Business Administration Apprentice – Newbury

Cornflower designs and manufactures bespoke printed products and souvenirs for museums, galleries, gardens, heritage sites and visitor attractions. We have been doing it since 1999. Our customers include Kew Gardens, the Natural History Museum, the National Gallery and many of the cultural organisations whose shops you may have walked through. We are a team of around thirty people in Newbury. Design, print, laser cutting and finishing all happen under one roof, which means the person who takes a customer enquiry in the morning can walk fifteen metres and speak to the person who will make the product. Very little of what we sell is off the shelf. Almost everything begins as a conversation with a curator, a buyer or a retail manager about a collection, an exhibition or a place. We are a certified B Corporation™ and are ISO 14001 and FSC® certified.

The role involves sitting with the sales team, reporting to the Sales Manager, and taking real responsibility for the practical work that moves an enquiry from a first email to a finished product on a shop floor. You will learn how a customer describes what they want, how a designer interprets it, how a production team costs and makes it, and how all three of those things have to line up. It is a good vista point from which to understand a business.

What you will learn:

• How a bespoke product is specified, costed, designed and manufactured
• How to write clearly and persuasively to customers who are busy and specific
• How print, materials and sustainability decisions affect cost, quality and lead time
• How to prioritise when several customers all need something today
• How a small British manufacturer wins and keeps long term accounts

Person specification:

• Clear, confident written and spoken communication, particularly on the telephone
• Organised, with genuine attention to detail
• Willing to ask questions and to say when something is not clear
• Comfortable with Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook, and willing to learn new systems
• Able to manage several tasks at once and to prioritise sensibly
• An interest in design, making, museums or the visitor economy is welcome, though not essential
• Grade 4 or above in GCSE English and Maths, or equivalent

Training and qualification:

You will work towards the Level 3 Business Administrator apprenticeship standard with Pro Apprenticeships, combining structured off the job learning with day to day work at Cornflower. The standard covers business communication, systems and processes, project management, problem solving and organisational structure. Your training time is protected and supported.

Progression:

This is a role we expect to grow into something larger. Successful completion of the apprenticeship could lead to a permanent position within the commercial team, with routes into account management, internal sales or project coordination depending on where your strengths turn out to lie.

Responsibilities:

• Handling incoming customer enquiries by telephone and email, logging them accurately and making sure nothing is left without a reply
• Preparing and sending out sample packages, including selecting the right samples for the customer and the enquiry
• Preparing and issuing customer proposals and quotations, working from our price structures and with support from the Sales Manager
• Working with the design team to develop product ranges for specific customers, collections and exhibitions
• Chasing quotations and proposals, and keeping the sales team informed on where each one stands
• Maintaining accurate customer and enquiry records on our internal systems
• Supporting the processing of orders and liaising with the production team on lead times and delivery dates
• Helping to prepare for customer meetings, trade shows and our autumn roadshow programme, including sample packing and follow up
• Assisting with mailings, product launches and sales campaigns
• General administrative support to the Sales Manager and the wider commercial team

Culture and benefits:

• A certified B Corporation, which shapes how we treat people, suppliers and the environment
• Twenty days holiday plus bank holidays, plus your birthday and Christmas Eve
• Company pension scheme
• Free parking at our Newbury site
• A small team where you will know everyone, including the people who make the products you are selling
• Penny per Postcard Community Fund and an active local charity partnership with Newbury Soup Kitchen

Equal opportunities and inclusion:

Cornflower is a certified B Corporation. That is not a badge we keep in a drawer. It commits us to treating our people, our suppliers and our community as stakeholders in the business, and it means we are held to account on how we recruit as well as on what we make. We welcome applications from everyone, and we mean everyone. We do not care which school you went to, whether anyone in your family has worked in an office before, what your accent is, where you or your parents were born, what you believe, who you love, or whether you took a conventional route to this point. We do not require prior office experience, industry contacts or a family friend in the sector. Apprenticeships exist precisely so that a career does not depend on any of those things. Applications are assessed on merit against the person specification above. If you need an adjustment to take part in the application or interview process, let us know and we will do what we can to accommodate it.