germany

Berlin, Oxford & Co. - Some Insights From My “Berlin” Life

(by Laura Kuehn)

Hello, bonjour, Tach och!

Back again! The past 2 weeks were full of traveling, enjoying good  food&music. But have a look yourself!

Have you ever heard about the “Karneval  der Kulturen” (Carneval of cultures) in Kreuzberg? If not, it’s definitely worth a trip! There was delicious food from all over the world, stages with drummers, people dancing around. To make a long story short – it was a unique culinary & multicultural experience!

Speaking of culinary experiences – I really  fell in love with Berlin’s gastronomy. Fresh flavours with cinnamon, anise,  coriander, mint & lime leaves…Simply delicious!

Oxford calling! Felt as if Harry, Hermine, Ron & Co. were about to come by every second. With its lovely and historical colleges and the typical English lawn this lovely town is a  must see when visiting London & its surroundings! 

Aaand lucky me! Already heard a lot about the famous rivalry between Oxford & Cambridge boat races. This weekend I  was in the midst of an Oxford intern boat competition. Really impressive  & fascinating this old aristocratic tradition…

All good things come to an end…This time  from London Heathrow Airport…with this red lady walking in front of me…Perfect snapshot!

With a smile I passed this drink vending machine…Coca-Cola is really omnipresent! :)

Time to move…again!  I have to admit that I have stopped counting how many times I have already done this the past year. But this time I had a very warm welcome. My new “home” for the next 2 months was welcoming me with these gifts and a lovely letter from my landlords.

Finally!!! My first Berlin Döner for this year :) How I missed this! Honestly, if you ever want to fall in love with this simple dish, best chances = Berlin!

Apart from this “gourmet” intermezzo I discovered the best bread I have eaten so far! Really! I bought it in one of the only 2 self-baking bakeries in Berlin. No  pre-prepared dough, all homemade. My favourite: Coriander, anis-spelt bread!

Speaking of homemade!  I finally made my first self-made marmalade.  Strawberry-lime-rosemary :)

Time flies! Next weekend – next trip!

Home is where the “currywurst pommes” is!! The “Ruhrpott”!…and have a look!  My Coca-Cola colleagues in my hometown were as hardworking as we in Berlin & Leipzig…Coca-Cola Life everywhere! 

Weekends are always too short… back to  Berlin. But accompanied by 2 nice food magazines.

Having a relaxing dinner with friends and  trying out new recipe ideas that came to my mind :) Voilà – bruschetta with a sweet potato-goat’s cheese cream pesto  and caramelized salvia/ almond crunch as an entry. Followed by the main dish, a Moroccan coconut, chicken, mint, saffron served with lime-Madeira Bulgur :)

Culinary again! After work-dishes with some friends at “Markthalle 9"

Have you ever been to 5 cities in 2 days?

Well…until now I haven’t either… The menu for the weekend: A marathon!

Berlin - Mülheim an der Ruhr - Stuttgart - Frankfurt - Mainz - Frankfurt - Berlin

3rd train ride for the weekend: Frankfurt! What a lovely day with great weather, a  rhubarb drink, waffles & bagels!

Finally! After a busy but amazing  weekend, tired but happy to could have seen my family & closest friends… on  my way to Berlin.

For a change, the upcoming weeks I will stay away from planes & trains - I promise. Let’s see what Berlin is up to the next weeks!

What goes into consulting work?

From what questions to ask during strategy development to learning the process behind the beginning of a consulting project. And improving PowerPoint skills along the way!

(by Yoshiki Fukuda)

Hello again, my time at Merck in Darmstadt passes by so fast. I already completed 2 months out of my 3 months internship in the In-house Consulting department at Merck and so far it was a very exciting and instructive time.

Even though the workload has increased during the last weeks, I am enjoying the life in Darmstadt as well. I am still joining the weekly events organized by the interns such as the “Praktikantenstammtisch” as introduced in my last article. Furthermore, I had the chance to join the interns for partying during the weekend.

Just last weekend there was the biggest open-air festival in the German state Hesse with a lot of national musicians which took place in Darmstadt with a lot of stages allocated within the city center.

In the pictures you might get an impression of how crowded this festival was

Current interns from the Inhouse Consulting department. Starting left, David, Adithya, me and Luoxia

Since I described my first impressions about work and life in Darmstadt in the last article, I want to give you a small insight into what I’ve learned so far during my internship. I cannot go into details because some projects are highly confidential and therefore not intended for the public. However, working on such projects shows the appreciation and trust towards interns in the company.

I am basically supporting consultants by preparing presentations, doing research (Market, Competitor, etc.) and evaluating information. In most of the projects a trainee from the Global Graduate Program is also involved. You can say that 3 people are usually working on one project which makes it even better for me to learn new things. So far I could really improve my PowerPoint skills!

I am currently involved in 2 projects and I want to share my learnings with you.

 

First project: Strategy Development

The first project deals with strategy development and implementation for a business unit at Merck. It was the first time that I saw how such a process looks like in reality. Basically you have to conduct workshops where you try to collect the required information together with certain employees for developing the strategy.

The challenge you are facing when you conduct a workshop is:

  • Who are the relevant employees with the relevant information?
  • What kind of questions you need to ask them to get an appropriate answer?
  • Which strategy tool is appropriate for the strategy development stage?

At the end you need to summarize and evaluate the results of the workshop. In general, more than one workshop takes place within a strategy development process. My duty after a workshop is to digitize the written answers which are sometimes hard to decode due to bad handwriting. After the digitization of the answers, these answers are going to be summarized, conclusions are made and the results are presented in front of the customer. The time between the workshop and the presentation in front of the customer is always very challenging, but it is always a very interesting time.

Things to consider during strategy development

Second project: Process Optimization

This project deals with process optimization and compared to the first project I was lucky to be involved from the very beginning. My first task was to prepare a state of the art presentation on the topic in hand. I needed to find all relevant information and gave a small summary on this topic.

In the second step I analyzed the current situation and thought about possible solutions. Meanwhile, the consultant was thinking about the framework of this whole project and how to structure it the best. This always happens together with the customer.

Because I was involved in this project from the very beginning, I had the chance to participate at a kick-off meeting. At this meeting the line manager is handing over the project to the project manager. Even though it has a symbolic character, it is still important to show the project team who is holding the responsibility for the project.

Preparation of a process optimization project

Hopefully, the question mark will be replaced through new learnings about the process in the upcoming weeks. In the next weeks I am looking forward to working on this project and to learning more about the stages of optimizing processes.

Thanks again for reading my short article and I hope to see you next time.

Warm regards from Darmstadt, Germany.

Yoshi

Here we go!

Visa issued, flight booked, package ready and here we go!  were great. I had the chance to get an insight in interesting projects and also prepare the materials for my project which I will take with me to the U.S.

Too bad this first part of my internship is already over. My dear colleagues surprised me on my last day with a super cool farewell party and made it hard to say goodbye, even after this short period. But I’m fully on tiptoe of what will expect me in Chicago. During the last years, my family and friends have been pretty experienced with saying goodbye. The farewell at the airport was unspectacular :-)

After having landed in Chicago, I was overwhelmed by the dimension of Chicago O’Hare Airport. With my whacked feeling, my biggest concern was about getting the right car, manage the American way of driving and find the way to my new home for the next months. But for sure, everything went well, I arrived happily but super tired in my hotel.

On the next day I was exploring the surroundings of my new temporary home and got a little cultural shock due to the dimensions here. My first visit at Walmart was great! After accepting that it is normal to buy a whole canister of milk (3,785L) and that the Americans seem to like vodka sauce on their pasta, I went to Chicago Outlets to do some more shopping before I went back home. On my first day in the T-Systems North America Office. I had a very warm welcome, got to know a lot of my new colleagues and they organized a nice pizza party for my welcome. All in all a great start here in the US!

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