The Global Immersion trip made me learn a lot about Danish culture, and above all exposed me to different dimension of working in diversity. I was quite enthralled with the project and the team that I got.  We had people from Russia, Denmark, Canada, and India in my team. So, it was truly global in that perspective. Our project was about helping a sustainable bank in meeting its objectives. And that was quite new to me, as I did not know how important was sustainability in Danish context. We commenced our work on the project by interviewing the team members to know about the likes, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses of each of the team members. Doing the Business Plan generation exercise helped us in exploring the case that was given to us. And while exploring the case, the team members came to know each other better. Each one of us presented their views on the case and this helped us in understanding the subject better as a team.

The next day we visited the Merkur Bank staff members who were coordinating with us on the case. They told us more about the bank, its operations, the issues that they faced and their expectations. It was quite new for me to know about how banking works in Denmark and especially new to know about the operations of a sustainable bank in a cooperative like setting.

Later, my team explored more ideas on tope of the discussions that we had with the bank officials. But one thing was coming clear, that Danish appreciated simplicity much more than anything. They were also more interested in the practical implications rather than theory. As we started making progress on the group work, we identified differences in Danish education and North American education about business. We had some really good arguments that helped us to understand the perspective of each other.

Eventually, we tried to have both of CBS and UBC style content and thought process. This gave room to each one of us to explore not only in usual way but to learn more about other ways of dealing with issues and cases in hand. I learnt a lot about the presentation skills from Danish counterparts about how they prepare the ppt and what content they show. I also learnt about if they prefer using visualization or bullet points and the amount of content they was to show. This helped me in understanding about how to present to a Danish counterpart in future.

Also, one good thing that my team always did was that we had lunch together on all the days. The Dane in my team was aware of all the famous food joints and he took us to different places and cuisines everyday for lunch. That helped both the team building and also in terms of knowing more about the Danish culture.

Now, I am confident about taking any business assignment in Denmark, as I know how to work with Danes. Overall, there were few key takeaways for me from the entire group exercise, as follows:

• I learnt about Danish communication style from perspective of both the Danish students and businesses
• I learnt about the expectations that Danish businesses have from consultants
• I learnt about how to take the discussion forward with Danish businessman and how to understand their business needs better
• I learnt about how to handle heated discussions with Danish counterparts
• I learnt about how to handle crisis moments when in a group with Danes
• I learnt about lot of new things about Danish presentation style and content selection criteria
• I learnt about Danish cuisine style and eating habits. What they like, what they dislike, etc.
• Above all, I learnt about Danish culture in general that has made me a more global person than I was before the global immersion trip

Thanks so much for the Global Immersion Initiative UBC and CBS!!

11^th Feb: What a day it was? My four classmates and I landed at the CPH airport at 11:30 AM and started immersing globally in the European context right from the start of our arrival in Copenhagen. Our first experience was with the hotel industry. Reached the hotel that we had booked for the first 2 nights via Expedia based on reviews. But when we checked in, we found that the hotel rooms were basically very small cabins and were too small to fit 3 persons (and of course their luggage). The rooms were equipped with anything that you would want in a hotel room but had those only for the namesake. A 14’’ TV and hardly 18’’x48’’ balcony, and the worst of all the attached washroom was even worse than the one we find on airplane (even smaller in size plus with hanging shower). What a grand-welcome of grossly jet-lagged students who were dying for sleep? Still 2 PM (5 AM in Vancouver) and instead of falling asleep, I was wrestling with Expedia customer care to cancel our existing booking and book us some other hotel. After 90 minutes I won a $200 off for new booking at a nearby hotel and 1 night cancellation on our existing booking. Finally, we reached the 2^nd hotel that branded itself as ‘Europe’s largest hostel’ and as ‘the 5 star hostel’. I hadn’t heard any hostel of like that before.

The Global Immersion officially commenced on 12^th Feb at the Design Museum. I had never been to any museum that was exclusively for designs. Design appeared to be an essential element in the Danish culture that Danes were proud of. All the designs in the museum were human centered and were driven by the social needs prevalent in the corresponding periods. Later, we had a session on the Danish business history that was quite thought provocative. We learnt that how 3 businessmen, in sequence over 100 years, strongly influenced the modern era Denmark right from the policy formulation to the development of infrastructure. It was something quite new for me who had never heard of dominance of only one businessman in my country. Later, we visited Maersk, and its business empire dumbfounded me. Maersk, the Danish conglomerate, is a value-based family owned company that has revenue of the order of $60 billion. Their office was quite large in size and the employees whom we met took great pride in being associated with Maersk. Apparently, I was quite surprised to know that how a company from such a small country was the world leader and truly global with their operations. This was truly in contrast to the businesses in my home country and also what I have seen in North America.

On 13^th Feb, we commenced our 3 days trip to explore more Danish companies. We first visited Fritz Hansen, which is a renowned Danish furniture manufacturer. We were told about the history of the company and its guiding principles for the furniture design process. I was intrigued to know that so much emphasis was given on furniture design and in-fact the company had partnerships with some designers. Then we undertook the factory tour. The factory was quite automated but still a lot of activities were performed manually. On average, the factory produced 300 chairs a day. For a massive setup, I expected the price of the chairs produced to be high but not as high as close to 1000 Euro. Surely, the Danish design was truly valued and perceived to be of very high quality.

We resumed our journey and visited the Viking Museum where we cam to know more about Danish history. We then travelled to Gartneriet PKM, a plant manufacturing company. We were greeted with coffee and tea. The R&D manager at PKM told us about their business and future plans. I was fascinated by PKM’s turnover and client base that included IKEA. Its plant was spread across several acres and was hugely automated. I truly got a chance to see the benefits of automation and technology. Also surprising was to know about the CSR activities that PKM was involved into.

On 14^th Feb, we visited Carlsberg where we got a chance to talk to the HR manager at Carlsberg and know about company’s history and future plans. It was overall a goo brand management session that we had over there. Afterwards, we visited Fredericia furniture, which unlike Fritz Hansen had more manual labor involved in manufacturing furniture. This company used ‘Made in Denmark’ as their competitive advantage and commanded premium pricing.

On 15^th we visited Danfoss, which is again family owned company and market leader in its own arena. Their facility was highly automated and world class. Then we visited Arla, which is a huge cooperative dairy company. I was surprised to learn about their market share and their growth strategy. I never expected a cooperative company to operate business into FMCG at a global scale.

Overall, I learnt a lot visiting the Danish companies, which otherwise I would have missed. Their focus on values, human aspects, going global, and design, all impressed me very much.

Finally, I am at Sauder to pursue MBA and to realize my career goals and dreams. Aug 27^th was the first day of my official association with the Sauder MBA program at the University of British Columbia. 1 week is already over now and from what I have discovered so far that there are ample opportunities here to learn from highly diverse and competent classmates and from world renowned faculties. Throughout the Orientation program that ran from 8/27 to 8/31, the UBC MBA Class of 2014 witnessed a lot of passion and enthusiasm emanating from the environment here. The staff at Sauder helped us a lot in providing us required facilities and helped us in all respect to have a great start. The teaching faculties here are truly awesome for they appear to be my coach & guide who will surely bring out the best in me. Even in this 1 week time. I could witness moments when I got pushed out of my comfort zone, had to think out of the box, and spent efforts to be as much creative as I could so far. Last but not the least; I am sure that by the time I am done with my studies here, I will develop into a more seasoned team player – teamwork is the key to not only complete group assignments but to make sure that you learn the most out of the experiences over here. So, here I am, all set and prepared for the most enriching learning experience.