International MBA Program
Brooks Willet's Internship Web Journal
Brooks Willet
IMBA Class of 2007
Amsterdam Sauer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
brooks_willet@moore.sc.edu
7th Journal Entry:
The time here in country is winding down. I feel that it is time for the internship to
end. There isn’t a sense of urgency for either the time to last longer or pass more quickly. I have
enjoyed my time here and have had the opportunity to put a lot of things that I learned during the
first year to practical use.
The office has seen some tumult since the last entry. The IT department head abruptly left the company and the most senior IT guy has stepped up to assume the duties of manager. It was much more of a personal than professional shock for me. As it happened close to the end of the internship, it has also really focused me on having to say good-bye to many people that have been a large part of my life recently.
One of the main duties recently had been trying to teach another worker here how to use Microsoft Access and how to approach, use, and modify all of the queries and systems that I had set up. Unfortunately that worker also has left the company recently forcing me to go back strip down the systems that I had created, simplify everything, and outline the inventory management process, and continue to document everything that I have done.
The redesign thankfully didn’t take to long to write up and was fairly straightforward
to document. That is one of the advantages of completely wrapping yourself around a problem for
four months. On Monday, I will meet with the two people that will primarily be using it and see if
it is just as approachable for them.
Everyone was shocked and upset at Brazil’s loss to France in the World Cup. Many of
the hardcore fans have now moved onto to the Brazil Cup final (the last game of which is
tonight).
Outside of work I have been busy trying to see the remaining places before I leave. I have been to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, up to Corcovado, and even to Ouro Preto. I also managed another visit to the Museum of Modern Art Rio de Janeiro. The most enjoyable for me was by far my weekend to Ouro Preto. I had heard a lot of things about this historic city in the hills and was not disappointed. Perhaps the best part of the weekend for me was the ability to get away from the city for a little bit and have a "vacation." Before I began my internship, I thought that I would be able to take a lot of mini-vacations and simply be able to enjoy myself. The fact that my first vacation on my own, which itself had to be squeezed into a normal two day weekend forcing me to spend two nights on a bus. The reality of living here and working Monday through Friday is much different than my hopes of every evening spent on the beach - something rendered impossible by the short winter days and working until 6pm every day.
This will be my last entry before my return to the States, at which point I will try
to offer some more overarching reflections. Until then, I have enjoyed hearing from a few of you
and trying to give you a little more insight into this experience. There are certainly more
stories, photos, and information than what is represented here. If you have any questions
that you would like me to address in my last entry, please feel free to send me an e-mail.
While I won't go into all of the details of my time in Ouro Preto, I will mention that
I was given an excellent farewell to the city when upon returning from the neighboring town of
Mariana, I found myself in the middle of a samba parade through the beautiful streets. As the
throng of people passed all of these historic churches and beautiful vistas, everyone was smiling
and dancing. There are few, if any, other times in my life that I have been surrounded by so many
people just happy to be alive and enjoying the moment. For those of you that have a chance to make
it to the Winter Festival in Ouro Preto, I strongly recommend it. I am also told that Holy Week
there is amazing. On the night before Easter, they take colored sawdust and decorate all of the
streets through the city. Make sure you make reservations early though, otherwise it will be hard
to find a hotel or hostel close to Praça Tiradentes (probably the best are to stay).
6th Journal Entry:
Two more weeks have passed, and I find myself wondering if it is possible. Can I be
just six weeks from my return to the United States? There are a whole flood of emotions that go
along with this, which will be restrained for the time being.
Brazil is still alive and impatiently awaiting tomorrow's Quarterfinal World Cup game. More than that, I witnessed something I never dreamed possible – Brazilians rooting for Argentina. To put it in perspective it was all so that Germany wouldn't make it to the final with home-field advantage, something that scares even the most faithful fans.
I am currently in a slight lull between projects. They are certainly still on the
table; it is just a question of getting some input from the CEO on exactly what he is looking for.
During the last two weeks I have redone several financial reports for the company to accurately
reflect ROI and expected lifetime of inventory in both graphic and tabular form.
Next week will see the efforts to ensure a smooth transition between
myself and a coworker who will be assuming many of the projects that I have started or assisted on.
It seems slightly daunting now as potentially for the next six weeks we will be meeting for an hour
a day to go over the projects on which I have worked and to also make sure that he is up to speed
on the various DSS (decision support systems) that I have created. It is one thing to ensure that
he is able to use them, but it will most likely be much more of a challenge to make sure that he is
able to make any changes and adjustments in the future.
This past week saw the depths of fury that Brazilian winter has to offer here in Rio -
it was in the 60’s, overcast, and rained for a couple days. The sun has come back out and it
appears that it will be a great weekend. With no real plans, it could quite well turn into another
weekend spent relaxing on the beach, playing in the surf, and reading if I feel motivated.
I am including some photos that I have taken recently from Niteroi, Museu Chacara do Ceu, and Morro de Leme.
5th Journal Entry:
It is hard for me to believe that I only have eight more weeks here in
Brazil. The internship continues to provide challenges and opportunities for both personal and
professional growth. I would be remiss however, if I were not to mention perhaps the number one
priority around here these days – the World Cup.
Here, there are few topics that will start people, from President Lula to a stranger on the street, talking as passionately as football. For about the past three weeks, I have witnessed banners and streamers being hung above streets, from buildings, around poles, and anywhere else people can find a place to display green and yellow. To show just how far passion for football goes here, even Amsterdam Sauer has designed a few specialty pieces for the event. My favorite of these are pendent gold soccer balls embedded with diamonds.
My coworkers made sure that I saw at least part of the USA’s first game. They were also quick to console me on the pitiful performance. To make matters worse, the hideous appearance of the jerseys was also a topic for conversation. You had to be very careful not to mistake the dark navy blue for black.
When it came time for Brazil’s first game, everyone came in a little early and worked through lunch so that we could all leave in time to catch the game at our favorite location. I chose to go to a churrasceria close to my apartment in Copacabana. The streets were filled with people rushing to get to the place where they wanted to view the game.
This restaurant might as well have been the soccer stadium for me. As
soon as the Brazilian team took the field, there was an upwelling of cheers, shouts, clapping, and
just general commotion from an excited, noisy crowd. Of course when Brazil scored its goal and
eventually won the match, one could have mistaken it for Fourth of July celebrations in the United
States with all of the fireworks that were set off in the street.
On the internship work front, I have been busy going back and verifying
all of the queries that I have written in Microsoft Access to make sure that they are both
logically and structurally sound. When thus assured, I am also trying to document both of these
elements so that my coworkers here will be able to continue to use them once I have returned for my
second year in the IMBA program.
Along with this, I am still given special tasks or mini-projects from the CEO and other
department heads as the need arises. One of these was to create an automatically updating report
that would list the inventory turnover, sales per year, current stock level, and recommended action
for all of the different product categories across the company and another search that would allow
for the same at the store level.
One of the good things about using Microsoft Access has been that if I am able to write scripts and queries well enough, they will never have to be updated and can be used indefinitely barring a major change in the direction that the company takes either strategically or with its data warehouse. The more frustrating things about using Microsoft Access are it is largely learned on the fly and trying to figure out if many of the more obscure function calls or relationship properties that I would like to use actually exist.
The work is rewarding though. The team with which I have been primarily working
(Production, Design, Distribution, and IT division heads) are preparing a report detailing the
decisions and methodology that we have used to trim 21 product categories by more than 80%. In this
process, we are also strategically selecting the next product categories for the continuation of
this brand focusing.
Outside of work and football, I made the day trip up to Petropolis one Saturday to get out of the city and breathe some mountain air. I am including some photos from that trip as well as from my visit to the Copacabana Fort.
4th Journal Entry:
The past two weeks at work have been relaxed. While there is a break in the problem
solving aspect of the project, now I am in the midst of the most difficult part - creating buy-in
and implementation. For me it is easy to recognize the power of statistics and mathematical
modeling. It is much harder for me to demonstrate to others that such models are rigorous.
I
t is easy to answer any questions that they might have, however, it is
going to be harder to show them how to manipulate the data and use the system that I have created.
The first step in that process was making sure that everyone had access to the database so they
would hopefully start to use it and see what difficulties they were having. As that initial trial
did not produce any feedback, I have created a short user’s guide that should answer the most basic
questions of the project. I am left feeling like one of my professors, (This means one of two
things, you all are either really bored for the lack of feedback, or you are completely lost.) The
hope is that if the users of this system can understand the most basic queries, they will be able
to understand how to answer other questions that might arise.
I have a large suspicion that unless I am given some direct feedback pointing me in a direction, the most useful thing that I can do for the company is to document the system as thoroughly as I can and hope that they will be able to use that if they have any questions.
So, that is work. At the beginning of last week my internship advisor, Louis Dessau, came down from South Carolina. A meeting was called with the CEO, Mr. Silvio Eisenberg (pictured with me in the first photo) to make sure that the internship was progressing smoothly and discuss the form for the final evaluation used for academic purposes. I suppose that in one sense the visit was an interim evauation of the assignment. It is hard to believe that half of my time in Brazil has already passed.
Which leads me to something high on the priority list: planning out some
of the upcoming weekends and figuring out when I am going to go to Petropolis, Ouro Preto, and
Salvador. I am including some photos from around Rio - down at the Barra de Tijuica and around
Arpoador, Ipanema, Copacabana, Flamengo, Botafogo, and the WWII Memorial. I hope you enjoy!
3rd Journal Entry:
During the last three weeks from my last update, I have
essentially been transitioned off of the project that was to last all summer. After a final
briefing of the capabilities and general idea of the new business intelligence system, my work is
complete pending there are no additional concerns or desired capabilities.
Currently, the system is designed to enhance decisions made during
purchasing, inventory replenishment, master planning, and financial performance evaluation. The
system seems to be well understood by the internal customers who will use it, and I plan to follow
up with them individually to make sure that any doubts or questions they have are answered. It is a
very scalable solution. The time parameter is set for three months right now, but can be scaled
down as the company becomes more adept at managing its inventory.
Coupled with the introduction of this system, we have also successfully pared the product offerings down in several categories from as many as 210 to 12-25. This will help the company as it seeks to establish more of a brand image and to have some product recognition. This process of reducing the breadth of product categories is one that will continue through the rest of the summer.
With this project largely completed, it only awaits full
scale implementation, the Director of the company asked me to apply some of my analytical skills
and mathematics background to be an expert witness in a current rent dispute. As to the nature of
this situation, I will not provide many details, suffice it to say that once again, the background
knowledge I have of statistics has proven quite helpful. This project will also continue past
the use of the evidence I create into more of a managerial aspect for this particular division of
the company. With the same data that is being used for evidence, I will go back to the database
drawing board to create more queries to monitor this division’s performance. I have already started
briefly into this area to demonstrate to the Director a few of the available possibilities.
Outside of work, life continues to go well. During the most recent, and unfortunately last during my time in Brazil, three day weekend, I met up with a friend to stroll along Avenida Atlantica on Saturday night to chat about life and the differences that I have noticed between the United States and here. One thing that still strikes me is that no one ever says some form of "the United States," preferring instead to simply say, "there." Getting to know people here through work and church has proved as rewarding to me as the work that I do during the day.
Then on May 1
st, we took a boat out to Paquetá - a tiny little island that is absolutely gorgeous.
On the way back from the island, many of the people on the boat were expressing their hope
that the ferry would make it on the news as there were people hanging off every edge, sitting in
every stairwell and walkway, and generally just completely overcrowded. I guess that whole thing
about having enough life-jackets for passengers isn't always followed!
Whether it is lunch, a drink after work, or simply an afternoon enjoying the amazing beauty of the city, the time is always more enjoyable when I am able to learn about the people who live in this marvelous place. Also since my last update, the IT department has enjoyed a couple of really good rodizo lunches - a churrasco at Carretão and most recently an Italian restaurant. It has also been decreed that I am "the champion" when it comes to eating at these lunches. Apparently walking to work along the beach does wonders for my appetite.
2nd Journal Entry - April 24, 2006:
Weeks three and four were just as exciting as the first two.
They saw me give two more formal presentations on my work - now with a company wide perspective.
One of the hardest things that I had to overcome during this process was coming up with a SQL
statement with something along the lines of 12 nested if statements. Yes, it isn’t elegant, but it
was the best I had.
The job has continued its intensity, including my last presentation which lasted a solid two and a half hours. Well, my presentation was relatively short, to the tune of 20 minutes, but then there was a discussion that lasted another two hours. The idea of a presentation here is very different. Sure, I was "leading" the presentation, but the question and answer session was much more of a time for the people in attendance to go back and forth over minute details that were fairly far out of the realm of discussion. It was quite helpful for me though to witness as it gave me a better idea of the context of my work in terms with the rest of the company. With this new information, it was back to the keyboard to create some new queries to address concerns over product selection and making the information more useful.
Now armed with the ability to tell the company which individual products were the best sellers in any given category, it was back up to production for a meeting to discuss and showcase the more or less completed project. Here at the beginning of week five, I am trying to think of more information that could be useful from a planning and strategy standpoint and making any minor tweaks as necessary.
Outside of work, the past two weeks we have had three day weekends. As the weather has been
amazing, it has provided
ample time to enjoy life here in Brazil. Last weekend I went
with Susanne Haines, a second year IMBA student here on exchange, to Búzios, a beach town a few
hours from Rio. This weekend, I went to the Botanical Garden on Friday, slept in and then slept on
the beach on Saturday, and just walked on Avenida Atlantica (on Sundays and holidays, they shut
down half of the roads that are along the beaches for pedestrians) and through Ipanema a bit on
Sunday.
My boss told me that this is the best time of year in Rio, not too hot, not too cold (like that ever happens here), and the skies are generally clear and beautiful. I would have to agree.
1st Journal Entry - April 5, 2006
Settling in and starting up . . . With a busy last couple of months in South Carolina, I found myself packing up my apartment without a very clear structure for my six months abroad in Brazil. I knew the first three weeks that I would be in Curitiba in some sort of academic program. After that, it was on to Rio de Janeiro to work for Amsterdam Sauer somewhere in the area of production and information technology. I had no clue as to the structure of the internship, such as when I would begin, or even the basic logistical items such as where I was going to live. I had a couple of email addresses of people at the company, and that was about it.
By the time that the academic program in Curitiba was winding down, I was in touch with a lady in Amsterdam Sauer who would become my liaison for finding a place to live. In the evening before the last day of lectures, we decided where I was going to live over the phone. I was sent the address by email the next day. Three days later, I was moving in. Having not heard directly back from my supervisor, I decided that the next day, Monday, I would go into the office to figure out when I was going to start and to thank my liaison for all of her help.
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This is the view from my desk at work . . . "just to make all the other interns jealous"! |
Fortunately, I was only expected to start small with one store. After lunch, I
began the process of wading through data and familiarizing myself with the Business Intelligence
(BI) system the company used. At the very least, I was prepared for the project. More than being
thrown into something completely new, it felt like I was just handed the most comprehensive final
exam possible of the first year. The project was going to touch in areas of several classes:
Information Systems, Data Analysis, Operations Management, even Marketing, Finance, and
Organizational Behavior.
Still needing to register with the Federal Police (part of the bureaucracy here), an entire day was spent away from work trying to fill out the necessary forms, wait in the appropriate lines, convince the requisite people to sign little pieces of paper, and wait a little more for good measure. Going back to work on Thursday was quite a relief.
During these first few days of work, I had made sufficient progress that I was told to write a one page brief on my findings so far. Thrilled to have such positive feedback, and slightly concerned about my ability to write a one page brief in Portuguese (especially considering I had amassed over fifty pages of charts and tables), I was able to turn in a draft to Octávio by the end of the day.
On Friday, I was given another surprise. On the following Monday at 10:30 a.m. I would be making a presentation to the director of the company as well as several others who were in charge of the direction of the company on my findings (where now my supplementary data had sprawled to over 90 pages - just charts and tables -, no text whatsoever other than section headings). The good news was that a lot of this had already been synthesized, and I had all the graphics I would ever need at my disposal.
With a week full of challenges ranging from finding my away around a city in a foreign language, to working all day (even using a computer) completely in a foreign language (which makes typing Excel functions a little difficult), I knew that I was well prepared by both the first year of academic training through the core of the IMBA program, as well as by the experiences that I brought with me.
Certainly learning to speak the language and being willing to make mistakes has
helped me build rapport with my peers and boss. Rodrigo, a coworker who is also closely involved in
my project, has even told me that he would rather have me called a trainee rather than an intern,
as he sees me as a coworker, not someone just coming into an office and "playing work."
After my presentation on Monday, no one mentioned looking at one store any more. They felt that it was time to tackle the entire system. If nothing else, it doesn’t really make sense to plan production and distribution for just one store. So with the understanding that I had amassed in week one, the goal for week two was to analyze the company as a whole and come up with some recommendations for upcoming issues with inventory shortfalls and surpluses.
This meant for me leaving the friendly environment of Excel and heading over to Access. After trying to struggle through it in Portuguese, I decided that I would bring in my laptop and work with English menus. With a slightly easier environment, I was able to write quite a few queries to demonstrate upcoming issues at the store and entire company level from which it is possible to make some strong recommendations.
Halfway through week two, I am just waiting to speak with the director of production to get a sense for where I am and what else would be helpful for her. Visiting the store that I had analyzed during week one was helpful for me not to just have the mindset of headquarters, but to also to see the problem from the eyes of a store’s stock keeper.
There are still things to learn and apply. At this point, one of the top on the list is learning how to dance samba. I think that would be a great activity for a Friday night!