We had an amazing time, thanks to everyone who supported it and who made it
as special as it was. Thanks also to everyone who joined our joint final
event together with ConnectUS and Insight China 2013 yesterday in Olten.
Even though we are slightly sad, that it is now officially over, we are
looking forward to Focus India 2014 and we wish the new project team already
now, all the best!
Also have a look at the pictures of the final event in Olten:
We would like to invite you to our final event!
You will get an insight not only about Focus India but also connectUS and Insight China. The respective Project and PR teams will share their experience they gained. Moreover, you will have the opportunity to speak to the delegations about their insights during the Apéro.
Final Event Programme:
Did you know that Mumbai has the second largest slum in the world? Today, when the delegation headed off to Dharavi, the word “slum” let them imagine a great mixture of social challenges and poor infrastructure. But when we finally arrived, within the first few minutes of our slum tour, it was clear that the people living and working here have an orderly social structure, they follow invisible rules and a have a tight work schedule. The tour guide told us that all the 15’000 slum businesses in Dharavi account for US$ 1 billion annual turnover. The main industry consists of plastic and aluminium recycling; but although well organised, the people have to work under questionable working conditions concerning health and safety. Dharavi is a city in the city of Mumbai, divided into several communities. Among others, you will find a Hindu and a Muslim residential area, as well as a vibrant market for daily goods in the very heart of the slum community. When 1 million people live together in such a limited space, it is clear that diseases are a major problem. Dharavi has severe problems with public health, due to the scarcity of toilet facilities. Our tour guide informed us that in the slum there is only one toilet per 1’700 residents which is also main driver for increased apartment prices close to sanitary facilities (12m2 rent costs approx. CHF 60/mth.)
Unfortunately due to the unpredictable Indian traffic we missed the planned dabbawala tour during lunchtime (filled food boxes). Even Prince Charles had to plan his schedule his visit around the dabbawala’s timetable to be able to see them in action. A dabbawala is a person in India, most commonly found in the city of Mumbai, who is employed in a unique service industry whose primary business is collecting freshly cooked food in lunch boxes from the residences of the office workers, delivering it to their respective workplaces and returning the empty boxes back to the customer’s residence by using various modes of transport. Luckily our tour guide could arrange a visit to see how the dabbawalas collect the empty food boxes.
As a final dinner and highlight of our business related experiences, the project team surprised the Focus India delegation by the invitation of S. K. Premchand, dedicated patron and son of Roychand Premchand, one of the most influential merchant princes of India in the 19th century. In a relaxed atmosphere at the Marine Plaza Hotel we had the unique opportunity to ask questions and share experiences with the honorary president of the Swiss Indian Chamber of Commerce (SICC). He is also head of PRS Permacel which we had previously visited, probably the Indian company which is most Swiss in India as we discovered. We used this interactive session as an opportunity to exchange impressions we had gathered during our trip in India, and presented our greatest impressions to the plenary. At this point we want to say thank you very much for such a generous gesture, the delegation very much appreciated the attendance of Mr Premchand and his managers, looking forward to continued collaborations in future years.
An additional guest at the event was Mr Stephan Heuberger, the Director of Switzerland Tourism, India, who showed a special interest in the Focus India project.
PR-Team
For more pictures click on the picture
Dear Readers,
India is amazing! In the melting pot of Mumbai one will find surprises on a daily basis. Today, our trusty bus decided to break down on the journey to our main sponsor Accenture. But luckily our Indian driver shined with excellent improvisation skills and repaired it quickly by himself.
The delegation was more than happy to finally be welcomed at the Accenture Mumbai office. Ms Khan, Java specialist and recently recruited employeee, took us by our hands and brought the Focus India team closer to the spirit and workplace of Accenture.. Accenture has given their hard working employees a workplace in harmony, by offering them an in-house gym, generous work bays, a comfortable dormitory as well as wellness facilities in a modern office complex. Furthermore, Accenture as technology solutions provider also supports a stimulating atmosphere by using state-of-the art technology such as video conference rooms and an innovation center.
The Focus India delegation were given a brief overview of Accenture. As well as employing more than 260,000 people in over 200 cities, Accentureoffers management consulting, technology solutions and business process outsourcing to their clients all around the world. Here we want to point out the six core values of Accenture:
After her presentation, Ms Khan took us to witness a live video call meeting with a project team based in Bangalore who are working on a project called “Rhine”. The six participating project members, under the project management of Prabin, include Samit, Animesh, Rohit, Keeshana and Susandeep.
They explained to us their roles in this project. It was a fascinating interactive experience that gave us an insight into the world of modern project management in IT development.
Before Ms Khan rounded up the visit, Mr Aniruddha introduced us to the financial innovation center, where mostly banks and insurance companies are served accompanied by the highest security measurements.
In the afternoon our journey continued with a visit to Magic Bus, and it was wow!! speechless how young and ambitious slum children show the delegation how the Indian play their “tiki taka”(Spanish version of playing soccer). Magic Bus is an organization that works with children from poor families. They teach them through sport activities in social aspects as well as career planning and CV checks.
During a soccer game with a group of children, all of us joined in and had a lot of fun. There was an interactive and emotional session afterwards. It was a great experience to see how the leaders from Magic Bus work together with the children. The small gifts we gave them were very well appreciated. Not only will we take home their hearty smiles in our heart, but also the very positive impressions of how social work can help to change the world!
for more pictures, click on picture
The Focus India delegation left bright and early in the morning to visit PRS Permacel.
After a two hours drive, we were warmly welcomed and had a brief photo session; PRS Permacel served a delicious local Indian breakfast, which is typical of the state of Maharastra, providing us with an explanation of the local dishes. The official part started with a short company presentation, which was followed by a safety and security instruction.
Actually, PRS Permacel produces different types of electrical and thermal insolating tapes. Furthermore, they develop and print labels for several fields of application. The company was founded in 1958 and today, with 300 employees, they serve more than 3000 key customers such as ABB, Bombardier, Skoda and Tata. During the facility tour we were guided by motivated employees who explained the whole production line to us as well as the research centre.
Our Focus India delegation was impressed by the high level of implemented security standards which were all initiated and financed by themselves. For example, for 25 years PRS Permacel has had underground tanks with double walls.
Before the afternoon session started we were invited to eat lunch at their management canteen. One of the managers explained the opportunities and challenges faced by Indian companies. The main challenges are:
To mention only two of the many opportunities, the strong legal system and the huge domestic market, affect PRS Permacel in a positive way.
Finally, we had an interactive question and answer session with the whole management team. They were very interested in our suggestions to improve their business. Before we left, everybody received a souvenir photo which had been shot earlier that morning. In their spare time, the delegation explored Mumbai and its tasty cuisine.
Silvia Frunz / Roman Zimmermann
for more pictures, please click on the picture
Today’s company visit to Tata Motors, one of India’s largest companies, was established thanks to one of our sponsors, Blaser Swisslube. Finding the right gate was quite a challenge for our bus drivers; Tata Motor’s plant is vast. We were warmly welcomed by the customer support manager, who has been working for Tata Motors for more than 20 years. He was a well experienced person and able to answer all our questions. Initially, we watched a video about the launch and history of Tata Motors. The delegation of Focus India learned, that the founder of Tata was dedicated to improve Indian society. Worldwide, Tata Motors operates fourteen plants, located in Africa, Asia and Europe. The Indian company has a huge variety of products, for example commercial cars, bus and military vehicles. Besides, did you know that Jaguar and Land Rover belong to Tata Holding?
In the factory in Pune, the 2nd oldest plant of the six in India, 18’000 employees are currently engaged. 300 buses are needed to transport the employees from their home to the production site. Pune has also the biggest R&D (Research and Development) section of Tata Motors, where at the moment Tata is developing environmentally friendly ways of transportation.
During the tour through the plant, different halls, as well as the training center were shown; here young Indians get the opportunity to do an apprenticeship. Afterwards they are fully included in the work force. Out of a total of 20’000 applications, only 110 candidates got the chance to start their career at Tata Motors (0.5%).
Even though Tata is one of the biggest companies in India, you will not find the family members in the list of the wealthiest people; Tata’s focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is quite extraordinary. Indeed, a significant part of their earned profit is used to support social projects, most of which are launched by the company. It is fascinating to see how such a huge company like Tata supports society. Mr Dhavale and his team gave the Focus India delegation a concise overview of the CSR projects at Tata Motors.
“I do not want India to be a superpower, I want India to be a happy country” is what the founder said and we could feel that the employees stand behind this value.
After the lunch in the building of Tata Motors we visited one of the social projects. The Tata Motors Grihini Social Welfare society was founded over 100 hundred years ago.
The purpose was to give the wives of Tata Motors’ employees a platform for social interaction and developing working skills for example suing, spice producing or assembling of electronic components. They started with 7 employees, now they count over 1000 working women. Also other local underprivileged women are included in the program and are well integrated.
After our interactive tour through the building of the project we started on our 5-hour bus drive, reaching our hotel in Mumbai, one of the largest cities in the world.
Revitalized from the relaxing Easter weekend the first visit started early in the morning with a warm welcome from the Sulzer Chemtech company, which is one of the four core divisions of Sulzer corporation. As safety is a very important part of the organization, we were briefed with detailed safety and emergency instructions, given by Mr Oliver Hoppach, the Head operations Development EMIRA. Referring to these issues, they standardize processes in order to have a unified Sulzer company.
Mr. Balaji, the president of Sulzer India, introduced us to Sulzer Chemtech in India, a prestigious engineering, technology and innovation firm, which has its operations based on three core values: customer partnership, operational excellence and committed people.
Sulzer Chemtech is the market leader in separation, mixing and service solutions conducting over 40% of the sales in emerging markets with India being one of the top ten sales destinations.
The introduction was followed by giving a background of India’s history as well as current diverse facts about the country. Mr Balaji mentioned that India has the 2nd largest mobile user base and the largest movie industry in the world. Sulzer chose Pune as a manufacturing location because of various aspects such as the proximity to Mumbai Port, the major education centre due to the high availability of engineering talent. Besides the advantages, he also emphasized some current challenges pointing out to the infrastructure being on a level of a third world country, and the huge investment gaps the country faces. In addition, the companies have to deal with high employee attrition rates and therefore are obliged to offer solutions such as continuous rewards and recognition.
After splitting into three groups the Focus India delegation visited the manufacturing facilities after the presentation and later on the sponsor of Focus India offered us the possibility to interact with engineering freshmen as well as Indians who had previously gained working-experience in Switzerland. Last but not least, Mr. Hoppach shared his experience of being an expatriate in India.
After a tasteful lunch at the Sulzer canteen we moved on to the second sponsor visit at Burckhardt Compression. The managing director, Mr. Rao, introduced us to the company, which is the leading manufacturer of piston compressors with a 80% market share within the chemical industry. He explained that this enterprise went through a management buy-out from the Sulzer Corporation. The location in India was chosen due to several reasons including low per capita cost, consumption and sourcing opportunities. He also pointed out to their commitment towards social responsibilities focusing on the employability improvement and the support of facilities such as special schools for blind or deaf children.
At the end of the day another interactive session took place where young professionals talked about an employees life cycle within the company. Furthermore, they commented on the life at Burckhardt Compression which favours social interaction apart from work in order to strengthen relationships and share knowledge.
Given that both companies enabled us to interact with their employees and listen to their perceptions of Switzerland and its people, we had the chance to critically reflect on our own culture and patterns of behaviour.
Martina Steiner / Amila Basic
Fore more pictures click on picture
Today everybody was enjoying a free Easter Sunday to relax before a busy week with many company visits.
Some of us participated in the optional activity and went to visit the Osho Meditation resort.They negotiate for the traditional meditation robes, enter all the personal details, take a photograph and pay RPS 2200.
They felt very welcomed by the helpful employees and the atmosphere was very relaxed and calm. Especially the traditional meditation robes gave equality to all visitors. So a banker couldn’t be separated by the poor. The first meditation course focused on self-reflection and peace of mind. The course was an hour and after that they participated after a 15 minute break in the second meditation course. This was more dynamic as it included shaking off the stress, dancing and a final relaxing part. The day in this very special location gave them a lot of energy and an insight what meditation is about.
Others kept the spa employees of our Hotel Ista busy all day. They had massages and other body treatments and enjoyed the day on the family sunbeds and in the pool.
Everyone of us is now full of energy and ready for another great week in India!
Jessica Ulmann / Jannick Keller
There are no more pictures of this free day… Stay tuned for the next days!
On our last day in Bangalore, also called the Garden City, we made a safari at the Bannerghatta National Park. On our way to the park we had a tourguide who told us some interesting facts about Bangalore. While in earlier times people would call the city the pensioners paradise, they call it nowadays the sillicon valley of Asia. The name refers to the countless numbers of IT-companies which settled down in Bangalore. Today, the city counts around 10 million inhabitants, who are using more than 100 000 Tuk Tuks and about 2 million scooters every day. Another interesting fact we heard was that the schools in Bangalore use a three language system. The students have to learn Hindi as well as English and the local language. Furthermore, they have the opportunity to additionally choose French and/or German.
When we arrived at the National Park we switched into a safari-proofed tourbus, which was covered by a security steel mesh. On the tour we spotted deers, black bears, wild hogs, elephants, lions, tigers and even a white tiger. Although it is a National Park, some of the animals were chained, which gave us the feeling of beeing in a zoo rather than in the wildlife. After the safari tour we were able to walk around in a small zoo which also belongs to the National Park. In this part we were able to touch some of the animals. Additionally to the allready spotted animals we saw crocodiles, different kind of birds, zebras and monkeys. When we finished our tour through the zoo, we reboarded our delegation bus and headed off to the airport.
Having done the check-in, we had some time for shopping and eating before boarding the airplane to Pune. After a smooth flight we arrived tired but happy at our hotel. We are looking forward to explore another city and visit interesting companies.
Franziska Schneider / Daniel Gautschi
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Link to today’s pictures!