support the Sustainable Goals. The company has set the ‘2020 Sustainability Program’ to drive sustainable solutions, operations and supply chains, and to develop sustainable growth business models. Together with development and usage of innovations for these purposes, the company established a registered charity in 2014 – Philips Foundation. The projects of the Foundation are focused on the community development, humanitarian aid and social entrepreneurship in different regions of the world. For example, partnering with some other organisations, they established the Community Centres and developed mobile clinics in some of the poorest regions of Africa. Also, they have provided different workshops to the kids on the healthy lifestyle, developed lightning solutions for the children to play football in the low-income communities in Peru, Mexico and Brazil.

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Tasks and activities undertaken

As a short introduction to this part, I would like to say that first 2 or 3 months of my placement at Philips were dedicated mainly to learning about the company, team, its structure, what are the specifics here, previous materials and campaigns – familiarising myself with the work flow on a smaller scale projects. Therefore, the initial tasks were more of an ad-hoc nature: collect some images and other materials, send those to the local teams in the markets, create a short overview of some projects, and upload assets into the internal online database, where everyone could search for the right image/video/info graphic/etc. for their needs. All of these even at the initial stage have involved lots of communication inside the bigger M2O team, as well as with the colleagues in the UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, India and some other countries.

At the same time, I was learning more about the Sonicare brand as the business I was working for – what is the positioning of it in the global market, what is the history of it, some technical aspects of the products, brand’s main competitor(s) per country, what are the approved ways to present the products on different Marketing materials (e.g. special colours to be used, font of the text, etc.) and many other details.

From the very beginning, my supervisor and another colleague from our smaller MarCom team have included me in many ongoing communications on different projects – either via email or inviting to the meetings. This already helped to learn about the job through the process, pick up some practices and starting to understand the processes. Moreover, I was introduced to a few people from the ‘neighbouring’ smaller teams that we have to be closely working with – Business Development person, PR Manager, Consumer Marketing Managers (who are in charge of the development of the product), Assets Manager, Social Media Manager, Design team, Digital team and few others. They have also shared some practical information in the beginning, showed how to work with some of the internal online tools and were my point on contact in their teams further on we collaborated on projects.

As for the creation, production and activation of its Marketing materials and assets, Philips works with many agencies (of different kind), I was also introduced to the representatives of the agencies my team was mainly in contact with. Thus, I have got mainly in contact with project managers and (post-) producers from our preferred suppliers and partners: Lukkien, INDG, Ogilvy London, and CARAT London.

In October-November 2016, the further development of the campaign and materials from the Global team was starting for two big projects – preparations for launches of the new products in different countries, and one of the products has been planned to be the biggest launch for the business in 2017. Therefore, from that time on, I was getting more involved into the related processes and that constituted my main responsibilities and tasks that I will talk in more detail.

Manage development and production processes of the Global Marketing materials

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10 and some additional visual creatives when needed (e.g. posters, leaflets). The lifestyle images would include product in use images (having a model with the product on the picture), product in situ (just the product in the setting), some detailed shots of the product as well as so-called ‘emotional benefit’ images with models on them, without the product. These images are used for different touchpoints and for creation some further materials for the around the launch and later on. For example, they are used for the Product Detail Page on the Philips.com, on e-retailer websites like Amazon, in-store materials (leaflets, instructions, presentations), and some of them – also for Social Media, PR materials, consumer emails and other purposes. The lifestyle videos are mainly used on the same platforms, plus some of them on Youtube and some shots from the videos later on to create or update TV commercials in different countries. Animations are created to show more of a technical side and mechanisms of the product, and are used as part of the longer video.

When I joined the team, the main photography and video shooting for the biggest launch already took place. The next step was to go into post-production selecting the right images for the future campaign, briefing the agency with the final scripts for the videos, their amount and specifics, and guiding the production of the final creatives. I started with the selection of the final images out of the 500 pre-selected ones. Knowing already more or less what are the main features the images should present, I chose different images and then had a few rounds of discussions with my Manager (supervisor) and with the production agency to see if the initial shots are good enough and suitable to go into Photoshoping. As the visuals are very important in the sphere of Marketing &

Communications in the product-focused company, and there are many stakeholders, I also had to get aligned with our Design team (placed in Bothell, USA) and get their suggestions and approvals on the initial choice and retouch of the images. The next rounds of reviews and approvals of the final images took a few months in total because of colour variation of the product that should have been reflected in images. I was always the first point of contact for the agency to do the reviews, collect the generalised feedback and address it back to the post-production team in the agency.

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11 During the process of creation of the animations, my tasks and responsibilities were of a similar kind and had the similar order. Yet, there was a bit less involvement needed from our team as the animations are presenting technical side of the product and thus I had to liaise on reviews and approval with our Art Director and CMM.

Along with the creative side of the process, I was also responsible for the project management of the production – get the right timings in place, change those when necessary, negotiate the delivery date and brief the agencies. Additionally, it included negotiation with the agencies regarding the (extra) costs, and then discussing with my Manger if she could approve. I personally did not have budget to allocate to projects – that was always my Manager who would open the PO, but we were always aligned on that. This has been a very interesting process for me, though sometimes it felt like there was a lack of personal communication and some misunderstandings could happen due to having vast majority of correspondence going via email.

Delivery of assets to the team and markets

The next step after the production of the rich assets (as we call lifestyle images and videos internally) for me was creation of the overview of what became available (either as a PDF or as a PPT) for the distribution to the colleagues who were working on the same project in other smaller teams (PR, Digital, CRM, etc.). Also, I when the assets were still in progress, I would share some of them with the team to showcase what to wait for.

The official delivery of assets to the broader team and markets would include several steps (not necessarily all of them for every project):

- uploading all the images, videos, animations up to the internal online database – Philips Asset Library (PAL);

- creating the Toolkit (PPT) per project;

- distributing the Toolkit and any additional materials to the markets; - presenting the Toolkit to the markets in the weekly Skype call (if needed).

The first step includes primarily receiving all the images (in two formats – JPG and TIF) and video files (in .mp4, .mov, .flv formats), then categorising them correctly: proper name for each file, usage rights if applicable, touchpoints specifications, key words for the search, etc. After that, I would need to upload them to the online library through the specific tool and check if the assets were located to the correct folder. Usually, this process would take a few paces as the have been many assets produced and they would be created not all at the same time.

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12 For the biggest project and launch of this year, we have created the Integrated Marketing Toolkit for the first time in our Business Group. This document includes all the

touchpoints’ deliverables and strategies that are needed for the holistic approach and development of the campaign. Thus, it includes materials from Digital team, Consumer Engagement team (CRM), Social Media, Shopper (In-Store), and others. This document is meant to provide markets with the right tools and guidelines to successfully plan and activate the new campaign. I was the main person in charge to create the Toolkit, so I had to also plan the process and have regular check-in moments with the team. Then, I needed to collect all the deliverables and content from the M2O team, create the design of the toolkit together with our Art Director and then compile the final document, which turned out to be 171 pages long. Throughout the process, I was asking for advise and support from my supervisor, when needed.

After the Toolkit was created and approved by my Manager and Senior Managers from the key markets (USA and Germany), I was in charge to also upload it on PAL and present during the call that we have with markets. Thus, the distribution of the document to the markets and other stakeholders would go through PAL (which any Philips employee can get access to), call’s minutes sent out to the participants and also via sending a separate email by my Manager with the Toolkit in the attachment.

Thus, whatever the MarCom team has created, I was responsible to communicate the news and updates to the team via emails (and personal meetings when possible) and making sure all the materials are available on the shared online locations.

Additional photo/video shooting

Working on some projects, we could see the need to produce more assets – such as seasonal images for the new product, additional video to explain the features and how to use the app with the new product, etc. In this case, I was managing the project quite independently from the very beginning to the end, consulting and aligning with my Manager and CMMs, when needed. The process for the additional video is similar to the post-production of the visuals in general: I would need to receive/collect the script from CMM and their key requests, then brief the agency to see what would be the cost estimate and timings, discuss it with my Manager to check who can cover the costs and if

everything is agreed upon, confirm to the agency. I was also responsible for elaborating on the script with the agency, choosing the model, setting and getting all the necessary

products for shooting. On the day of the shooting I was always present to give guidance and choosing for best solutions to shot the product to keep in line with the main idea behind its creation. I was also the person to review the video, make choice for the music, deal with different ad-hoc queries and finally get the assets delivered in time and of a high quality.

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13 existing portfolio, that helped to deliver interesting and creative solutions that were

successfully used by the team later on.

General/ad-hoc tasks and activities

Working a lot with the assets for the campaigns and projects – either previously created, ongoing or planned for the future – I became very familiar with the majority of them and could orient myself pretty good in the internal assets library. Therefore, I can say that I became the point of contact to the countries regarding the MarCom deliverables,

campaigns and projects, could advise colleagues on what is available and what’s better to use for a particular project, or just where to find the right assets. Thus, I would receive many requests from the colleagues around the world and would send them the right materials or if needed contact the agency to adjust the required assets for the particular needs. I generally liked this process as it helped me to learn more about the business, its strategy and what are the local activations.

Another recurrent task that I was in charge of - organizing weekly updates with our

MarCom team, taking notes and follow up on any call-to-action with the rest of the team if needed. I was also responsible for creation of the overviews and presentations for different projects and assets, planning of the MarCom projects, creation of the PR Distribution list, etc.

For the past few months of the internship, I was also taking ownership of analyzing and updating the existing assets to maximise the performance of the products in the markets. This would include checking the asset library and other serves for the available materials per project, check with our Digital analysts what performs best, what are the findings from previous campaigns, check also with the local teams where needed – to see what are their struggles and/or requirements. Also, kept track of which assets need extension of the usage rights with the agency, discuss with my Manager what approach would be best (to prolong the usage rights, for which assets and for how long) and then ask the agency for the quote and cover the costs (that’s my Manager’s prerogative).

This kind of tasks and activities gave me the opportunity to work on a more strategic assignments, do some research and analysis for the further development and optimization for the team’s work.

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Expectations and reflection on the personal learning process

The main expectations, which could also be called my personal goals, prior to the start of the second placement, were to learn more in the Marketing & Communication, improve the necessary skills, get hands on the projects and have lots of experience. In other words, I was excited to start a long-term internship in the corporate world, but also use this time to gain experience in the field specifically in the Netherlands and understand for myself if Marketing & Communications are still an interesting sphere for me to develop in. Another kind of expectations was the desire to meet new people, get more business contacts and possibly socialise with the colleagues.

During the initial interview for the position, my colleague and I discussed that one of my main tasks would be creation of the PPT documents and various other materials, thus I was looking forward to have some creative work to be done. Yet, at that stage, I could not even imagine how heavily I would be involved into the creative process developing marketing materials. In a way, this turned out to be a nice surprise for me.

In addition, there was kind of expectation and task to myself to improve my soft skills, learn to better communicate in the big business team on a more personal level, and just listen to people more to understand their point of view, but also be proactive.

On the other hand, it was interesting for me personally to be working in the

business/corporate environment and having some reflections on the sphere from the International Relations theoretical approaches standpoint.

In the very beginning, I was trying to get up to speed in the new environment as soon as possible. For this purpose, I was reading a lot of documents and previous materials, and absorb information from all the sources. What helped in this process was also the

participation (or actually attendance) of many meetings and calls that my supervisor have been inviting me to.

Anyhow, as at any new place/company, there were some difficulties for me at Philips in the first 1-2 months. These were mainly about understanding how the team works, who is responsible for what and whom to contact/liaise with on specific issues for the projects. This is due to having part of the team based in the USA, and also close collaboration with other countries. Also, it took me some time to get acquainted with the database system and how to navigate there, and to offer some changes to optimize the processes. What helped me was of course consulting with my colleagues, but also practicing on my own how it all works, searching through the system and looking into previous examples of the ways of working for a particular type of project.

In any case, I would say that I was learning pretty quickly and as the weeks were passing, I was doing more projects, getting more autonomy and trust from my Manager and

colleagues. My learning process has also been supported by the partners from the production agency I was working together with a lot. Thus, the project manager and producer from the agency have been friendly and gave me many useful pieces of advice on the production process and on the sphere of Marketing in general.

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15 amazement how my personal qualities, skills and ethics approach fit with the tasks I should perform, and how those personal interests and skills can be fulfilled in a somewhat unexpected way. In other words, being oriented on the academic sphere and related types of organizations as my domain of professional development, I didn’t expect to have such a ‘match’ in the Marketing & Communications projects.

In general, I can say that there was more or less work for me: sometimes the work load was lighter, and at several periods of the year I was working out of the office hours and over the weekends. On the other hand, there was a possibility to work remotely when needed – for example, when going on a short trip (as interns don’t really get vacations – officially only 1 day a month that could be combined at some point). Also, the work-life balance is very important to many Philips employees, so I tried to incorporate that ‘culture’ into my routine by not staying in the office until very late in the evening. The following thing that I did not really have expectations about, but find now an

important one is the more structured approach to the defining the goals of the placement with the supervisor at Philips. Now, looking back, it probably would be more advantageous to discuss my goals, expectations and steps to achieve those together with my Manager at the early stage of the internship, as well as have more frequent check-in moments to reflect on those along the way. At the same time, I clearly understand that it might not be possible to arrange in the very beginning because I was still learning about the company, team and working with my Manger, and the same goes towards me. Still, there happen to be other people around me whom I could turn to for an advice and who were nice to partly mentor me, especially in the last couple of months.

Directly related to the previous part, is the valuable learning of communicating with different people. Philips HQ is a very international and multicultural unit – only our M2O team that is placed in Amsterdam would number at least 15 different nationalities. In addition, there are colleagues around the globe whom I have constantly being in contact with spanning various time zones. Therefore, this was a good environment to also learn about other cultures, how our cultural backgrounds and habits influence (or not) our work attitude and approach. This once again clearly shows how different we might be and that it is normal that another person would think and view the world differently, and that it is actually beneficial to have various personalities on the team to approach the common goal from several angles.

In hand with the creativity and diversity that the big team has, there might appear some challenges, especially in the corporate company that has many structures and defined ways of working in place. Thus, sometimes it has been difficult to continue with the project with the right speed due to many rounds of review and alignments with quite a few people. Also, at Philips there are quite strict Brand Guidelines, which would impose some

restrictions on the creative process. But for me it is understandable ‘measure’ as the company should come across to the consumers and wider audience in the consistent manner.

Another learning part for me was to acquire more knowledge from other spheres, such as Digital Marketing, Social Media, Shopper (in-Store), eCommerce, etc. As the functions and areas of work in the M2O team are quite separated to have a dedicated person for a

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16 mind, etc. Also, in order to broaden my knowledge and get more skilled, I was trying to get engaged into the project activities that would include some elements from several

domains, e.g. preparing materials for the PR events, analyzing Marketing Research data to visually present it to others, strategy development of the campaigns together with markets, analysis of the markets’ performance with the analysts and developing the approach for further launches.

Another thing that I am reflecting upon now is that it would be great to have more support and guidance from the HR team at Philips to evaluate for myself all the skills and

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Conclusion

The time spent at Philips, working on different campaign activities for almost a year has been a great and enjoyable experience, and particularly I have liked the sphere of Campaign Management a lot. I believe I worked very hard, diligently and responsible caring truly for the team and the projects. That is why I extended my initial contract and was searching for the opportunity to continue working in the team as an employee (but no vacancy at the moment).

In general terms, my tasks were related and fell into the domain of supporting campaign management process developing and deploying with (creative) agencies, as well as managing the production process of the visual Marketing materials (imagery, videos, posters, book, presentations, etc.). I have also organized, managed the deployment of several product shootings and delivery of assets, customized for Digital and Social touchpoints, to ensure digital excellence. And, obviously have picked up lots of internal terminology and learned about the processes of the company.

If I were to give a piece of advice to the fellow students of the IRIO programme, I would say that Marketing and Communications sphere is a very good sphere to get boosted your talents and get engaged in the creative activities. This would be a good option for a

placement, if the person likes a dynamic international environment and looking forward to learn also some business practices and skills. At first glance, Marketing and

Communications can seem to be a distant sphere for the International Relations’ student (unless you are doing an IPE or similar track). Yet, the skills you can develop here are transferable ones and can serve good in any other professional environment. This also might challenge you in a good way – bringing your theoretical knowledge together with the practical implementation, as well as think critically and find solutions even when the studies are not linked linearly to the placement activities, thus not giving the

straightforward answers.

Philips is a big company with various opportunities in different business spheres and there always ongoing projects and possibilities to run new ones, so joining the company can be any time of the year. When already at Philips, I would advise to take part in a range of projects and social activities, get new contacts, and try to define through work and

communication what are the strength and interests you have to further develop the career. In my case, I am still very keen on developing in several spheres, using academic

IRIO Second Placement Report: