Corporate Visits

Most of what I have mentioned here on this blog has been mostly describing the different cities that I am in, but one of the key elements of this trip has been the corporate visits. The corporate visits are what sets this trip apart. The five that we had in Germany and Prague were particularly good.

We had three corporate visits on our second day in Germany: Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, and a John Deere manufacturing headquarter in Mannheim. The Deutsche Bank presentation was not as inspiring as I was hoping, but the company headquarter building was amazing. It is one of the most state of the art buildings in the world and one of the "greenest" buildings in the world. The ECB was a great presentation. Our presenter was a extremely knowledgeable guy and we all got to discuss some of the recent events in the Eurozone with him such as the sovereign debt crisis and what the ECBs role is in that. This was all stuff that we were talking about in my comparative economics class. We ended the full day with the John Deere visit. I was impressed with the kind of technology they have in their tractor equipment and how much they invest daily in R&D. Probably the highlight of the day was touring their manufacturing facilities. I never thought that I would learn so much here. Every process was evaluated and they seemed to squeeze every bit of efficiency out the facility, even with all the necessary customization. We saw tractors ready to ship to the US, Africa, and all over Europe. 

In Czech, spent the afternoon at StanleyBlack & Decker manufacturing facility. Specifically this facility manufactured DeWalt power tools. These were the tools that I handled on the construction sites a couple summers ago. The expat managers seemed to do a great job of understanding the local environment and adapting to the Czech mindset. Again, their manufacturing processes were managed proficiently. I think that there was a lot of carry over to my global strategy class. Finally, we sat down with an Australian expat who worked for the global marketing firm, DDB. They were responsible for the local add campaigns of companies like McDonald's and Volkswagen. This was our first marketing-centric presentation and it was a solid presentation.

I think that touring these facilities has given me a broader perspective of business and all of the industries that contribute to global business. I have been trying to soak up as much as possible.