Now I feel like I have really seen what Denmark is outside of Copenhagen!
This last week we had study tours to Danish Multinationals and Global companies which took as all the way to the Western coast of Jutland!
Wednesday the entire Intl. Business and Economics group went to the Copenhagen headquarters of Maersk for a presentation on the conglomerates business strategy. This was a really interesting way to learn more about the giant conglomerate which amongst many other things is one of the leading liner shipping companies in the world, serving customers all over the globe.
They have also been in the Danish news recently as it was determined that Maersk creates more pollution than the entire country of Denmark on a per annum basis. It has also been made public that they are cutting nearly 12% of their workforce in order to maintain market share and profitability.
Our presenter was a younger guy from the PR department who wasn't able to answer a lot of the really specific questions that were asked (ex. How many containers are lost?) but he did do a great job of selling the company to us, especially in terms of possible job opportunities.
Our assignment associated to these study tours is a comparative of the three companies we visited in terms of business strategy. I think that the three companies we visited could not have been more interesting and I really enjoyed each of them. They are so completely different that writing this paper should be very interesting.
From Thursday to Saturday evening we were on the road! In Western Denmark!
Each program was split into groups of about 25 students and were sent along with program directors and assistants. The first task was getting on the bus and spending the four hours it takes to get to the other side of the country (about how long it takes to cross Oregon!!).
The first company we visited was Bang & Olufsen. Now you may not know the company by name but you have definitely seen some of their products.
They are a high-end audio and video manufacturer. Really high-end! We had a nice presentation outlining some of the things they are doing to stay competitive (offering B&O in Audi & Aston Martin models), had a tour of the factory, learned a bit about the company history & had the chance to experience the products first hand!
It was amazing to see how detail-oriented every aspect of production is. One of my favorite parts was when we saw how it is that they are able to anodize the lettering & numbering process on their remotes and phones such that the numbers will never rub away.
I realized once we started the factory tour that I had seen these products before. In my host families house! They have a cd player, telephones & tv! All things that they invested in years ago and which are still working great. It was funny to have not noticed at all beforehand.
Maybe you recognize this phone? One similar to it was featured in "The Devil Wears Prada" as one of the gadgets that Anne Hathaway's character gets from the magazine.
Nickname: Banana phone : )
The B&O headquarters is basically in the middle of nowhere, Denmark.
But, it is really beautiful & it seems to work for them!
The beoliving room.
We sat through a DVD concert in one of these rooms.
Of course it was after the projection screen came down!
A very little arrow pointing to the very little town - Struer
The next day we had the chance to spend just a few minutes on the beach outside of Rinkøbing and take a look at the North Sea! What was really interesting was that there are German bunkers from the occupation during the War still on the beach. It was amazing to see these remnants from the 40's which litter the Danish coastline.
Our final company visit took us to Vestas, a wind turbine company which has 33,000 wind turbines in 163 countries! This was something that I was extremely interested in and I really enjoyed the presentation. One of the VP's spent the morning session with us and discussed their future strategies and needs. He put us in the position to tell him what the strategy should be and had us work in groups to come up with ideas. Not that I didn't enjoy the previous presentations (Maersk & B&O) but this seemed a lot more personal and especially considering a VP took time out to present himself.
One of the funnier parts of the day was that there was no one that would give us an answer as to how much a wind turbine cost. I actually found online an article written about a Scottish company which bought 3 wind turbines for appx. 5 million USD each but there is a chance it's not a legitimate source and that with multiple purchases the price per unit goes down.
Anyways, after the presentation and lunch we went into the factory and saw how the production processes happen at this particular location. There are factories which make only the blades, only the nacelles etc. We saw the production of nacelles (the big part which sticks out behind the blades - for lack of better definition : ))
I asked quite a few questions about their graduate program which takes masters level graduates two years to complete over a range of departments and 8 month stays in 3 different countries. In Europe it is usual that a graduate comes out after five years of University with their graduate degree. Of course it doesn't work like that in most cases in the states. But I will keep the program in mind and have even put my resume online for a possible internship with Vestas!
Of course I had been seeing these great windmills since I've been in Denmark! How great to have been able to go to the Danish headquarters and production site.
Transportation costs are EXTREMELY high for the wind turbine industry. These things weigh up to 100 tons! Yikes! Also, with placement in the ocean or other remote areas helicopters and ships are needed to transport the components. Wow!
This shows how the size of the turbines have changed over the last 20 years.
After our Vestas tour we went to a great little museum, the
Silkeborg Art Museum which holds a great number of works by Asger Jorn who was born in the city of Silkeborg and donated most of the pieces from his personal collection. The majority of the works are part of the COBRA movement (COpenhagen, BRussels & Amsterdam) which amongst other styles incorporates random spontaneous artistic styles. 
I liked this piece by Asger Jorn alot. Maybe not for the aesthetic value but our tour guide gave us very interesting insight as to what it meant and how it reflected the artists life. It is called The Disquieted Duck and was originally a piece of art that Jorn found at some sort of flea market and painted over to incorporate his own artistic vision. Part of what our tour guide spoke about was the fact that it reflects Hans Christian Andersen's (Another famous Dane!) The Ugly Duckling.
After the art museum we went on to Århus and had the evening to ourselves to find dinner and walk around the central downtown area.
Århus, Denmark's second largest city.
After which we made it by bus to our hostel (after 5 or 6 wrong turns) which turned out to be in the middle of the forest! I even shared a little wood cottage with two other girls! Our DIS tour leaders hosted an evening social with wine and snacks. It was very hygge (the danish word for cozy) and I had a really great time chatting with one of the program leaders and some of my IBE classmates.
Our amazing lakeside hostel.
Our last day turned out to be the only gray day that we had. We were incredibly lucky with the weather. We spent a few hours visiting a castle which has was very interesting as it was nothing like the castle I had visited outside of Copenhagen. This castle had been destroyed by fires and rebuilt many times but now the structure is supported by internal support and has not been rebuilt (sounds confusing because it is). It also housed the largest collection of Danish silver and had art exhibits! They really made use of the space!
After lunch we headed back towards Copenhagen and had one final surprise. As we were following one of the other program buses one of it's tires blew out! It was absolute chance that we had been following them and proceeded to bring the 25 students on-board so that they wouldn't have to sit and wait the 2 hours before the tire was repaired.
All in all it was a really great trip and I think I am still surprised at how smoothly the whole thing went! I am really happy to have chatted more with classmates and had the opportunity to meet quite a few people for the first time. After this weekend I am really looking forward to the Berlin/Prague and China trips even more.
PS -- HOPEFULLY my camera charger arrives this week ... I apologize for the google images but they help to illustrate quite a bit & in most cases I couldn't have taken pictures anyhow.
Ok, thanks for reading!
