Students
2009 Summer Internship with Dick's Sporting Goods
by Laura Arcieri
Group: CRM
My summer experience at DICK’S Sporting Goods in Pittsburgh, PA was nothing short of fantastic. I “belonged” to the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) team, but I was exposed to and worked with executives from all over the company. At a high level, my project was to develop and recommend a “Seasonal Plan” for DICK’S customer-facing communication. In other words, define an approach to better organize and integrate all of the functions’ (merchandising, marketing, HR, etc.) calendars and planning efforts in order to ensure a more consistent, effective message to the customer.
Going into the summer, my goal was to experience “marketing” first hand. My manager was fantastic and supported me in my efforts to explore marketing as well as other functions within the company. She said repeatedly “I want this summer to be a success for you and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make it that way” and she certainly did just that. Not only did I sit-in on several different marketing production and planning meetings, but I also met one-on-one with 35+ employees as part of my project. This provided me with insight into life at the company.
The MBA internship program is small but growing. While there were only 2 of us, there were 20+ undergrad interns (including some from Wharton). We participated in several of their events, including golfing, yoga, bowling, and pub crawls. Not surprisingly, we were also given lots of free “swag”, enjoyed the Corporate Discount on merchandise in the stores, and even went to 2 Pirates (baseball) games and a Steelers (football) game in the DICK’S Luxury Box. I think, though, the highlight of my summer was flying in the private corporate jet with the CEO and 7 Executives to Dallas and Cincinnati to walk-through several DICK’S Stores, as well as check out the regional sporting retailer competition.
Everyone on the DICK’S Team, from the HR Recruiting Lead to the CEO, went out of their way to make sure we enjoyed and learned from the summer. I would highly recommend the experience to anyone interested in retail or Sports Business.