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9th World Business Dialogue
(WBD) OrganisationsForum
Wirtschaftskongress (OFW) April 2-3, 2003,
Cologne, Germany
Goto
WBD Pics (on this page only) Attended the 9th World Business Dialogue (WBD), organized by OrganisationsForum Wirtschaftskongress (OFW) at Cologne, Germany during April 2-3, 2003
(www.ofw.de). The theme of the 9th WBD was Managing Volatility - Success in a changing
world. Invitation to students was on the basis of essay. My essay was on Business Administration. The event saw participation from who's who of the industry- John Clarkeson, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group; Christopher B. Gavin, CEO, Motorola, just to name a few.
I was also a part of the Circle of Excellence on April 1st, 2003, invitation to which was further limited to a
select few from within all the the students invited to WBD.
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Took a flight to Mumbai at 2030 hrs on 30th March from Bangalore. On the flight, met Monappa
(PGP 98-00, working with Cadbury) who had come to Bangalore to visit family and was now going back to Mumbai. Reached Mumbai by 2230 hrs and had to wait for 4 hours or so as my flight to Frankfurt was at 0250 hrs only!
Reached Frankfurt on 31st March in the morning, and was picked up by Nils after I missed him once. I had almost made plans to catch a train to
Cologne when I spotted small OFW sign held by Nils. The 1-hour
Frankfurt-Cologne journey on Autobahn was quite nice in a warm sunny morning. Nils and I exchanged a lot of information about German and Indian culture/society etc.
Once at youth hostel, I got a room with 4 bunker-beds. So I had 3 partners who I later found out were from Singapore, Romania, and Ukraine. I was told that I was a part of Circle of Excellence (earlier known as Student's Summit), which I didn't know before leaving India. So I got ready hurriedly and joined the CoE in the afternoon at Multimedia Park building. I chose Private Equity as my session which was taken by Mr Alan G GreenShields, MD, Greeshields GMBH. Mr Greeshields is an MBA from Harvard. The session was quite good.
1st April was reserved for company visits for which I chose RWE Rheinbraun's Lignite mines. It was a 1 hour ride by bus from Cologne to the Paffendorf office of RWE Rheinbraun where we were given a presentation followed by a lunch. The office itself is an erstwhile castle and it looks majestic! After lunch, we proceeded to the mines. These mines are using one of the biggest bucket wheel excavators to mine Lignite and also to handle overburden. The views of these open-pit mines were fantastic and I couldn't help clicking lotsa pictures. On the way back, we were shown the restored land (for agriculture purposes) and a rehabilitated village. This visit was also a kind of pre-cursor for people interested in the Zollverein World Heritage Development b-plan competition.
In the night, went to a city nightclub, Roonburg, entry
to which was 4 Euros. It was really crowded. I think our discs at Bangalore are better cause there aint so many people dancing here!
2nd April was the inaugural day of the World Business Dialogue and we had to get up at 0600 hrs to have breakfast in time to be able to catch the shuttle bus service at 0650 hrs to the venue!! Man that was too early to get up! Reached the venue (Universitat) at 0800 and registered and attended the whole day full of sessions. Amongst other people, I met Andreas Bookas, who was recently on exchange programme at IIMB and also Anna Bihler who was on exchange programme at IIMC. From amongst parallel panels I chose
"Extending Human Flexibility - New Challenges for companies and
individuals" in pre-lunch. For post-lunch executive sessions, I chose
"Visual Management - A new concept to accelerate
change". After the day's concluding panel on "Managing
Uncertainty", there were arrangements made for a Gala Dinner. It was gala, alright! Champage flowed freely and the spirits soared high. Also, at the dinner winners of essay competition were announced. In the Economy section, IIMA dude Bhuvnesh Khurana won the competition. We returned to hostel at 0000 hrs by the train/tram.
3rd April was no different in terms of getting up early: same schedule as the previous day! For today, I chose
"Generating Added Value - The Necessity of Business Model
Innovations" panel and "Using the Internet - Creating a Long-term Scalable and Profitable Business
Model" for executive session. The special
session on World Politics by Dr. Paul
Robinson, University of Hull was extremely good because of his passion-filled
arguments. After the closing reception we came back to hostel by OFW vehicles to get ready for the Party of Nations. Left hostel for the club
Nachtflug at 10pm for the party. On the way had a vegetarian pizza. Its quite difficult for a vegetarian to manage in Europe. Anyways, the party was good but I was tired so I decided to call it quits by 0030 hrs and took a train back to hostel. Also I wanted to see
Cologne Cathedral before I left Germany.
So I woke up early (0600, 4th April) and took a train to Dom/Hbf. Cathedral is WOW! Its a huge architecture marvel. So sad that my pics went bad. Came back to hostel and went behind it by the river Rhine. The morning view was fantabulous and I clicked a few pics. Now, it was time to start for the journey back home. (My flight was at 1300 hrs from Frankfurt.) Came back to hostel, picked up bags and left for the station. Took an ICE (Inter City Express?) to Frankfurt from Cologne. It
traveled at 300kmph! Frankfurt Main is a huge airport. Anyways, found my way and boarded the flight.
Arrived in Mumbai on 5th April 0130 hrs from where I had a flight to Bangalore at 0615 hrs. So had to wait for like 5 hours. Reached back in Bangalore at 0800 hrs! And thus ended my short trip to Cologne :)
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General
/ Cologne Pictures
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World Business Dialogue Pictures
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3rd
April Reception Pictures
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1st
April Company (RWE Rheinbraun's Lignite mines) Visit Pictures
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General
/ Cologne Pictures |
Joggers Paradise behind Youth Hostel
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Cologne view from near convention centre
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Youth Hostel from behind
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At Cologne Railway Station
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On the way to the convention centre
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AXA Office near Youth Hostel
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At Cologne Cathedral
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At Frankfurt Airport
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Terminal 1A, Frankfurt Airport
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At Terminal 1A, Frankfurt Airport
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 Outside
Youth Hostel, (BoltenSternStrasse)
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| World
Business Dialogue Pictures
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2nd
April Morning Panel
L
to R: Prof Derek F. Abell, Strategy & Marketing, European
School of Management and Technology; Sir Nicholas Scheele,
President & COO, Ford Motor Company; Prof Hans-Gerd Servatius,
Member of Board, Horvath AG; Prof. Ekkehard Schulz, Chairman of
Executive Board, ThyssenKrupp AG
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3rd
April Morning Panel
L
to R: Dr. Rudiger Grube, Member of Board, DialmerChrysler; Dr.
Klaus Zumwinkel, Chairman of Board, Deutsche Post AG;
Prof.
Jean-Pierre Detrie
Corporate
Strategy & International Business,
HEC
Paris;
Klaus-Peter
Muller, Chairman of the Board, Commerzbank AG; Christopher Galvin,
Chairman & CEO, Motorola
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3rd
April Evening Panel
L
to R: Werner Wenning, Chairman of the Board, Bayer AG; Friedhelm
Tilgen, n-tv (Moderator); Orit Gadiesh, Chairman, Bain &
Co.; Zsigmond Jarai, President, National Bank of Hungary
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2nd
April evening session
John S.
Clarkeson, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group
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3rd
April evening
Special Session: World Politics in Transition.
Dr
Paul Robinson, University of Hull
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3rd
April Morning Panel
Christopher
B. Gavin, Motorala CEO
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 With
HandeSaglam (Turkey)
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With
Anna Bihler (Germany, studying at St Gallens,).
Anna
was on exchange programme at IIM-C (2002)
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KPMG Exhibit
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Deutsche Post Exhibit
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Convention Centre |
 The
Organizing team, receiving a loud applause!
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| 3rd
April Reception Pictures
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Its Lunch Time
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With Andreas Bookas
Andreas
was on exchnage programme at IIMB (2002)
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Ekaterina (Russia)
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With Meghna
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With da ladies!
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1st
April Company (RWE Rheinbraun's Lignite mines) Visit Pictures |
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At RWE Rheinbraun Office (Paffendorf)
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Belt Conveyors
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Never-ending Belt Conveyors
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Bucket Wheel Excavator Front Arm
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Bucket Wheel Excavator back arm
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Bucket Wheel Excavator mining Lignite!
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Me at Bucket Wheel Excavator
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Bucket Wheel Excavator and the coal it
dug.
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Bucket Wheel Excavator from a distance
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The mine with power plant in the
background
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A longitudinal shot of mine
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A Long shot of mine.
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Conveyors Station - Where they are all
controlled from
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