Two days with Uncle Ralf

It has been two very intense days with Uncle Ralf, a.k.a Professor Ralf Boscheck. We have been working on setting up a framework for this somewhat peculiar 'industry' called 'NGOs' or more specifically 'Human Aid organizations dealing with street children'. Based on what we have learned so far we have defined the 'market', the 'competitors' and so forth. As with businesses we need to look at how the money gets in and how it is spent, but that is also the end of the similarities. For example, for a Human Aid organization it is not the 'customers', i.e. the street children, that pays for the services, but instead it is the donors who often have a different aim than the children.

On the 'operational' side we are looking at how different visions affects the choices an organization must make: 'Do you want to give as many children as possible the minimum that is required for them to move on with their lives' OR 'Do you want to create a heaven for a relatively small number of children, that then gets all the help you can provide'. Your brain will tell you that the first option is better, your heart will go for the second option if you are in Kenya where it all is happening. If there is one thing that has become clear so far, then it is that this project will be a battle against the dilemma of balancing brain and heart. The people that work in these types of organizations are there because of their good hearts, so we must be very careful not to come with a super rational mindset.

Ralf is a fountain of knowledge and a Duracell rabbit with new batteries. We worked full days, but frequently and intentionally sidetracked into other interesting discussion. He never ran out of energy. It is fascinating to hear these views and have a person of his caliber one-on-one (or one-on-five). He loves to provoke, to rattle the cage and see what comes out. Unless you are really trained and used to academic or political debates, it can be very hard to keep up, though. Nevertheless, it has been a couple of incredibly insightful days that drained me for every drop of energy I had. I have been sleeping very well the last couple of nights. And so I will tonight!

Sov godt!

Perfect morning

It is the perfect morning on my balcony. Birds singing, a cup of coffee on the table, the air still cool, no noise from the road because it is Saturday, feet up, laptop in my lap, ready to write.

It has been a great week. Presentation technique, Advanced Finance and Negotiation skills. All of it very relevant, all of it very well taught. There are naturally different preferences and perceptions by the people in the class, but to me the Negotiations workshop stood out. It is probably the best training I have received in my life! Ted, Tom and Eric from CM Partners led us through 'The ladder of inference' and 'The Strategic Compass', the most important tools when negotiating. Simple, but very effective. The sessions were illustrated with rich examples and role plays played out in front of us.

All three of them have done lots negotiations at the top-top level, between governments, between major international corporations and in hostage negotiation situations. It was incredible to see how much they were in control of every situation. They would put the heat on each other in the role plays, but still they would evade the tough questions gracefully and redirect the conversation to where they wanted it to go. Impressive, very very impressive.

I have always thought that being a professional negotiator was someone doing hostage negotiations, and that mostly in Hollywood, but now I see how these gentlemen and their skills are the make or break of a deal, also in a business setting. Our personal impact will be enormous, if we can just do a fraction of what they can.

There was an incredible aura around these gentlemen. You had a feeling of being around someone that was absolutely world class in their field, someone who possessed an enormous natural authority and who was so much in control in the situation that you felt they could get you to do anything. In the words of classmate Simon Brunner (Switzerland): 'Could you imagine negotiating you salary with these guys? You would end up paying to go to work!'

Thorsten

From the present to the future

It has been a relatively quiet weekend with beautiful weather and friends visiting. Still I have had quite a bit to do, so I have not really been the good host that I would like to be. I have been blessed with very understanding friends, though, and I have apparently managed to lower their expectations to a level, where it is not a problem that I am not much around. They just use my place as a base and stroll around Lausanne or drive around Switzerland on their own. It is great we can work it out that way!

Thinking back on the first week of 'part 2' of the IMD program, the thing that strikes me the most is the mental switch from worrying about the present to worrying about the future. It used to be the everyday stress of the class that would keep us pre-occupied. Now it is the search for our dream. CVs and cover letters go out by the dozen and interviews are being planned both on-campus and away. It is now that the game starts, the game that Career Services have been warming us up for the past six months.


Professor Jean Pierre Jeannet (standing far right) took us through four cases on world class football teams and emphasized the many things that modern business leaders can learn from these teams. To mark the event some wore the team jerseys of their own favorite football teams.

Bye Bye Mandela

Old man, you did well.

The country that you have fought for is amazing and the direction in which you have sent it brings more than just hope - it brings firm belief – that a glorious future awaits South Africa.

Over the past two weeks we have visited the sites that tell the story of South Africa, the Apartheid Museum, the Hector Pieterson Museum for the Soweto uprising and your own house, which – whether you like it or not – has become yet another symbol of freedom and the fight that it took to get it. We have lived in fancy Sandton City with its shopping malls and posh hotels that few can afford. We have seen the unfortunate souls in townships and squatter camps and looked the HIV children of Cotlands in the eyes. Despite the sad sad circumstances, we saw nothing but big bright smiles. We were welcomed by thousands of singing, dancing and smiling souls in Soweto’s Grace Bible Church and we saw the roots of the country - its amazing nature and wildlife - in Pilanesburg National Park.

Not least, we have worked closely with the entrepreneurs of South Africa who produce anything and everything from diamonds and tractors to beds and hydraulic fittings. As much as soldiers and politicians are the heroes of the past, these passionate business men and women are the heroes of the future. They are the ones that will bring South Africa to the next level. We were told the huge success story of MTN, Africa’s first true multinational company, and we know that many more will follow.

When asked to define South African leadership my team quickly agreed on the three words: Forgiveness, inclusiveness and optimism. Forgiveness for the pain of the past, inclusiveness of all races, religions and colours in the prospects for the future and an incredible and forceful optimism that cannot be held back.

You will show them all of this in the FIFA world cup next year, where you have invited the whole world to your home. We know that you are preparing hard and we know that will do great. Just be yourself.

See you soon!

Delivery

Today was delivery day. Delivery of the projects we have been working on the past week. Judging from the many stories I have heard from my classmates South Africa have made an impact on us all and judging from the very same stories we made an impact on South Africa. Maybe not as a country, but for the entrepreneurs we have been working with. It is incredible how much you as a group can pick up, process and feed back in a week once you really set your mind to it.

The last two days we borrowed a room in the office of our host IDC, where we could digest and process the information we absorbed over the past week. For some reason, it did not feel much different than the dungeons back in Lausanne.

My concerns about us knowing absolutely nothing about hydraulic fittings evaporated already the first day and this week became an awesome demonstration of the power of a multi-skilled team. Eric – our financial genius – drew up a complete financial model from scratch and helped Peter sort some outstanding issues with his bank. Stone – our engineer – made a model that allows Peter to accurately calculate his production cost of each product, which ensures that the prices are set correctly. Stone also made suggestions to how Peter can make very significant improvements to the utilization of his machines. Shibu – our marketing wizard – draw up a plan for a more structured sales process than Peter has today. Myself, I got really good at getting coffee for everyone ☺ We wrapped it all up in a business plan that Peter can take to his bank to help him refinance his existing business and obtain new capital for his planned expansion. That was our deliverable and Peter seemed very happy with it.

Eric and Stone trying to get the financial and operational figures to match.

Delivery of the business plan took place at ‘The Mug & The Bean’ coffee shop. Here Shibu and Peter are discussing the marketing plan. Please note the huge cup of coffee in the front. This is on the menu as a so-called ‘Serious Cappuccino’ and consists of almost half a liter of warm milk and coffee. Not only in America!


What better way to end it all than with a team phoon in front of the Mandela statue on Mandela Square here in Sandton City. From left it is myself, our entrepreneur Peter, Stone, Eric, Shibu and our driver Sharl.








We had lunch at a Thai restaurant today. My teammates apparently thought I needed to relax and bought me a massage in the restaurant. For the equivalent of 5 dollars you get about 20 minutes of massage of neck, shoulders and arms before and after you eat. I could really get used to that. Although we were in a Thai restaurant the girl proved to be Chinese. As Stone and her started talking in their native tongue we learned that she was from a place in China not far from Stone’s and that she had migrated to South Africa a couple of years ago to work. Interesting, I thought, that someone would migrate to find work in a country with 25% unemployment. Stone explained that many Chinese go abroad these days, most of them to set up their own businesses, though.
We have also experienced the diversity of our group in a culinary way this week. Thursday Shibu treated us for Indian food, Friday Stone treated us for Chinese and today Eric took us out for Thai. There are unfortunately very few traditional Danish restaurants outside of Denmark, but I can always buy you a Carlsberg! ☺

South Africa is now seeing the rise of a new term: ‘White poverty’. This little exhibition was set up today across the street from our hotel.
The poster reads: ‘…poverty in South Africa no longer has an exclusively black face….. Poverty is becoming less of a racial issue and more of a South African problem…. Having been deprived of their previously ‘privileged’ position, the white poor are now seeking new ways to adapt or at least survive.’
In some bizarre way this is a good sign. Not that people get poor, but than when there is poverty, that it is evenly split among races. This is the precondition for eventually bringing South Africa out of the poverty!

Less than 50m from where the previous picture was taken we found this display of material wealth. Aston Martin, Lamborghini and Audi R8 in front of the posh Michelangelo Hotel reminds us that South Africa still is a country full of contrasts.

The Spirit of South Africa!

Who would have thought it would be so cold in South Africa! Not me, that is for sure. We have hit the coldest period of the year on the Southern hemisphere and with Johannesburg being far inland the temperatures get quite low, around zero degrees Celsius at night and around 15 degrees during the day. That does not sound particularly cold, but in South Africa the houses do not have any heating!! The argument appears to be that this cold period is so short – max. 2 months – that it is not worth to put in heating. Most people therefore wear their jackets indoor these days. We have learned to adopt that fashion.

We have continued our work with Peter – the owner and manager of the company we work with. We visited three of his customers yesterday and have also had two meetings with his bank. Eric – our financial wizard - have been digging into the numbers, while Stone – our engineer – have had a look at the machines and the manufacturing processes. Meanwhile Shibu and I have been trying to combine input from the customers and Peter’s vision of where he wants to take the company into a coherent strategy with a very concrete action plan. The trick is now to bring all three pieces together into a package (in the form of a business plan) that Peter can use both for his own reference and to raise capital for further expansion.

Today we had our second guest speaker, Ivon Johnston, who has been working in and with the South African government for many years. She told some moving stories about what South Africa has gone through, but most of all she told the story about what all of us already have felt – the spirit of South Africa! It is a spirit of optimism and joy that will not let itself be held down by the many very serious problem the country is facing. It is a spirit of reconciliation and compassion, not about revenge, hatred or blame. It is a spirit that recognizes what happen in the past while insisting on focusing on the future.

There is one name in particular that embodies this spirit. We keep hearing it again and again. It is mentioned by our guest speakers, by the entrepreneurs and workers in the companies, by our drivers and by other people we meet. It is used to name everything from streets to shopping malls. The name is Nelson Mandela. He is nothing short of a prophet here. His birthday is a national holiday. Had it not been for his vision South Africa would not have achieved the tremendous improvements that it has over the past 15 years and it would not be heading in the positive direction that it is. I cannot imagine what South Africa will look like in 15 years, but it will for sure be an amazing place!

Thorsten

Shibu James [India] having Chicken Licken (the South African equivalent of KFC) for lunch.

Stone Gao [China] and Peter discussing the manufacturing process of a particular component.

Stone and Peter discussing manufacturing while Eric is crunching the financial numbers.

The modern version of the classic problem of ‘how to fit a square stick in a round hole?’ This one is called ‘how to fit a Swiss electrical plug into a South African socket?’

Yesterday our team had Indian food for lunch. From left it is our driver Sharl, Stone Gao [China], Thorsten Boeck [Denmark], Eric Vergara [Thailand], Peter and Shibu James [India].

One of the teams is working with a company that has developed a special x-ray machine. They had pictures taken of them selves and asked the class to guess who is who. A very entertaining exercise!

Ivon Johnston telling the story about Justice Beki-beki, who was given the death sentence, but saved by the fall of the apartheid regime. He later became a lawyer, a leader of the election process in the Northern Cape province and a member of the international body that monitored the elections in the US.

Tonight’s sunset over Johannesburg as it looked from our hotel. The sunsets are very dramatic and beautiful in the way they paint the whole sky red. The picture does not do reality justice at all.

Sawubona!

Two days ago I sat on my balcony in Lausanne. What a change of scenery there has been since then!

Sunday evening we met in Lausanne and via Geneva and Zurich we made it to Johannesburg by Monday morning. I asked for a seat by the emergency exit on the plane and was the lucky to get it! That is major deal breaker for me. It is the difference between sleep and no sleep. With enough space to stretch my legs I slept 7 of the 10 hours from Zurich to Johannesburg. I couldn’t have had a better start.

There was a lot of catching up to do on the way. The class has been spread around the world in the past three weeks. Combined we must have visited at least 50 countries. Around 25 people had gone to South Africa early, some individually and others in a trip organized by our native South African, Lisa Bridgett. Stories about cage diving with 4-meter sharks outside Cape Town were already spreading!


Chuks and Andres waiting to pass security in Zürich. Chuks had just become a dad less than 24 hours before the picture is taken!


Arrival in Johannesburg! Some more rested than others.


Our welcoming team. As the width of these two gentlemen indicates they are here for more than just driving us around. They are employed by a security company that takes care of all our transportation and security. All of them have a past in the army or the police.


Yesterday afternoon we met the companies that we will be working with. Here is the rest of my team Stone, Shibu and Eric with Peter [left] from Profast Hydraulics, the company we will be working with. Peter is a true entrepreneur and selfmade man who over the last 15 years has worked his company up from being just himself to employing 15 people and a number of advanced CNC machines. The company produces hydraulic fittings (primarily for the South African mining industry) and components for the construction industry.

Our stay in South Africa has come about as a result of the cooperation between IMD and the Internal Development Corporation (IDC). IDC is a government-owned but self-funded institution that provides financing for entrepreneurs in South Africa. Their aim is to stimulate the growth of the economy and to support the black economic empowerment.


IDC welcomed us with a great dinner with lots of traditional South African music and dance. That got everybody out of their chairs so we could dance along. Great fun!


Wendy Luhabe has been the person bringing IDC and IMD together. She is chairman of IDC and on the IMD board of directors. Here she bids us welcome at the dinner.


On the way out to the Profast factory today we drove by this billboard. Notice Wendu Luhabe on the far left. According to our driver, Sharl, Wendy is a well-known and very public character in South Africa. Please also note Sir Richard Branson (third from the left). Apparently they are having a leadership summit on South African entrepreneurship in Sandton – which is where our hotel is – tomorrow. I guess this just proves the relevance of what we are doing.


We spent all day today with Peter and Sharl. They took us around to the different sites where Profast operates.


We saw the machines and the products and we spent the whole days asking questions in order to understand Peter’s business and the concerns he has. Here it is Hendrik by one of the CNC machines.
We have tried to combine today’s learning with the skills we have amongst the four of us in order to find out where we can do our deep-dive over the next three days. With only a week to complete the whole project we need to take a very pragmatic and realistic approach to where we can add value. It means prioritizing, thinking on our feet and acting quickly. The great thing about this short time frame is that it gives you a bit of a kick. This is not a project that will drag on for months and where you have to collect vast amounts of information. Every hour counts and there is not a moment to waste if you want to do an impact by next Tuesday. Well, the impact may only happen over the coming months, but the frame for it must be set by Tuesday. The keyword is ‘impact’, doing something that really makes a difference. I am very excited and feel we are off to a good start, but there is still 6 days to go – and at the same time ONLY 6 days to go.

Every evening we will be sharing the day’s learning with the class. Judging from today’s session it sounds like everybody are working with companies just as exciting as ours. The companies covers such diverse products as restaurants, construction, pharmaceuticals, diamonds, public toilets in Soweto and a lot more that I haven’t had the chance to hear about yet.


This week have we replaced the White Horse with the bar in our hotel, but it is just as cosy. From left it is Richard Dove [UK], Albert Schultz [Germany], Ope [Nigeria] and Rasmus Figenschou [Norway].

And in case you were wondering: ‘Sawubona’ is the South African version of ‘hello’. Directly translated it means ‘I see you’.

In Transit

I am back on the balcony, back in Lausanne. Thinking, thinking, thinking. I feel much better than when I left Lausanne three weeks ago. The batteries are recharged and the connection to the outside world has been reestablished. At the same time it is also clear that mentally I never managed to leave Lausanne and IMD behind. Questions about what actually happened during the first half of the year kept swirling in my mind. The feedback from peers and professors - received the day before we went on vacation - kept popping up. Some of it was encouraging, some of it was not. And why was that? What situation was behind each message. Are there any regrets? Yes, definitely! It is clear that I have missed out on some obvious opportunities. That cannot be redone - that time will not come back - but I can make sure that I find a better path for the second half. I have boiled it all down to a few points that I want to improve on. A few goals that I want to reach.

I arrived in Lausanne yesterday after a week on Malta with my family. It was very hot and humid on this little island in the Mediterranean, so I have enjoyed the chill of Switzerland for a change. The last 24 hours have been spent unpacking, doing laundry and catching up on emails, so I am ready for the next trip. We are leaving for South Africa in a couple of hours.

In Johannesburg I will be working with Eric, Shibu and Stone in a small company (10 employees) that produces hydraulic hose fittings!!!! I wonder how a trader of financial derivatives (Eric), a sales guy from Procter & Gamble (Shibu) and a shipping guy (myself) will get our hands around that subject. We will probably be relying quite a bit on our only engineer (Stone).

This complete lack of knowledge of what awaits us is also what thrills me. We will just go and see what hits us and then take it as it comes. This is an experiment, a first ever for a business school as far as we know. I hope it becomes a huge success and one that can be developed further in the years to come. I can not wait to take the plunge!

I better start packing.

Start-up shut-down

'So you are giving the software away for free and you want to build a business doing that?'. We were somewhat sceptical when we meet the people from Bacula Systems for the first time on 21 January. There we were, six guys from all over the world who had been working with chemicals, automobiles, fashion clothing, banking and shipping. And now we were asked to help a company doing open source backup software build a business! We barely knew what software was about, not to mention open source. Only Gerald Lo [Malaysia] is from the IT industry, so we had to rely heavily on his technical expertise in the beginning.

Today we gave our final presentation to Bacula wrapping up the past four months of work by summarising the findings and recommendations we have made along the way. There were no surprises for them today, as we have been working with them all the way. Bacula was represented by CEO Jack Griffin and by Kern Sibbald, who has programmed the Bacula software. Both gentlemen have a long career in the IT industry. They were very satisfied with the cooperation we have had and said that they will be making signficant changes to their business model and target customers on the basis of our findings. That is the kind of feedback that is great to receive. Then it has all been worth it!

Along the way we have had to learn the basic jargon of the industry and understand a very complex and advanced product well enough to be able to define how it is different from its main competitors. We have learned the basic drivers of the open source community and the dilemmas that a company operating in this sphere faces. We have spoken to potential customers and partners and have analyzed the ins and outs of the competitors. The process has taken us through countless iterations and involved hours and hours of discussions, but eventually we were able to come to an agreement both among ourselves and with Bacula on how the business should move forward.

Tomorrow at 9:50 we start the grand finale. We will be presenting to a panel of Venture Capitalists, who all have seen thousands of business plans and who are renowned for their ability to spot weaknesses a mile away. We have practised the presentation over and over again. I am certain that Ajay and Cedric - who will be presenting - are rehearsing the lines in their sleep right now. Fifteen minutes to explain four months of work is not a lot. We need to be sharp! Really, really sharp!



4 February 2009. Backup for dummies. This is where it all began. Bacula CEO Jack Griffin was very patient and took the time to teach us the basic technicalities.



7 February - Information overload! Trying to make sense of it all. It just seemed insurmountable at the time.



4 March - Bacula boys at work in the Maersk building, where we spent a lot of time together. From left it is Gerald Lo [Malaysia], Ajay Lakhwani [India], Brad Moldin [USA], Slava Raykov [Russia] and Cedric Jusseaume [France].



Mid March - Finally some kind of framework starts taking shape.



Late May - Sharpening the final presentation!

February at IMD

My Singaporean classmate Henry has created another great movie about the IMD life.

January video

One of fellow student, Henry Low from Singapore, made this video out of the pictures that were taken by the class in January.

Christmas in Madrid and New Year in Lausanne

It has been a busy couple of weeks. After celebrating christmas in Denmark on 24 December, we got up at 4.00 the next morning to catch a flight to Madrid, so we could celebrate the Spanish christmas with Susanas family on the afternoon of the 25th. Actually Christmas is not that big of a deal in Spanish. They make a lot more out of the 'Three Kings' celebrations on 6 January, which also is where they give each other presents.

It was the first time for me to meet Susanas family and friends for real. Despite some differences in languages I got an impression of the warm and welcoming Spanish mentality. It doesn't take long to feel at home there. Susanas sister, Mar, had gotten us all tickets for Cirque du Soleil. A fantastic show with absolutely amazing acrobats. I have never seen anything like it!

On 29 December I went to Lausanne, where I took over my new apartment. On 30 January my three Indonesian friends Anya, Binky and Adi came to visit for 4 days. In that very short period of time they managed to go as far away as Chamonix, Jungfraujoch and Zürich. They really utilized their Swiss railway-pass to the max!

They also joined for the New Years party that was held together with almost 60 of the new MBA students, partners, friends and children. The whole thing was arranged by Albert, one of my new German class mates. It felt a bit like being a MISE trainee again with all the new people from many nationalities meeting for the first time, but the atmosphere was great!

On 1 January Susana arrived from Spain. The next day we said goodbye to Anya, Binky and Adi over a great Swiss fondue. A love fondue, but it is a dangerous invention that definitely is going to cost me some kilos this year.On 3 and 4 January a skiing trip had been arranged by fellow student Ruslana in Champery, about 2 hours away by train. We had fantastic weather and great snow! We stayed in a small, hotel run by a British couple. We (20 people) filled the hotel, so we got an excellent service and really enjoyed ourselves.

5 and 6 January was information sessions, where we had to get a lot of practical things done before the school officially kicked off yesterday, the 7th of January! Busy days!