Target! Week 3

Sorry for the delay! These past few weeks have flown by - it's hard to believe I've already finished a quarter of my internship!

I am working at Target Corporation this summer in the Merchandise Planning pyramid, which is located at their downtown Minneapolis headquarters. I have been very pleasantly surprised by the size and sophistication of this city; it is definitely very young and filled with fun things to do! I am living on the University of Minnesota campus with the nearly 300 other relocating summer interns.

The first couple weeks of the internship involved lots of training. The first week, our classes were fairly general, on topics from the Retail industry to Target-specific computer programs, which are used to track sales and every other metric imaginable. Last week, we were trained on the specific systems used in the Grocery division (where I'm working) and the nuances of managing the Perishables business. Since this is my first internship working in retail, I've really enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about the industry and what makes Target different as a company. Target headquarters definitely has a very unique, collaborative culture, which I will talk about in an upcoming blog post. I am still absolutely amazed that the 5% of its profits Target donates to the community amounts to over $3 million a week!

All business analyst interns at Target work on a strategic group project that affects one of the divisions of the company. I am lucky enough to be using everything I've learned as an OPIM concentration (lots and lots of Excel!) working on a project related to inventory management in the Produce department. This is our second week really diving into the project, and I am already surprising myself with the amount I have learned so far. Also, one of the cool perks of working in Produce is getting to sample the products our department buys whenever a vendor comes to visit - today we got peaches and nectarines from a fruit vendor!