Free iPad from Accenture

Dear Accenture,

as a shareholder and former employee I have a complaint.

At company presentations at business schools you give away free iPads for "good questions".

So, as a employee I did not even get a decent mobile phone. But prospective employees get free iPads? Really? I think I still have this 2 page email about iPhones not being supported! ;-)

As a shareholder I obviously curious what return you make on this "investment". ;-)

An alternative response, that would also be highly appreciated: Do you have any left and can send me one?

Thanks!

P.S.

So what was the winning question?

"What growth prospects does Accenture have?"

REALLY?

The iPad went to a great friend and very smart guy, but that is not even a good question.

As a small hint on the return on investment question above: He pulled his application. ;-)

Remembering Cragin

Today's memorial service for Cragin at school was beautiful.

It is amazing to me, how a group of 500 students, that only recently met, can care so much for one another!

Cragin, you gave so much to this community and helped it become this special place!

I miss you, as we all do!

As Rachel put it: Everyone was funnier, smarter and kinder when you were around!

Machs gut Cragin!

She is Gone

You can shed tears that she is gone,

or you can smile because she lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,

or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,

or you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,

or you can be happy tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember her only that she is gone,

or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind,

be empty and turn your back.

Or you can do what she'd want:

smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

~David Harkins

Three vacations + one internship = a great summer

When I came back to Ann Arbor yesterday, it felt like I have been away for quite some time. But, it is great to be back!

Over the summer I interned at Booz & Company. As a consultant you are always very concerned with your work-life-balance, right!?!

To address that I traveled to Las Vegas & National Parks in the US, Austria, and Greece.

Isn't that just about the work-life-balance I can expect as a consultant? ;-)

My internship was great!

I worked on projects in Dublin in Mannheim for Telco and Chemical clients.

But first things first: At the start of the internship I spend one week in New York (ok, fine I admit it was in New Brunswick, NJ) on a training. A lot of fun and a great opportunity to meet the other interns!

The other fun event took place in Berlin (no, it was really in Berlin and not in Potsdam ;-)). All interns were invited to the Booz Soccer Cup.

Maybe one side comment: The intern team won!

That weekend was just wonderful! Great weather, Germany beating (actually humiliating is more accurate) Argentina in the World Cup, meeting old friends in Berlin, and did I mention that we won the Booz Soccer Cup? ;-)

But yes, I also had some work to do. It was intense at times, but almost always fun. I had great job managers, great project teams, a wonderful office in Stuttgart and a great mentor!

Thanks to all of you, who made this an enjoyable internship!

At the end it also ended up being a successful one, with me securing a full-time offer. :-)

Being very concerned with my work-life-balance I went on several vacations after (and partly before) my internship. Instead of writing a lot about it, I think I will just show you some pictures. However one thing I want to point out (after different experiences in the past ;-)), I only lost one Dollar gambling in Las Vegas! :-)

Another highlight of the summer was Miri's and Oli's wedding in Italy.

Congrats again to both of you and all the best for your future!!!

In case anybody is looking for a wedding location in Italy, I have one to recommend ...

Finally I need to thank Lufthansa.

There upgrade yesterday made my flight a lot more enjoyable! :-)

Now, I very much look forward to the start of the semester! Can't believe that I am "almost" done and that now I am an MBA2.

Cragin

I recently lost one of my great friends from Ross!

Cragin, you cannot image how much I will miss you!
On M-Trek you were one of the first friends I made at Michigan and you surely became one of my best friends!
I still cannot believe that we will not get a chance to go to the Oktoberfest together.

I will miss your energy and great attitude - Ross will not be the same without you!

MBA Year 1 - closed by Obama

Hard to believe, but year 1 of my MBA is now over; and I had a blast!

If there is any incoming student, who would like to switch? I am totally up for it!

I believe it was only adequate that it was President Obama who closed the year with his commencement speech in 'the Big House'.

It was great to hear Mr. Obama talk. He indeed is a ridiculously good public speaker!

However, disappointingly his speech was rather political for a commencement.

In case you wanna listen to an outstanding commencement speech: Steve Jobs at Stanford!

I am now very much looking forward to my summer internship in Germany.

But I can't wait to come back in September for part 2 of this amazing experience!

Escaping Michigan Winter

After learning (more) about Operations, Accounting and Finance after the christmas break I spend the following term in China working on MAP (Multidisciplinary Action Project).

As part of a student team of six we spend 5 weeks in Changsha, China working with a NASDAQ-listed automobile company.

First of all I should probably explain where Changsha is:

It is one of these Chinese cities, ignorant westerners like myself have never heard of. Nevertheless more than 6 million people live there.

The weekdays we spend working with our client to improve their operations. That was pretty challenging, since they did not speak English (thankfully two of us spoke Mandarin) and many things tend to be done differently in an environment in which workers are paid less than a dollar per hour and assets are far more important than western performance standards like ROI.

The good news for western manufacturing: China is not there yet. There is still very good reason some products are manufactured in our part of the world.

Apart from the project we spend as much time as possible exploring China.

1. Hong kong is a phenomenal city! (If anybody wants to offer me an expat contract, I will sign on the spot)
2. Every male smokes, anywhere (this includes elevators)
3. There are no traffic rules (I bet the odds and did not have an accident! - arguably the most impressive "achievement" of this trip)
4. Overnight trains to Beijing take forever - ok, 15 hours to be precise
5. Yes, Mr. Stoiber the magnetic train is pretty fast although I did not manage to "board the train station"
6. If you are a white male and ever have a confidence problem; I recommend a trip to (rural) China. You will be a celebrity and girls might scream when you enter places
7. Pollution is horribly bad. I know we all heard that China is polluted, but you can not imagine how bad it is. At night, the whole city of Changsha looks like a smokey club and the sky is only visible after rain showers. I dearly hope that Tom Friedman is right when he argues that "China went green" in 2008!
8. The Chinese media is hilarious. Wanna know why Google left China? Yes, because of the fierce competition. And by the way in case you did not know, Chinese internet censorship is just doing the same thing all other countries are doing. (must be my stupid computer that denied me access to this blog from China!)
9. Ever heard of the brand Kappa? Is does exist in China, but there is also Kobbo: (btw commonplace, there are at least 3 brands imitating Lacoste, Nike, etc.)

So I had a sensational time in China although I have to admit I was happy to come back to the US.

For the great time I have to thank a few people:

CJ, thanks for showing me around Hong kong. Very much look forward to meeting you again in Ann Arbor from August!

Kai, great to see one of the old Galileo friends on the other side of the earth. Thanks & enjoy the rest of your time in HK.

Thanks to our client and my entire team for a great time - and surprisingly few fights! ;-)

Last but not least I need to thank all inhabitants of Hong kong for supporting the German car industry. (The number of Mercedes, BMWs and Audis in Hong kong can only be described as ridiculous - if you think Munich and Stuttgart have a lot; think again.)

Enough said. Some pictures from China:

C.K. Prahalad

On April 16th we lost one of the great management thinkers - C.K. Prahalad.

A huge loss for the University of Michigan and the whole world!

C.K. is widely considered the most creative management thinker of his generation. He fundamentally changed how we think about business strategy ("Core Competence"), economic development ("Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid") and innovation ("Co-creation").

I did not have the honor to attend lectures with him, but I was told by second year students and alumni that C.K. fundamentally changed the way they think about business and the world.

The world of management theory has more than its fair share of charlatans, but C.K. Prahalad was the genuine article.

- The Economist

Meatpacking District - the end of internship recruiting

At the beginning of March I was invited to New York to celebrate with the European internship class of Booz & Company. The weekend was a wonderful end to the intense time of internship recruiting.

I guess before start of school I was not aware how competitive internship recruiting in a Top 10 MBA program would be. So the time of internship interviewing was pretty intense.

Fortunately I was able to secure the internship of my choice: A summer at a top strategy consulting firm.

So I will spend 9 weeks with Booz & Company in Germany that I am very excited about. The people from Booz were some of the greatest people I met throughout the recruiting process. It is fair to say that the interviews with Booz were the ones that were most fun for me. I acknowledge that part of it might have been the fact that one of my cases was pricing Wayne Rooney on behave of VFB Stuttgart. The sad part, ManU did not agree to sell for the 27 million Euro I was willing to bid.

During the celebration weekend we all had a blast. It was great to meet employees from Europe and the other interns from across the US. We were located in the Meatpacking District which is the club district in Manhattan in the Standard Hotel. A very cool hotel with a great view of the of Hudson and the Financial District. Very cool was especially that the hotel had a bar at the top of it. Besides the view (of Manhattan) the most impressive thing about the bar was a waitress that was roughly 6-5 tall. Yes indeed some sight as well. ;-)

The hotel had windows to the floor and colleagues on lower levels found notes on their bed that they should be aware that movements are visible through the curtain.

On Friday we spend the afternoon in the Booz Office in New York and had discussions with former interns and current employees. Very impressive: the Booz office has a bar on the 19th floor. So we had cocktails inside the office. I guess fitting considering the name of the firm. ;-)

Friday night we then went for a great dinner and some time in the clubs of Meatpacking District.

On Saturday we then toured the NBC studios in the Rockefeller Center and went on top of it.

The highlight of the weekend was Saturday night were we cooked our own food with ‘slight” assistance of a chef. Besides the fact that it was delicious it was a lot of fun. And I would have never thought I would make my own pasta - ever. But yes, I did!

So while I have been to New York before, this time really blow me away. What a great city. I can’t wait to be back in May for four days of orientation training at the start of my internship.

The sad part of this story is that I have to leave Accenture. (Thomas, I guess your decision to go to McKinsey did not help my case ;-))

I had a great 5 years there, learned a lot and most importantly met countless wonderful people and made many friends! What made it especially difficult was that the day before I had to send in my cancellation I had the most terrific of conversations with an alumni from Ross who is an Accenture partner in London.

So I can only thank all of you and say that I sincerely hope to stay in touch!

I hope my summer in Germany gives me an opportunity to catch up with all of you!

For the great weekend in New York I want to thank all Boozies who have been involved and especially those who flew over from Europe. If the summer is anywhere near as much fun, I certainly made the right choice! I’m definitely very much looking forward to it!

Winter in Michigan

First of all: Winters in Michigan are totally overrated. It took until now for us to get 'real snow'. But to make sure you do not get this the wrong way. I am fine with it not being colder (we typically have between 5 and -5 degrees; and no this is not Fahrenheit) and not snowing more. :-)

So what have I done since Christmas?
Before I get into that I have to thank Lufthansa for upgrading me to Business Class on my last flight to Germany. This is a way of travel I could get used to.

Surely my biggest accomplishment in 2010 so far was me bowling a 166. Since I have no hope to ever improve on this I (moved to tears obviously) immediately declared my retirement from bowling.
As you can image that left me in a void and it took me several weeks to find new goals in my life.

Fortunately my university provided me with one: Learning Chinese!
Mid of March I will fly to China for 5 weeks with 5 classmates to work on a consulting project to improve the productivity of a Chinese car supplier. I am already super excited and can't wait to go there. The fun part will be that, according to our sponsor, nobody there speaks English. That makes my two Chinese speaking team members my new best friends and leads to the necessity for me to at least learn the very very basics of Chinese.
But most impressively: We receive emails from the CEO of this Nasdaq-listed company, apologizing for not always being reachable and if needed we could talk to his fellow board members. Well sure, it is probably more appropriate if I talk to his assistant (if not his janitor), but if he insists... :-)

But there is not only good news. The bad news: I do not graduate this year. So why is this bad? Because the commencement speech for this years class will be given by Barack Obama. Well I still have some time to convince my friends in the graduating class to give me one of their tickets.
This will be some event. He will be speaking in our football stadium.

Another disappointment has been my first NBA game. I went to a Detroit Pistons game against Miami. I expected Detroit to be mediocre at best, but they were horrible, scoring only 65 points. I do not know a ton about Basketball, but I understood that this is a really low score - later I leanred their second lowest ever. As always timing is everything - we surely picked the ideal game. ;-) But as I learned, there is always a trade off. So in that case we got incredibly good tickets way below face value since the team is that bad.

Ah yes, I also study. I currently have classes in Operations, Managerial Accounting and Financial Valuation.
The most impacting class is probably Operations. I now see the whole world through the lense of queues, wait times and inventory. If I am at an airport I wonder what their utilization is at the security check and was tempted to explain to them that with the kind of demand variability they face they needed more excess capacity. Yes, scary indeed.
But an even worst example comes from our prom. We had a huge party at a hotel close to Detroit (no it was not really near Ann Arbor and do not ask why we needed to drive 45 min there). However while there was enough inventory, the bars lacked the necessary capacity to convert that inventory into alcohol in our blood. But fortunately we had enough time to buffer for that. It was a great time and I had a lot of fun with all of my classmates!


Time continues to fly and next week I have already the next set off exams. Then the term is over and we are off to spring break (that reminds me that I should finally figure out what to do that week).
Sadly I only have a couple of classes left with my section this week. Then we will be taking electives from September and I will no longer be in the same group I so much enjoyed having classes with.