AI-Powered Sales Intelligence and CRM Development Intern

About The Business: Harpscreen Ltd is a Merseyside-based manufacturer specialising in quarry screens and associated screen media, primarily for the quarrying and recycling equipment industries. The business manufactures a range of consumable woven wire mesh screens, and is the market leader. The company has built a strong market position, a loyal customer base and many years of sales history held within Sage 200.

Overview: Harpscreen Ltd is seeking an analytical and motivated intern to support an exciting Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data analytics project focused on improving customer insight, sales intelligence and future CRM development. This placement offers the opportunity to work on a real business challenge using historical customer, product and sales data held. You will help the business understand how AI can be used to generate practical commercial insights, identify growth opportunities and support more informed decision-making.

Desirable Skills: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills Ability to interpret and analyse data Power BI experience Data analytics experience Artificial Intelligence or prompt engineering knowledge

Job Description:

The business recognises that a significant amount of valuable customer and sales information exists within its systems but is currently underutilised.

There is an opportunity to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data analytics to better understand customer behaviour, identify sales opportunities, improve customer retention and support future CRM development. The company is already exploring the use of AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot and would like to investigate how these technologies can be applied in a practical business setting.

This internship will provide an opportunity to develop and test an AI-powered sales intelligence prototype that demonstrates how existing business data can be transformed into actionable commercial insights. 

The project will focus on creating a proof of concept rather than implementing a full CRM replacement, ensuring the scope remains practical and achievable within the internship period while delivering clear business value. 

Project Goals and Objectives

SMART Objective 1

By the end of the internship, create a structured and documented analysis dataset using exported Sage 200 customer, product, quotation and sales data.

Objective 2
Develop a customer intelligence model, using historical sales information, capable of identifying: Dormant customers, declining customers High-value customers Cross-selling opportunities Reorder risks

Objective 3
Create an AI-assisted customer briefing process that generates concise sales summaries and recommendations for at least 20 customer accounts. 

Objective 4
Design and develop a Power BI (or equivalent) dashboard providing visibility of: Customer purchasing behaviour Customer segmentation Sales opportunities At-risk accounts Product cross-selling opportunities

Objective 5
Produce a brief recommendation document outlining the opportunities, risks and governance controls needed to support future implementation of an AI-enabled CRM platform.

Scope of Work, Methods, and Tools

The intern will work closely with the management team to understand current sales processes, customer management practices and available business data.

Data Discovery and Preparation Activities will include:

  • Reviewing available Sage 200 data exports
  • Creating a data inventory and data dictionary 
  • Assessing data completeness and quality
  • Preparing datasets for analysis
  • Defining customer and product categories
  • Customer and Sales Intelligence

Analysis Activities will include:

  • Analysing customer purchasing behaviour
  • Identifying repeat ordering patterns
  • Investigating customer spending trends
  • Identifying dormant and declining accounts
  • Developing customer segmentation criteria
  • Highlighting potential sales opportunities

AI Prototype Development Activities will include:

  • Testing approved AI tools
  • Developing structured prompts
  • Creating AI-generated customer briefings
  • Generating opportunity recommendations
  • Testing recommendation quality against historical customer data
  • Defining suitable AI guardrails and controls

Reporting and Dashboard Development Activities will include:

  • Designing Power BI (or equivalent) dashboards
  • Creating customer risk indicators
  • Producing opportunity reports
  • Developing management reporting views
  • Visualising sales trends and performance

Future Development Planning Activities will include:

  • Mapping future data integrations
  • Identifying governance requirements
  • Assessing implementation priorities
  • Producing recommendations for future
  • CRM development

Tools and Systems

The project may utilise:

  • Sage 200 data exports
  • Microsoft Excel Power BI Claude AI / Google Gemini / Microsoft Copilot / ChatGPT or alternatives, whichever is most suitable
  • SQL or equivalent data preparation tools

Timeline with Milestones

Weeks 1–3: Project Initiation and Data Assessment Activities: Understand business objectives Review available data Create data inventory Define project success measures
Milestone: Data assessment completed and analysis plan agreed. 

Weeks 4–6: Data Preparation and Customer Segmentation Activities: Clean and prepare datasets Build customer classifications Analyse purchasing behaviours
Milestone: Customer intelligence dataset developed.

Weeks 7–9: Opportunity Analysis and AI Prototyping Activities: Develop opportunity identification logic Create and test AI prompts Generate customer summaries
Milestone: AI sales intelligence prototype demonstrated.

Weeks 10–12: Dashboard Development Activities: Build management dashboards Create visual reports Validate outputs with stakeholders
Milestone: Power BI dashboard completed.

Weeks 13–14: Testing and Validation Activities: Review findings with business users Refine models and reports Test usefulness of recommendations
Milestone: Opportunity and customer insight reports approved.

Weeks 15–16: Final Recommendations and Handover Activities: Prepare final documentation Present findings Develop future roadmap
Milestone: Final report and roadmap delivered.

Intern Roles and Responsibilities

The intern will be responsible for:

  • Understanding available business data
  • Analysing customer, product and sales information
  • Identifying commercial trends and opportunities
  • Developing AI prompts and testing outputs
  • Creating reports and dashboards
  • Presenting findings to stakeholders
  • Documenting recommendations
  • The intern will not be responsible for implementing a live production CRM system or making automated changes to operational business systems.

Intern Skills Required 

Essential Skills 

  • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
  • Ability to interpret and analyse data
  • Good written and verbal communication skills
  • Ability to work independently and manage tasks 

Desirable Skills 

  • Power BI experience
  • Data analytics experience
  • Artificial Intelligence or prompt engineering knowledge
  • SQL knowledge
  • Business process analysis experience
  • Interest in manufacturing and digital transformation
  • Suitable Academic Backgrounds
    • Data Science
    • Computer Science
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Business Analytics
    • Digital Technology
    • Engineering Management
    • Manufacturing Systems

Active
Details

Location: Merseyside

Duration: 300 hours

Salary: £13.45

Start Date: 16/Nov/2026