Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Oxford Orientation

Yesterday after getting settled into the UGA House at Oxford right outside the main square we had orientation at the house including the rules of the house. I have come to learn that Oxford has many rules and regulations that need to be strictly followed and promptness is a key virtue. The English also seem to be terrified of fire so they have the strictest fire codes. We then went into the city and had a tour of the entire city. We got to see all of the different colleges within Oxford and I was completely baffled by the reputation and some of the great minds to have studied here. Basically everyone that has ever been important in England has studied at Oxford. Some of the great people of our time that I have the privilege to study with under the same University are Albert Einstein, Lawrence of Arabia, Stephen Hawking, George Whitefield ( Whom my high school is named after), John Wesley, Adam Smith, Oscar Wilde, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Aldous Huxley, Graham Greene, John Locke, basically all the prime ministers of England, and Bill Clinton. This is probably the most academic study abroad I could have chosen but I am willing to put in the work. Last night after the tour we had our formal orientation dinner with drinks on the lawn after meeting our professors. We then had Duck with Creme Broule for dinner and went to the pubs after to celebrate. This morning I had my first class with my professor Richard Martin over the sub-prime mortgage crisis. After this I got a tour of the trinity library and got a lot of work done already for my environmental Economics course. I am meeting tons of people and trying to balance school and traveling. I am about to go out now and get rent a bike for the next six weeks so I can travel around Oxford like never before.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Oxford Arrival

Just got into Oxford yesterday morning an hour early at 6:00am England time and I am finally settled in. I am just going to recycle the blog I have already created and continue blogging while I am in Europe. I met a football player by the name of Andrew who played for Milsap college in Mississippi who lived right across the hall from my friends Alec Kerr. Small world. They were both in the same fraternity and played the same position. Going into the airport I didn't know anyone except for my friend Meredith whom I recognized across the gate E07. When I went to go speak with her my Professor Dr. Martin was right there next to her and then I proceeded to meet Brittnay and Jeff whom we I had a lot of common friends with at UGA.

Once we all got together and got on our charter bus we drove into the Oxford area and got to the UGA house. The Terry College of Business which makes up about 20 students is set apart from Oxford at Trinity which is in the city. We are set about a mile away from the rest of the UGA group but it won't be that big of a problem. I met up with Chris LeCraw who is a graduate assistant here at Oxford who actually stayed here last summer. He was telling me about how I can rent a bike and get to class in about three minutes. I'm also trying to figure out how I am going to be traveling on the weekends and figuring out where to go. I know some people are going to the running of the bulls this weekend so I think I am going to end up doing that. We are going to have a tour of Oxford today and then get "inducted" into the library almost like a secret society. UGA is out here with Stanford, Georgia Tech and Williamson college. I am soon finding out that UGA @ Oxford is probably the most academic study abroad I could have taken and will be a lot of work. I was up late last night reading up for my class. Most of the work is going to be independent studying and writing so I have to be on top of everything. I pleasantly found out that my classes are Monday- Thursday so I will have an extra day to travel on the weekends. I am going to try and take pictures today and post them so all can see.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

DHL.

DHL IT service is based out of Prague. The German Deutsche Post acquired this company and now they are the biggest global business service logistics industry in the world. They are in 220 different countries with 5% of the global trading volume. They employ more than 500,000 through out the world and manage 1,000,000 customer transactions per hour. They obvious have strength in numbers. In the late 1980's Germany had privatization of their postal and communication services. The German Government also privatized T-mobile. In the mid 1990's DHL was privatized and had their IPO for stock over the German stock exchange.

DHL had a stable business until the internet came through and made the postal service antiquated in many ways. West Germany turned Eastern Germany around when the Berlin wall fell down by completely privatizing business. Now the Postal services have banks attached to them to back them up as insurance. Deutsche post new privatization and alliance with banks gave them lots of free cash and sent them on a spending spree. In 1998 Deutshe post bought lots of stock in DHL and in 2004 completely owned the entire company. Excel Supply chain was also another acquisition that solidified the company to what it is today. This was the largest logistics supply chain in England.

The basis of the company is basically a two pillar structure with Die Post Fur Deutch land and DHL Logistics company for the world. The business is split into different sectors making up the Global business services, IT services which is in Prague and Malaysia, claiming management, corporate procurement, corporate real estate, fleet management, finance operations, HR operations, In-house consulting, innovative management, insurance and risk management, IT GBS and corporate center, and Legal services.

The BPO Business Process Outsourcing is risky in keeping it in house and centralizing it for quality service. The competition is gaging costs and prices against the market and the main focus is on the customer and the company needs. The main focus is to increase efficiencies and drive costs down because you are competing against yourself with the shared service centers to avoid taxation when distributing the product among shared service centers.

The IT Services business model is made up of build services and run services with the focus of creating new items in IT and continuing the day to day support. These are all made up into three spheres of professional, resource and production.

DHL chose Prague as the center of IT because the central European location provided lower costs and had a strong English background. There are also abounding workers available in IT and telecom skills. The government was supportive of DFI and had a positive investment climate. What is important to note is that in 2004 DHL was big on IT and in 2006 they expanded into GBS.

Skoda.

We got to tour through Skoda's Production plant which make up 5 models of cars that they produce mainly the Fabic and the Octavia. They produce about 2,200 cars/ day with 25,000 employees, 19,000 of those at their main plant. This makes up about 3 sq kilometers of work space. VW bought out Skoda back in 1991 once again when the Czech Republic broke away from communism. in 2009 Skoda had a record breaking 684,226 cars sold. Skoda originally started out as a bicycle company and eventually began making luxury vehicles. They currently have 2,000 suppliers with 90% of their product being exports to various countries within Europe. They do not plan to expand to the U.S. because the market is too mature and they wouldn't be able to break in. The workers for Skoda have amazing benefits with 5 weeks of paid vacation every year. They recently jut bulit a 4,5 million Euro plant for the engines of the vehicles that has allowed them to expand so much with their product. They have an interesting system of getting cars to their consumers by the on demand process. twenty years before it would take people six years to get a car while now they can receive a car in six weeks brand new shipped to the dealership custom made. six weeks may seem like a long time but when the precedent before was six years this time frame does not seem long at all. Also there is no waste in over stocking in cars for the producer. Skoda also makes high performance racing vehicles which we actually got to see in the museum. We also got to go to the various factories and witness first hand how every car is made through out the main processes. I wasn't allowed to take pictures because they didn't want to give away their trade secrets.

Krusovice Brewing Company.

This brewing company that we visited started in 1517 and continues on today. In 1731 it was taken over by the Furstenberg family and then in 1945 after WWII when the communist took over in the Czech Republic it became a state owned brewery. From 1960-1990 the Central Bohemian Brewery Association took over Krusovice under general state ownership. In 1991 the Berlin wall fell down and the communist regime was finally broken to allow for the privatization of business. In 1994 Krusovice went public and became part of binding brewery to be put on its way to large scale modernization. in 1997 they had the initiation of export activities and in 2007 Krusovice Brewery becomes part of Heineken. Heineken is in 120 different countries and is #1 in the world for brand value.

The privatization process was done by issuing coupon stocks in 1991 for shares in the company. In 1986 the company produced 240,000 Hecto liters, 1996 740,000 HL and in 2006 970,000 HL of Beer. Between 2008 and 2010 Krusovice was re-branded and they made the distinction in their business from domestic to export beer with their logo. Domestically they try to brand the beer as good for friends and the atmosphere of where people are. When they export though they try and show that the beer is the Czech royal beer and the beer of kings in Prague as a top premium beer. The slogan goes " A jewel among beers" while depicting a prague street and the old prague castle.

Krusovice Imperial is their premium product which was a gold metal winner in the world beer cup of 2006 in Seattle Washington. This beer was also awarded the world's best pilsner in London in 2009. The ingredients to all their beer is very simple coming down to water, malt, hops, hops extract and fermented to 5% alcohol.

Krusovice Cerne is 3.8% alcohol and is made mostly for the locals with a history spanning more than 100 years in the country. It was awarded the world's best dark beer in London in 2009.

Krusovice packing types are .5 l bottles, .33l bottles, .5 l cans, 30 l kegs and 50 l kegs.

The three main countries that they export to are Russia, SLovakia, and Sweden exporting 96,400 hl, 42,500 hl, and 40,000 hl respectively.

32% of their exports are bottles, 13% are cans, 55% are kegs. In 1991 they only had 16,000 hl of exports but in 2008 they had as many as 289,000 hl in exports. Their manin partner in exports is Heiniken which is involved in exports all over the globe.

In 2009 they had the 10th anniversary of exports in Russia who is their number one country to export to. They had different programs to celebrate such as Slovakia and Sweden. 45% of all they make is exported. They export to the U.S. but only to New York, San Fransico, and Chicago with a total of 4,000-5,00 HL per year. They have a capacity to produce as much as 1,500,000 HL of beer per year with Malt being their greatest cost. Bio-diesel is the main competitor of land production for Malt which is driving prices up in the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic is the number one consumer of beer in the world with 160 liters per year per person. This figure is including babies.

Monday, May 31, 2010

New Boundaries.

I have reached a new boundary in my life. I have never been to so many culturally packed and awe-inspiring places in my entire life. Sensation last Saturday blew my mind. There were over 18,000 people raving all together from 8pm to 6am. I met so many random foreigners and beautiful women. These people were a different breed of human. After partying till six in the morning people went to the after party till 10 am. Everyone was dressed in white and raving to the beats of the five different dj's that played through out the night. The laser light show was amazing and the people danced like crazy. I was in the bottom pit most of the time while there were many people dancing above me in the stadium seating. I met the main mc for the concert and got to dance with some of the most gorgeous women I have ever seen in my entire life.

I am finally starting to feel the effects of sleep deprivation and I need to past out for about twelve hours tonight for sure to be in full form tomorrow as we go to our last cultural event to the communist museum and to our last company we need to visit. I have stretched my self to the limit and have tried to go all out as much as possible while here to get everything possible out of this trip from the culture, to the businesses we visit and to the fun night life. I have made wonderful friends here that I will share all my memories with for my first time in Europe. This whole trip is sadly finally winding down but I still have a lot planned ahead of me for this summer and I can not wait.

The Sunday after Sensation we went to the Prague castle, the old Cathedral and the Prague Museum. I am trying to post pictures of everything but the internet is incredibly slow here. The history is so vast and rich here it is hard to fathom. The royal family of Prague had original works of Beethoven and Mozart hand writing along with many famous pieces of art work on display in the museum to keep their rich heritage in tact. I snuck in a lot of pictures of this as well because we weren't supposed to take any.

Today we went to Krusovice and Skoda which are a beer company and car manufacturing company respectively. I took notes on them which I will post after this. We stopped for lunch in between these visits and I had beef Goulash with Dumplings which is their traditional meal here in Prague. After we got back from our visits a group of us went out to an asian restaurant and then came back to the hotel. Many people are going out tonight but I definitely need my rest tonight and need to prepare for the last day of our scheduled study abroad. I am deeply mournful that I can not live in the fantasy European fun world forever but I actually do miss Atlanta and Athens GA my two homes. Europe is great but there is nothing like home.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Fair well Krakow and hello Prague.

So the night after Auschwitz was pretty sobering and no one went out this night. I stayed in and got some extra sleep for the day ahead of me. We had our debrief session and last speaker on our last day and then had the rest of the day to our selves. On my last day I finished up some blogging and then went out through out the town. I went back to the south side of Krakow to the Jewish district to get one last view of the city and make sure I could ingrain memories in my mind about what we had been through. I tried some Gelato and then went to the main city square to have a slice of Polish Pizza which was fantastic. I ate my pizza out side in the main market where I could just observe the small city and see what people were up to. While I was out there. While I was sitting out side the pizza place there was a beautiful women by the name of Anna who sat right beside me and I asked her about some of the best clubs for the night life in Krakow. She told me Cien and Frantic were the best so I made sure that I would make my best effort to make it out to those places that night. I asked her if she was going to go to those clubs tonight but she said that she was going to visit her boy friend in Warsaw the next day so she wasn't going out. Dang it!

We had our final group dinner as a three course meal which consisted of green pea soup, salad, chicken in a special orange sauce, all with a house red wine. Believe it or not we had apple pie for dessert?? I don't know why we keep having apple pie. When we were heading back to the hotel we remembered that some of the locals were raving about honey wine so we made sure that we picked some up. It was definitely different but delicious none the less. When we went out we ended up going to Frantic after a long debate about where to go but I had a blast! Every woman in the club was either a 9 or a 10 and I made good friends with two Polish models whom I had the privilege to dance with! They had three different bars in the club and one large dance floor which I made sure to take full advantage of! We all partied and danced till the sun came up and passed out on the bus most of the whole next day while we had our nine hour bus trip to Prague. On the way to Prague we stopped at this lunch place where we ate beef covered in some sauce with a sponge bread that they described as dumplings. It was very tasty but many people were turned off to it because it looked like Nickelodean ooze sauce was poured all over the beef.

When we finally got to the Hotel in Prague last night after our long bus ride we went through the main market square and got some cash for the week. Their currency is called Coruna and the ratio to the dollar is 21 to 1 which works in favor for us because everything is so cheap here! We went to the largest Irish pub in the city of Prague and then many people went to the beer factory because they didn't want to go out but I decided to go to the Karlovy Lazne the largest club in all of central and eastern Europe. I went by my self because everyone was too tired to go out and I have wanted to go to this place for a long time. At first I was a little cautious about going by myself because I didn't know the city but I spoke with some natives and they assured me that I wouldn't have any trouble. When I finally got to the club I was amazed at the long line of people waiting to go in. The wait was about 15 minutes but they had to check everyone before walking in to make sure for security. As soon as I walked in music was blasting and lights were shinning everywhere. On every floor they had professional dancers in the main floor of the club and everyone of the five levels was a different theme. The levels were themed as follows: 1. Radio hits, 2, Oldies, 3. Dance music, 4, Black music, 5, Clill music. My two favorite floors were the techno dance music and the black music. I took many pictures of each floor so you should be sure to check them out. There were once again many beautiful women who I spoke with and danced with from all over the world. There were women from Holland, Sweeden, Canada, Poland, France and the Czech Republic that I met. This club was Frantic times ten. On the way back from the club I got a Kilbasa hot dog that are very popular in Prague and was extremely delicious. I made sure that I got to bed to prepare for our tour the next day.

During the tour we went all over the entire city of Prague and saw all the main historical sites. I was blown away by the architecture and the entire make up of the city. During WWII this city was fortunate enough not to have been bombed and the city was still intact from hundreds of years of work. Some of the sites that we saw were the old town square, Charles Bridge, the Astronomical clock, New town, the National museum, and a concert hall were Mozart had preformed in the past and where the movie Amadeus was filmed. This is by far the most beautiful city that I have seen in Europe thus far. Prague seems like the perfect mix between Krakow and Budapest in the way that it has the size of Budapest but the class of Krakow. For lunch I ate Venicine with forest fruits and potatoes and was taken to another place. The food here is so delicious that I feel like I am going to be spoiled by the time I come back home and return to American food. I picked up some white pants because tonight I am going to Sensation White which is one of the biggest touring Trance concerts in all of Europe and the world. The dress code is all white so I will be sure to have some super fly pictures for tonight for all to see! Tonight we are going to another nice three course group dinner right before my life becomes complete after going to one of the best concerts of my entire life. Life is so good right now and I am so blessed to have the opportunity to experience so much! I am just taking it all in right now.