Lisa, 21
Lisa works for an industry body promoting the idea of smaller Australian tooling companies joining together to win large national and international business that they would be unable to complete for by themselves.
Fact file
Job description: Lisa organises meetings, information sessions and workshops for association members as well as streamlining the communications between members and customers.
Subjects studied: Maths (Methods), English, French, Psychology, Information Processing and Management
Further training: Bachelor of Business, Information Management, (three years at RMIT)
Salary: $35,000+
Profile
Lisa readily admits that she always had a narrow mind when it came to the manufacturing industry. However, a three-week work placement as part of her information management course really opened her eyes: "I found this great industry with enormous scope and variety beyond the trades," she says.
That three-week placement turned into a permanent job offer and when Lisa finished her studies, she was happy to return to work at the Tooling Industry Forum Australia (TIFA). TIFA is an industry body who aims to promote the Australian tooling industry, both within Australia and throughout the world.
Like Lisa, you may at first think of hammers and chisels when someone mentions tooling. But as Lisa found out, there are much more complex tools. She explains: "In this sense, tools are the huge machines used to make things like cars or planes. Think of the hood of a car. The tools involved in making it are things like moulds, dies and a metal stamp press. So what happens is a computer will translate the design and make a die which will then stamp the shape of the hood into a huge sheet of metal."
Because the tooling industry in Australia is made up of small companies, many Australian firms were missing out on large contracts because they simply didn't have the capacity to do the job on their own. That's where Lisa comes in. Her work involves organising a cluster - or group - of companies to work collaboratively so they can win the big projects.
TIFA Aerospace is one of these clusters, made up of three large tooling companies. They are currently working with Boeing on designing and developing tools for the production of a new commercial aircraft. Lisa's role is to make the communication easier and organise meetings, information sessions and workshops. TIFA are looking to set up a similar cluster for the automotive industry and Lisa is busy speaking with companies and telling them about the benefits of working together.
Lisa's information management course has helped her enormously because as she says: "in every workplace you have to deal with information. Data is always coming in and needs to be sorted and filed in order to apply the knowledge that data gives you."
Information management is a fairly new concept for the industry and Lisa is glad to be at the front, promoting the idea and helping Australian businesses. "Manufacturing is such an exciting industry. It is always looking forward, advancing and challenging. There is such a variety of work I can honestly say that there is nothing I don't like about my job."
In fact Lisa is so happy with her job that she sees herself working in the industry for at least the next five years. She is on a mission to open up people's eyes to the range of career options in the manufacturing industry.
Job specs
Communications Managers promote a company's or client's sales of products or services, including the marketing of existing products, developing new products to cater for consumer demand, or developing markets for new products or services.
Duties
Marketing officers may perform the following tasks:
- Identify and analyse an organisation's strengths and weaknesses, and respond to opportunities and threats in the marketing environment
- Set goals for market share and growth
- Develop and implement appropriate strategies by selecting, segmenting and targeting markets, and promoting products and services to those markets
- Make decisions regarding products such as labelling or packaging
- Undertake new-product development
- Work out an approach to pricing and set prices for products and services
- Manage distribution channels such as shops and wholesalers
- Make decisions regarding the distribution of products (such as taking of orders, warehousing, stock control and transport), manage store image or undertake direct marketing
- Develop plans in relation to advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling and sales management
- Undertake marketing audits to monitor sales performance
Personal requirements
- Able to analyse and interpret information
- Creative
- Very good communication skills
- Organisational skills
- Able to work as part of a team
- Able to work independently
Getting started
Find out more about a career in marketing and communications:
Australian Market and Social Research Society (National Office)
Level 1, 3 Queen St Glebe, NSW 2037
Tel: (02) 9566 3100
Email: amsrs@amsrs.com.au
Australian Marketing Institute
PO Box 5295, Sydney NSW 2001
Tel: 1300 737 445 | 1800 240 264 (FREECALL)
Email: membership@ami.org.au