Amélie Marcaud, Class of 2015, works for a multinational company that makes many people dream: Amazon. After one year at Microsoft, she joined the Internet giant as Retail Vendor Manager – Brand Specialist, a position where adaptability and versatility are the key words, two skills she developed during her studies.
What are your missions?
Within the sports store at Amazon, I mainly work for two international suppliers and in parallel I manage the marketing aspect of the product categories related to these suppliers, namely golf and urban sliding. I can’t really talk about a typical day, because my missions are very varied: negotiating with suppliers, managing the merchandising of my categories, creating promotions, updating the catalog, analyzing sales, reporting, ordering. During a week, 70% of my time is spent on operational tasks whose objective is to increase the number and visibility of my suppliers and the other 30% is spent on project management within my department. For example, I am in charge of all the promotion/discounting part. I can also be in charge of cross-site marketing events.
What do you like about your work?
The most attractive thing for me is the wide range of missions, I can do numbers analysis or design creation or mailing, which allows me to never fall into a routine. Also, having side projects gets you out of the daily grind. Finally, Amazon also has a start-up atmosphere even though it is a multinational company.
What are the particularities of this sector?
It is a sector and a company in perpetual change since online commerce is directly impacted by the evolution of technology and the Internet. It is therefore necessary to have a wide range of skills to adapt easily to its evolution. Because the sector is evolving at a frantic pace, we need to know how to simplify processes and gradually move towards automation in order to keep pace.
What was your educational background before getting this job?
After obtaining my BAC in 2011, I joined the INSEEC BBA class of 2015. Four years of classes, internships, student jobs and Erasmus and here we are in 2015. I have a B.A. in marketing and international communication, but I don’t want to stop there, I want to get a Master II while having a real experience in business. So I decided to join the Master II Marketing and Business Communication of the University Panthéon Assas in apprenticeship. After a few interviews, I got my job as an apprentice in charge of communication and junior marketing at Microsoft. My work consisted mainly in communicating and marketing our Microsoft training offers within the Microsoft partner network. I discovered a whole new world, that of technology and multinationals. I like the atmosphere and the job, but although I like the B2B contact, it seems abstract to me, I want to work for the end customer too. My apprenticeship year is coming to an end, so I’m starting to look for a company with the same scope but that would allow me to be in contact with both customers and suppliers. After a few months of research and several interviews I joined Amazon and discovered what was behind the site. I am discovering a sector where you have to be versatile. Having done internships in various sectors, I can use these different skills and experiences acquired throughout my studies while continuing to develop new ones in the world of digital and online business.
Which skills or experiences acquired at the BBA INSEEC do you think are most useful in your professional environment?
First of all, I would say that all the experiences, whether it is the internships, the associative life or Erasmus, are useful to me today. Of course they are each in their own way, whether it is my internship in an event agency, which allowed me to be competent in project management, or my student job at Decathlon where I discovered the different facets of specialized trade. All these experiences have forged a wide range of skills at different levels. I use all these skills acquired during my previous experiences, but also those developed at the BBA INSEEC, such as teamwork and time management.
Do you have any advice for students who want to pursue a career in this industry?
My advice would be to be curious, versatile and have a strong sense of analysis. People working in this sector must be able to adapt to technical, creative and strategic jobs at the same time. It is also a sector where opportunities are numerous, even as a junior, the companies in the digital are always looking for people who are force of proposals, who find ways to innovate and simplify the processes.
How do you see the next step in your professional career?
I hope to be able to evolve quickly within Amazon, several evolutions interest me, to work on the commercial aspect of our relations with the suppliers, or on the marketing management of one of the Amazon stores.
Updated 24 February 2022