My Rotation: Shared Sourcing Services

For my first rotation, I was assigned to work for Shared Sourcing Services, a team which supports the Buy-to-Pay (B2P) application - a business critical standard Oracle ERP responsible for billions of dollars in orders. People from across GE’s businesses use this application primarily for non-direct material purchases ranging from a single pencil to a 5.6 million dollar bimolecular imager.

The B2P application is highly customized by the SSS team, and is constantly being adjusted. If there’s an issue or change to be made, the user must use the SSS IT Request tool, a support central workflow which handles over 1500 tickets per month. 

For my six month rotation, my primary deliverable was to design and build the second generation of the SSS IT Request tool. In order to do this, I would need to take the project through a traditional software lifecycle process, starting with requirements gathering and moving all the way through designing, building, testing, launching and providing support. I was the project manager, and the direction, speed and success of the project depended entirely on me.

When looking at the SSS It Request tool, two parties must be considered in the ticketing process: The requestors, who are the ones opening the tickets, and the experts, the ones dealing with them. To start, I knew I had to understand both group’s experiences before deciding which direction to take the project. I decided that the best way to do this would be to get up from my chair and start talking to people.

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Rotation Reflections: View From 6 Months In

Today defined the difference between IMLP and any other job you might get right out of college. After working for six months at a job, just beginning to get the hang of it, and finally figuring out where to go to get stuff done – I’m starting completely over. I walked in to a different building, got relegated to a table until my desk is ready, and have returned to not knowing much about what I’m doing.

But I’m not quite the same person who started my first rotation. Several of my expectations, skills, and perspectives have changed over the past six months.

I came into IMLP thinking it might be like an extended internship – not too much responsibility, probably a lot of spreadsheets. As mentioned in my previous blog post, I’ve found it to be quite the opposite! I was given full responsibility on multiple projects, and expected to perform like any other employee. This has been challenging, but incredibly rewarding, and definitely better than what I expected.

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GE Appliances Enters Realm of Social Media

Image courtesy of www.home-designing.com

Did you know?

- 77% of the total Internet audience participates in social media
- Viewing social media sites now surpasses personal email usage
- 70% of consumers trust opinions from other consumers’ online reviews*

In response to this transformation, GE Appliances (part of GE Home & Business Solutions) has recently joined the Facebook and Twitter family. 

The Appliances Facebook and Twitter pages provide an opportunity for consumers to provide feedback as well as notify us of any troubles they are experiencing with certain products.

Part of my rotation involves assisting the business to navigate through social media – which included designing the Facebook profile picture and the Twitter background.  This illustrates how us IMLP’s are given great opportunities to enhance our businesses from both an internal and external perspective.

Check them out here:

GE Appliances Facebook Fan Page
GE Appliances Twitter

*Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries