Oriflame Summer Internship

12. Home in Sweden with reflections

Publicerad 2017-08-14 10:42:00 i Allmänt

Hi! 

Now I have been home in Sweden for a little more than one week. When I look back at my eight weeks’ internship experience it feels almost unreal. During eight intensive weeks I had the opportunity to learn a whole lot about Oriflame and how retailing and sales work, but also about truly having fun at work and enjoying what you do. In the same way as Anton I would like to advise everyone that is ready for an adventurous internship experience to apply for Oriflame’s Summer Internship in 2018. It’s something that I will never regret.

 
The last Thursday of my internship I got surprised with a goodbye celebration - we had cake and I even got a present, a necklace protecting me from bad spirits, that will remind me of my time in Istanbul. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to meet warm people that have taken really good care of me and that have become my dear friends over this time. We will see each other again when(not if) I come back to Istanbul!
Thank you so much for this wonderful experience Oriflame!

11. Final presentation and Celebration

Publicerad 2017-08-02 21:55:00 i Allmänt

Hi! 
 
Today I had my last presentation for Oriflame Turkey's CEO, Johan, and the Marketing and Financial Directors. Right before the presentation it was shortened into one hour instead of two - so we only had time to go through half of the presentation, but we will continue tomorrow morning for an additional hour. Tomorrow I will also present my findings to the Category Team here in Turkey. So faar the feedback has been great though which makes me very glad. 
 
After the presentation I meet a friend, that I meet during my time here, for lunch at the great restaurant Sousa in the nearby mall. We had a great lunch and said goodbye and I went back to the office. I belive and sincerly hope that we will meet again in the future! After lunch I had to do some additional slides to add to the presentation that the CEO wanted. The afternoon went by quickly and after finishing work it was time for dinner together to celebrate the time here and the projects (half)final presentation. 
 
Me and my friend Gigi that I had lunch with today and another friend, Robin from Scottland. 
 
One of the amazing Bosphorous views of Istanbul. Tomorrow will be my last full day here in Turkey. I better prepare for it with a good nights sleep. 
 
/Emilia

10. Last week in Istanbul

Publicerad 2017-07-31 21:45:39 i Allmänt

Today I began my last week of my internship here in Istanbul. This internship has been an adventure and I have learned a lot about Oriflame, Istanbul, Turkish culture, product categories and to work in an other country. It is with mixed feelings that I will leave for Sweden on Friday. On one hand I look forward to some vacation and seeing my family and boyfriend, but on the other I will miss Istanbul where everyday brings knew knowledge and surprises.

 

This week I have my final presentation for our Turkey CEO, Johan, and I will be working on finishing everything in the best possible way until then. Today I received additional feedback from our marking manager, Muge, which helps me improve my presentation. I'm very grateful for her enthusiasm and help. I keep my fingers crossed for a successful final presentation on Wednesday!

This weekend I took the opportunity to do some shopping, suntanning and visiting some of the places that I have really come to like here in Istanbul. I went to my two favourite breakfast places, Mangerie and Aheste and had turkish breakfast.I went suntanning and swimming in a pool with a friend. I went to the really nice areas Besiktas and Karaköy for some food and shopping. And I walked the beach promenade by the Bosphorous. I have come to like Istanbul a lot and will definitly be back in the future.Pancakes at Aheste

Bosphorous view on the bridge by EminönuBebek beach promenade

/Emilia 

 
 

9. Hang out with colleagues

Publicerad 2017-07-25 15:12:00 i Allmänt

Hi!
 
Last week me and My boyfriend had lunch together with my colleagues, Turkan and Özgur from Turkey and Izabela from Poland. We eat at the really nice mall that is right next to the office, called Kanyon. Me and my boyfriend tried a traditional Turkish dish that is almost like Italian tortellini. Here it is a dish that almost every resturant have it's own version of, but most common filled with meat together with a cream sauce. However, I tried one version filled with abugine which I found delicious, but a bit heavy.

 

Izabela has gone on vacation now and will not be back here until I have left. She has been a great friend at the office sitting right next to me. Since I only know a few Turkish words, it has been really nice to have somebody at the office that speaks English all the time. I will truly miss her and her enregy!

But before she went for vacation, me, Izabela and Özgur decided to go for a dinner together this Monday. We went to a really nice area just by the sea side, called Bebek. We ate in a resurant just by the water(Acctually on the water), with amazing veiw and had a really nice time! 


/Emilia

8. Project presentation coming up

Publicerad 2017-07-23 20:24:00 i Allmänt

This week has been very busy since I will have my first project presentation for our marketing manager on Tuesday next week. I have worked long hours and also worked a bit on Saturday. I still have a few things that I would like to finish before the project presentation. I hope that I will have time to finish everything in the way I want on Monday. 

 Me by the Bosphorus

Today, Sunday, I have been visiting one of my colleagues, Turkan, and her family. They live in Uskudar on the Asian side of Istanbul. Turkan and her son welcomed me by harbor in Uskudar at 12.30 and we went to the market to shop some fresh fish for our lunch.

Me and Turkans son

Uskudar was a lovely part of Istanbul with a lot of coulourful streets and nice people. It felt like I finally got the chance to see some genuine Turkish culture today. I helped Turkan to prepare the lunch(I have really missed to be able to cook since I live in a hotel for the summer) and I got an cook book with Turkish dishes(in English) in present from the family. I'm looking forward to try some of the recipes when I come back to Sweden and my kitchen. After the lunch me and Turkan's family went for coffee by the bosphorus and talked about cultural differences, politics and life in general. 

Me and Turkans family by the dinner table

I had a really nice time. Thank you so much Turkan with family for having me! :) 

/Emilia

7. Week of visiting

Publicerad 2017-07-17 22:31:00 i Allmänt

Hi!

While my boyfriend was here I really got the opportunity to see the city together with someone that hadn't been here before as well. We both like to explore new places an try new restaurants together so we had a great week here together. During the weekends we spent the entire days together, but during the weekdays my boyfriend slept in, walked around in the city and planned some evening activities. In the evenings we went walking in different areas of the city and tried out a lot of roof tops. Istanbuls number of roof tops is unbelievable and the city and Bosphorous views are amazing.
On Wednesday we went to a roof top bar in the Besiktas area which was on top of a huge hotel. We ate a really cute plate with small Turkish specialties and a traditional cheese platter and enjoyed a jazz band that plays there every Wednesday.
On Saturday we went to have breakfast at a really nice terass in Bebek just by the Bosphorous - I must really say that the Turkish people know their breakfast. After a long brunch we waled a while by the Bosphorous. The walking lane was really nice and we walked for a long time eventually trying to find a park until we ended up by a big highway and had to take a cab home unless we didn't want to walk all the way back again. A good thing with some exercising though!
 
 
Today it is Monday and my boyfriend left Istanbul and I will be able to fully devote myself to my project which I will need since the presentation deadlines are coming up. Wish me luck! :)

/Emilia

9. Trend workshop and Friday dinner

Publicerad 2017-07-15 10:36:00 i Allmänt

Hello!

Trend workshop on Thursday

Yesterday I attended a workshop on market trends. We spent the whole afternoon reading up on new trends and brainstorming new ideas. It was a lot of fun. Twice a year such workshops are arranged to make people here stay in touch with the demand on the market. Around 25 people attended and we got to take part of current trends both in the consumer as well as competitor area. It was interesting to take part of what’s going on. I had already heard of most of the trends since this is what I’ve spent a lot of time working on here.  We spent time in small groups to brainstorm new ideas. It was fun and I think some there were plenty of feasible ideas generated that day! 

Good hamburger afterwork

 There is a high prevalence of good burger places in Moscow.
 
This Friday I went out for a good burger afterwork. Many who hasn't been to Moscow don't know that the restaurant scene is rather good. Especially, when it comes to more trendy things. The burger trend came to Moscow before Stockholm and the supply is just immensely better here.
 
/Anton

6. New week and new project

Publicerad 2017-07-11 21:29:16 i Allmänt

Hi!
 
Last week was my fourth week at the Istanbul office and I started a second project. The first project, regarding analyzing margins of the products here in Turkey, has had some data access issues, so I needed to have something else to focus on while waiting. I am happy for that since I now get to do a market research and competitor analysis project for some specifc products as well. I started the project with gathering information about the market and its actors. I will continue to visit stores to gather data regarding competitors for the competitive analysis and do interviews in focus group format. This weekn I am also continuing with the margin project and are currently making estimates of the data that we are missing - this to be able to continue with analyses in the project soon. 
 
Photos of me with my Polish collegue Iza at one of our local fish restaurants near the office. 
 
This weekend my boyfriend joined me here in Istanbul - I'm really happy about having him here for a while and will write another post about what we did this weekend tomorrow. 
 
/Emilia
 

5. Weekend in Istanbul

Publicerad 2017-07-04 17:52:00 i Allmänt

Hi! 

This weekend my mom came to visit me here in Istanbul. The beautiful and modern Istanbul surprised her - she liked it a lot more than she thought that she would. I was offshore very happy that she was here and showed her around in the city. Mom happened to pick the warmest weekend here so far (and apparently also a record for this month in Istanbul I heard?) and we were sweating the entire weekend in 35-40°C. Puh!

When She arrived Friday afternoon I went to meet her at our hotel(The Marmara pera) and we went up for a drink on the hotel roof top bar. One big reason for choosing that hotel was that it had a pool on the rooftop, but the roof top bar was really amazing! The hotel is one of the highest buildings in the Pera area in Istanbul and you can see the entire city while lying in the pool or taking a drink in the bar. After telling mom about the different areas of Istanbul from above we went to eat traditional fish meze at a restaurant with a view of Bosporus. The food was not really her cup of tea, but at least she got to try some traditional Turkish food. 

Saturday morning, we woke up early to take the ferry to an island group called "Princess Islands" just outside of Istanbul, to escape the heat in the city. It was a pretty long and hot boat ride, but when we got there it was definitely worth it. We rented two sunbeds and one parasol and alternated between reading books and swimming in the ocean the entire day. 

On Sunday we sunbathed on the hotel rooftop and went for a city tour. We had seen a nice looking restaurant in our area the night before that we planned to visit for lunch, but when we came there they still only served Turkish breakfast (this was 3 pm...). Anyway, we decided to go for a second breakfast instead of lunch - and it was very tasty! It included all sorts of small dishes. Cheese, jams, olives, yoghurt - and everything in all you can eat style. I really want to go back to that place. The rest of day went by very fast and on Monday morning I hugged mom goodbye when I took the subway to the Oriflame office. Thank you so much for the visit mom!

/Emilia

4. Back in Istanbul

Publicerad 2017-06-27 21:06:39 i Allmänt

After a long relaxing weekend in Stockholm, visiting my boyfriend and friends, I am now back in Istanbul and ready for a few days of work before my mother comes here on Friday. I'm looking forward to spending some time with her and showing her the city.

I have been thinking a lot about my project during my days of and have thought out some ways of analysing the data that I have - I am therefore very eager to continue my work at the office tomorrow. 

I just came back to my hotel after having dinner at one of my favourite restaurants so far, called Sousa. Now I will take a bath and go to bed early - the Swedish time difference is not good when you are very tired in the morning as I usually am. Here's a picture from my midsummer weekend at home:

 
/Emilia
 

3. Thursday at the Office and Ramadan feast

Publicerad 2017-06-22 10:51:39 i Allmänt

It's Thursday and the second week of my internship in the Istanbul office. This weekend is the end of Ramadan and here in Istanbul people traditionally go home to visit their parents for the feast. A few people have already left the office for a longer vacation at home, but the rest of us are free from the weekend and until Tuesday next week. I will take the opportunity go home to Sweden for the midsummer weekend and hug some friends and family. But before I go home I have some work finish at the office.

I will take the opportunity to explain a bit more about the project that I am conducting here in Turkey today. As I mentioned before I will be analyzing the margins of Turkey's product offers. My project is divided into three steps; first I will prepare a bunch of reports with financial data for a few consecutive years, then I will analyze the margin reports to find where Oriflame Turkey loose and gain margin and finally I will give recommendations for the future business of Oriflame Turkey.

Right now I'm in the process of creating the financial reports based on figures like sales, number of sold items, margin and so on. There are a lot of new terms and calculations to learn, since Oriflame has a few specially developed KIP:s for their business and the fact that I have not studied a lot of economics before. I think that I will learn a lot in the end though.

Today we also got the products that we ordered for the june catalogue - it's like Christmas! Every month the employees of Oriflame are able tro try five products from the current catalogue, best first hands on experince I have ever had. I will try the products that I ordered and give you a review later on. But the first impression is pretty great, right? :)

 

 

2. First weekend in Istanbul

Publicerad 2017-06-20 20:05:00 i Allmänt

I began my Saturday with trying out the metro system in Istanbul and went to the old and more touristic part of the city. I strolled around and went to the Grand Bazaar(Where a lot of people tried to sell stuff by calling stuff like ”Blondie”). I really liked the traditional serving plates that they are selling and the traditional Turkish towels are also very pretty. I think I will buy some of those before I go home in august. After the pretty clamorous walk through the Bazaar I went to a park where I sat down and ate some cherry’s that I bought in a small fruit shop along the way (for 1,5 TL which is less than 0,5 euro :O ) and read for a bit. This city is all about contrasts.  

I was a bit nervous before my first weekend in Istanbul, since I have never been here before I didn't know anyone in the city except for my colleagues. There is not really any big social networks for foreigners here in Istanbul anymore because of the unrest in the country the last few years. How ever, I managed to get in contact with a Turkish girl during my first days here and we meet for a lunch on Saturday. She grew up in Istanbul and therefor knows a lot about the city and it's sights. We went for lunch at a traditional Köfte restaurant. Köfte is almost like Swedish meatballs and we ate them with a traditional bean salad with a lot of oil. The food was okay - but I think prefer to eat other Turkish foods like meze!
 
After lunch we went to see a few sights in the nearby. We checked the most common ones as the Blue Mosque and a water reservoir from the 6th century called Basilica cistern. Istanbul has beautiful historic buildings and a rich culture which is reflected in the big differences between the areas of the city. We also went to a rooftop café&bar where we drank some coffee and lemonade while we enjoyed the magnificent view over the city and the water.
Sunday morning, I slept in and went for a swim in the hotel pool - they have a small gym and relax area in the basement, which is nice. The rest of the day I spent wandering around in an area called Taksim where I meet with a few other expats here in Istanbul. Among them a Swedish couple that showed me a Swedish cafe called "The Swedish Coffee Spot". They serve coffee, cinnamon rolls and other typically Swedish "fika", which was really nice. The weekend time flew and suddenly it was Sunday evening and time to go home and sleep and get ready for a new week at the Oriflame office!

1. Fist week in Istanbul

Publicerad 2017-06-18 11:02:00 i Allmänt

Now almost one week has passed since I arrived in Istanbul - I will take the opportunity to tell you a bit about my experiences so far!

I arrived in Turkey Monday evening(12/6) and got picked up at the airport. It took some time for me to find the driver that was picking me up among all the people outside the airport, but it worked out and I arrived at the hotel that I will be staying at during my 8 weeks here. The first thing I realised about Istanbul was the traffic - everybody are driving like crazy people here and solid road lines are just seen as extra road space that people drive on.  

Me excited at Arlanda airport in Stockholm, and the first view of Turkey from the plane. 
 
The next morning it was time for my first day at the office. Onur, leading the category department at Oriflame Turkey, picked me up at my hotel and we walked together to the office. He told me that my first two days was going to be a bit different since two people from the global head office in Sweden were visiting. My first two days were therefore filled with meetings, focus groups and other events. I listened and learned a lot about the company during these two days, especially about the fragrance category since it was the fragrance team that was visiting. Now I'm kind of an expert in the conlogne market of Turkey. 
 
During these days I had the opportunity to try traditional Turkish food in really nice restaurants together with the category team and the Swedish fragrance team, which I enjoyed. So far my favourite meal has been turkish meze consisting of really thin bread, grilled skrewer, chopped tomatoes and turkish youghurt. 
 
Beautiful flowers that I had on my desk when I arrived and a Turkish meze dinner with the Swedish team where we had the opportunity to try this interesting drink.   
 
The rest of the week continued with me learning about the company and the business, focusing on how the different teams in the marketing department collaborate and work to create the catalogues. I have also learned about all of the products that Oriflame offer here in Turkey, which is important since I will be working with investigating the products profitability and margin. In my project I will be working with a global team of around eight people planning and investigating how Oriflame Turkey can reach their margin targets of 2021. Next week I will continue to plan the project further together with Onur and then I will start analysing (I will need to improve my Excel skills quick ;)). 
 
Now I'm going to enjoy my Sunday off here in Istanbul. I'm planning on working out and swim a bit in the hotel pool and then hopefully meet some people down town for dinner. In my next post I will tell you a bit more about my cultural experiences and my first weekend :) 
 
/Emilia
 

Incoming Oriflame 2017 Global Summer Interns

Publicerad 2017-06-14 20:35:18 i Allmänt

This year Oriflame has five interns placed all over the globe. We will be placed in Mexico City, Kiev, Moscow, Shanghai and Istanbul. Two of us will be blogging about our experiences during the summer and in this post we will be introducing ourselves briefly and present what we will be doing during the summer. Let’s do this!

Anton Ekman, Moscow office

 
Hi! My name is Anton Ekman and I am based at Oriflame’s Moscow office. I applied to Oriflame’s summer internship, since I’ve both studied and worked in Russia before. I’ve then had the opportunity to meet inspiring Oriflamians and learn about the company’s history when hanging out in the expat community during my earlier stays. It caught my interest for Oriflame and motivated me to apply for Global Summer Internship. I grew up in Nacka outside of Stockholm, but I moved Uppsala for my bachelor’s degree in Business and Economics. I have stayed in Uppsala for my master’s degree in Financial Management and I finished my first year before flying over to Moscow for the summer. This summer, I will mostly be occupied which a communications project, which involves quite a lot of people at the office. My responsibility is mainly to perform external research on trends and best practices. The input I come up with is to be used for crafting new strategies for some of the communication channels, which are in use over here.
 
Emilia Bryngelsson, Istanbul Office
 

Hi! My name is Emilia Bryngelsson and I will be conducting the summer internship in Oriflame’s Istanbul office in Turkey. I applied for the Oriflame Global Summer Internship since I’m interested in other cultures and were really excited about the opportunity to work abroad during the summer. Apart from that I believe that Oriflame is an interesting company with great passion and values, which also offers products that I personally can relate to. Earlier I have been studying mandarin and East Asian culture and lived in Taiwan, but living and working in Istanbul will be a completely new experience for me!

I’m originally from a small town by the west coast in Sweden, called Kinna, but are currently living in Linköping where I’m studying Industrial Engineering and Management. I have just finished my fourth year of engineering studies and are now thrilled to be spending my summer in Istanbul. During my time in Istanbul I will be working with a project in the Marketing Category Department analysing the product offerings that Oriflame has in Turkey. Tomorrow I will start my project – so after tomorrow I will definitely be able to explain it more through.

You will be able to follow me and Anton during the summer at our different locations. We will share our lives in Istanbul and Moscow with updates from the offices and projects, the cultural experiences, personal lives and everything in between. Stay tuned for more!

/Emilia and Anton

 

#5 Board game tuesday!

Publicerad 2016-06-21 19:39:00 i Allmänt

Evening everybody! 
 
Sitting here writing with a european soccer championship game going on, Germany vs. Northern Ireland. Tomorrow is Sweden, let's hope they will win this one! I just got back home after meeting up with some expats here in Shanghai. We sat in a bar and played some board games. It was really fun, especially a game that is called "Resistant". I never played it before, but I am glad I know about it now! It is pretty complicated to explain but in a nutshell, try to get people to believe you are one of the good guys. The best of all was that I got to know a lot of nice people from the U.S, Korea, Ireland, Germany etc. We are going to eat at restaurants together which I am just trilled about, there is so many restaurants that I want to try here! 
I went to a place for Shanghainese soup dumplings, it was absolutely amazing. I also promised my newly found friends to take them there some time so I will definitely go back! 
 
At the office today I started the day off with a meeting together with Marcus and Justine about my project. Yesterday I had prepared an overall plan over my projects and some questions that I needed answers to. We discussed statistics and Oriflame's unique business model. It is very interesting how they work with consultants and direct selling (Consultants are the people that sell the Oriflame products). Knowing more about Oriflame as a company, it really makes me proud to work here. Oriflame offers a chance for people to take control of their own lives, not by simply handing out money, but by enabling them to start their own business, selling Oriflame products. It feels good to know that you are working towards improving the lives of other people. 
 
In the afternoon I joined the online marketing team for a meeting/brainstorming about ideas around some products. It was quite entertaining to hear about the ideas that they had and also giving my own opinions about it. The meeting really gave me an insight on what the chinese people like and dislike, and it is so different from Sweden. I do not think that two months are enough for me, there is too many interesting topics!
 
Now I really need to sleep, good night!
 
/Isabella
 
 
 
 
 

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On this blog you can follow some of the Oriflame Global Summer Interns who have been selected for their passion, creativity and energy to complete exciting strategic projects in one of our locations around the world. This summer we will follow Emilia Bryngelsson, who is doing her summer internship in Istanbul and Anton Ekman who will be working in Moscow. Feel Inspired? Do you want to dare yourself and take the leap out in the Oriflame world ? Be on the lookout on our corporate site when applications for Global Summer Internship 2018 opens up in December!

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