Internship at partner company Weleda in New Zealand

Our student Constanze completed her internship at Weleda in New Zealand.

Weleda New Zealand is located among vineyards on a hill in Hawke’s Bay, which is primarily known for agriculture. The company is housed in an old villa and currently employs 37 staff members.

During my internship, I had the opportunity to get to know various areas in order to gain a general insight into Weleda New Zealand.

I spent the first week in order picking. This is where international and domestic customer orders are assembled and dispatched. These include online or telephone orders received by customer service, as well as special orders forwarded by the adjacent Weleda pharmacy. International orders are mostly medicinal products produced exclusively in New Zealand. Daily work in order picking involved a lot of movement. On the one hand, orders had to be collected on foot, often under time pressure, checked, digitally recorded, securely packed for transport, stamped, and shipped. On the other hand, product shelves had to be restocked from the warehouses as needed.

After that, I got to know quality control. This is where all externally sourced raw materials are inspected. The inspection takes place in the production area. Afterwards, the individual work steps are documented in detail in the office. By receiving deliveries, quality assurance also serves, among other things, as a direct communication interface with Weleda Germany. In this role, for example, we analyzed the error rate of tubes printed in Germany for packaging development in Arlesheim, and I translated deviation analyses from Schwäbisch Gmünd into English.
In addition, quality assurance is currently evolving toward a paperless office through changes in management and methodology. As part of this, routine procedures, bureaucratic regulations, and document templates have to be revised. These processes currently take up a considerable part of the daily workload.

I was then assigned to the root harvest in the garden. According to Demeter principles, the roots were dug up in the morning during the waxing moon and then washed. The afternoon was devoted to maintaining the grounds. This included caring for the Weleda goats and cows as well as tending the beds and young plants.

After three weeks with a strong practical focus, my time in the office began. In customer service, my task was to compile universal documentation of all customer inquiries along with up-to-date responses. In order to complete this task thoroughly, I familiarized myself with legal regulations, digital marketing on social networks, and general cross-departmental communication at the site. On this basis, I was able to establish a new way of handling product information that can provide instant support to customer service through practical search functions during telephone inquiries.

I spent the last five weeks in the marketing department. I was responsible for preparing a market analysis of all New Zealand online retailers for natural cosmetics. Based on this, market positioning for Weleda New Zealand could be carried out and potential sales opportunities identified. Because of the rapid development of the online market and the lack of concrete market data (sales figures), it was difficult to make an assessment. In order to identify trends, I intensively monitored and documented, among other things, the development of online shops on social media, which took up a considerable share of my working time.
In addition, I was able to assist with sample preparations and take part in marketing department meetings. This allowed me to make initial comparisons with marketing approaches familiar to me in Germany and Switzerland, transfer ideas, and exchange experiences.

For the global Weleda network, I kept an international blog in which I was able to present the New Zealand site. In addition, my supervisor and I translated the current German-language development form used by the HR department into English. I hope that in doing so we were able to create a structural foundation for future interns that can challenge and support them more effectively. Otherwise, the first New Zealand employee seminar on Weleda’s leadership principles (taking responsibility, giving trust, being a role model) took place. Due to the size of the site, it was possible for the entire company to artistically reflect on its own areas for improvement and strengths together in one room and discuss them with one another.

A report by Constanze Winkler (6th semester, “Business Administration – Rethinking Economics")