Merchandising Admin Assistant - Student Placement

Company Description
Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) is a global leader in the design, marketing and distribution of premium lifestyle products in five categories: apparel, accessories, home, fragrances, and hospitality. For more than 50 years, Ralph Lauren's reputation and distinctive image have been consistently developed across an expanding number of products, brands and international markets. The Company's brand names, which include Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren Collection, Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Polo Ralph Lauren, Double RL, Lauren Ralph Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren Children, Chaps, among others, constitute one of the world's most widely recognized families of consumer brands. At Ralph Lauren, we unite and inspire the communities within our company as well as those in which we serve by amplifying voices and perspectives to create a culture of belonging, ensuring inclusion, and fairness for all. We foster a culture of inclusion through: Talent, Education & Communication, Employee Groups and Celebration.

Position Overview
A one-year placement based in Watford working within the Business Planning team who are integral to deliver availability of product, predictability of sales forecast and profitability for the business. The successful candidate should be available for a full year from 19th August 2024 - 31st August 2025. For this placement you should be on your year in industry at any University in the UK. You must have the right to work in the UK and would need to provide it at the Assessment Day if successful in securing an interview.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities
Operations/Financial
* Attends and prepares for weekly trade meetings and represent your department when required.
* Support all relevant stakeholders collate information, data entry, report preparation and analysis.
* Update reports on a weekly, monthly, and ad hoc basis
* Highlight risks and opportunities to relevant stakeholders.
* Manage and execute Allocation guidance in line with current and future sales plans.
* Work closely with stores to understand capacities, constraints, activities that impact trading plan/space. Commercial Awareness
* Participate in regular store visits, collating store reports prior and assisting in creating follow up presentations.
* To understand our competitors and their trading stance feedback any relevant points. Training and development
* To adopt a positive and proactive approach to training and development.
* Proactively promotes improvements to working practices and systems.
* Participates in company initiatives as appropriate. Communications & Partnerships
* Creates and maintains strong working relationship within cross-functional teams: Buying, Assortment Planning, Retail Planning, RLE and stores teams.
* Liaises with all relevant stakeholders to review and assist in the formation of the seasonal lessons learnt. Using analysis and historical data to ensure commercial decisions are made.

Experience, Skills & Knowledge
· Commercial and Analytical. · Attention to detail. · Able to work on own initiative and be pro-active. · Able to demonstrates logical analysis and problem-solving skills. · Able to organize, prioritise tasks and manages time well to meet deadlines. · Demonstrates good listening, written and oral communication skills, effectively and clearly communicates. · Able to build and maintain productive relationships within team environment. · Strong Microsoft application skills, particularly Excel. · Show ability or aptitude in retail math, able to learn technical applications quickly. · A flexible and pro-active approach to business and systems management · Able to demonstrate resilience and remain positive during challenging period.