International MBA Program
Internship Web Journal
Josef Czukor
IMBA Class of 2008
Siemens, Munich, Germany
jozsef_czukor@moore.sc.edu
Journal Entry #4 - August 1, 2007:
Das war’s! My internship with Siemens Real Estate ended this past
Thursday. I have to say that it was one of my longest internships on paper, yet it definitely felt
like it was one of the shortest ones. This has primarily to do with the fact that my unit kept me
busy with assignments and there were only very few dull moments throughout my time with SRE. Of
course, life in Munich also played its part in a short summer loaded with many great memories.
My last day at work was, however, not only dedicated to saying goodbye to my colleagues. I actually had to present the findings of my final assignment to my supervisor. This final assignment, which I worked on for the past two weeks, had the purpose to investigate the relationship between the number of employees of all SRE companies (in around 30 countries), their personnel costs and the area of their sites. The goal was to find out which countries were more efficient in using their particular sites and had the lowest costs per square meter. This task required a lot of data pooling from various sources, since different databases had the most accurate data relevant to our research. The data itself I entered into a giant Excel sheet, with maybe 15 or so tabs. I updated this sheet with past, current and next year’s expected figures for all three variables. In the end, the data was presented in the form of several graphs showing the metrics of different countries and regions.
As mentioned in one of my prior entries, the last weeks at
Siemens were also quite exciting because the company is undergoing tremendous change. I experienced
within my division and unit what it means if corporate headquarters intends to reorganize an entire
division. Moreover, I was fortunate to gain an insider perspective if a new CEO begins his duty at
the top of a company. As you might have heard in the press, the new CEO of the company, Mr. Peter
Löscher, recently undertook two interesting portfolio changes by selling the company’s car-supplier
division (Siemens VDO) and acquiring an American medical diagnostic company. These steps are the
first indicators that Siemens is expected to focus more on fewer lines of businesses, as power
generation, medical diagnostics and industrial automation are regarded as the areas with the
highest growth potential.
Other major changes, especially regarding leadership culture, transparency and compliance are on their way and Siemens might be looking quite different in a few years to come.
Now a little bit about life outside the Siemens universe. The past weeks
I have also been doing some catch-up traveling. Two weekends ago, I drove down to Slovenia to do
some mountain-hiking. Slovenia is a country very famous for its Julian Alps, a mountain range that
has numerous mountains peaking above 2,000 meters. We chose to climb up a 2,300 meter high
mountain, which meant we’d have to master a height difference of about 1,200 meters. It took us
around five sweaty hours to accomplish this. Once on the top, the view was exhilarating, but also a
little horrifying, if you were standing on the edge of the abyss. The only problem then was how to
descend, since we couldn’t take the same way back as it was too steep. Eventually we found a way,
then took a dive in a cool mountain lake and had great local food (my favorite part of the day) to
restore our energy levels.
I also met with some German track students who do their internships in
Germany. Attached is a picture of us enjoying the atmosphere in the English Garden in Munich. As
you can tell, we all have a pretty good time in Deutschland.
I hope you enjoyed reading my entries. Please drop me a line or two if you have any questions regarding my experience this summer- be it regarding work at SRE, life in Munich or where to get the freshest Pretzel. I’d enjoy answering them.
Auf Wiedersehen,
Jozsef
Journal Entry #3 - July 1, 2007:
Work-life balance is important in Germany. This I
realized once again this afternoon when I was on my way to a local organic (or "Bio", as the
Germans call it) bakery. As I approached the store, I was already down to 2 or 3 potential
acquisition targets: a cheese and ham filled croissant, a middle sized pretzel and an
olive-ciabatta mini-bread. To my dismay, I arrived at the store at 17:32 Uhr (5:32 PM) only
to realize that it closed two minutes earlier. The saleswoman was still present though and
after observing my gestures opened the door and told me that it is Feierabend (German for leisure
time after a day of work). "At 17:30?" I asked and she just nodded. Well, there bursts
my imaginary bubble of a cheese and ham filled croissant...
At work, I have been switching gears from my Global Shared
Services (GSS) related assignment and started working on real estate topics. One of the more
complex assignments was to research and analyze data about vacancy rates of Siemens real estate
properties and determine their effects on the bottom line. Again, Excel skills acquired in
the Decision Analysis class proved to be an invaluable help in completing this task.
Currently I am working on posting employee numbers for Siemens cost centers and will start next
week to do some balance sheet and statement of cash flows related work.
What has been one of the most impressive sides at working at
Siemens Real Estate was to observe the strong team work and flexibility within the unit.
Colleagues help each other out, proofread numbers and even take over each other’s assignments
temporarily, if time requires. In order to further strengthen this flexibility and to avoid
problems in case somebody is absent, colleagues often sit down with each other to explain their
respective tasks. This spreads the knowledge base and increases the awareness of the challenges
colleagues face when completing their tasks.
Finally, as promised, a word about the local cuisine. If you
come to Munich, you should definitely try some Schweinshaxe, which is a very powerful (or in other
words, heavy) pork dish, but extremely delicious. And a word of caution: don't leave the
crust on the plate--Bavarians will look at you with angry eyes if you do and that for a
reason: it's the tastiest part. To wet your throat, I recommend the Augustiner beer
products with your Schweinshaxe. The Augustiner brewery is the oldest one in Munich (opened
in 1328) and has in my mind the best beer across Germany.
Tschüß,
Jozsef
P.S. A Dirndl is a traditional Bavarian dress that local women wear for
celebrative occasions (or if they want attention).
Journal Entry #2 - June 1, 2007:
It is amazing how fast time passes by as I notice that my first full month of work at Siemens Real Estate and life in Munich has ended. It was definitely a very unique time so far, and the summer promises to become highly interesting as well. Did I say summer? Well, unfortunately, the past couple of weeks did not look like summer at all with strong winds, cold showers and even icy rain. The local Biergarten owners were not too amused either as many previously full places became deserted. Bad weather, however, does not prevent the German from drinking his beer. He just drinks it inside.
In my first entry, I promised to tell you a little bit more about Siemens Real Estate (SRE) and give you a better idea about my specific assignments. So be it . . . if you look at the organizational chart of Siemens, you will notice that SRE has a very distinct position along with Siemens Financial Services. These two groups are neither operating groups - the ones that sell products and services to mainly non-Siemens customers - nor are they corporate centers. Both Siemens Financial Services and SRE are service providers for the operating groups within the Siemens AG (AG stands for Aktiengesellschaft and means public company). As the name suggests, SRE is the real estate manager for Siemens. Headquartered in Munich, it has over 30 companies and business units worldwide and employs more than 1000 full-time colleagues who work in real estate functions. The company manages around 39 million square meters of land and 18 million square meters of building space at over 3000 locations worldwide. It does not exclusively serve Siemens customers, yet the majority of its business is derived from internal clients.
So where do I fit in within the 1000 employees? Well, since I am
on internship, I am not officially counted towards this number, yet I am sure I would be number
1001 or 1002 if the list was to be continued. . . I work within the Finance and Controlling
Corporate Functions and Services unit of SRE. Formally, I am assigned to a sub-unit that is dealing
with Planning and Performance controlling functions. However, my work so far has been
concentrating on an area that I have touched upon in my previous posting. As mentioned, most
of the functions of Siemens Real Estate were to be integrated into a newly formed Global Shared
Services organization, which was created in October 2006. My specific task has been to
evaluate a base-lining questionnaire, in which Siemens subsidiaries from many countries answered
questioned about their business volumes, sales, full-time employees, productivity savings, market
share and forecasted figures. I have been given the task to present the data, compare and
contrast various figures, and analyze whether the numbers make sense. As you can imagine,
Siemens has quite a few subsidiaries (and regional companies, as it’s called here), so when you
read this, I am probably busy evaluating them.
Next time, I will tell you about the great team work within my unit and additional tasks that I have been taking on, share with you my impressions on the Bavarian capital of Munich, provide you with some excellent local cuisine and (mandatory) beer recommendations and explain to you what "Dirndl" Bis dann!
Thanks,
Jozsef
Journal Entry# 1 - May 1, 2007:
My name is Jozsef Czukor, I am the only Hungarian student in the Moore School of Business IMBA program, and I admit that I have forgotten how it is to live in Germany. I arrived in Munich, Germany on April 6th. Already at the airport one of the biggest differences between US and Germany struck me when I looked at the subway and street-train network map of the city of Munich. The whole map was filled with lines in red, blue, black, yellow and my first reaction was to call a cab, which I did. However, after hearing the price for the trip, I decided to take the challenge and take the public system to my newly found apartment in the city. Once on the surface again, the next surprise: I’ve almost gotten flattened by a tall, male bicycle rider, who complained about my position on the bicycle lane by yelling unique German words back at me. A few minutes later I found myself standing in the line of a bakery, enjoying the smell of freshly baked Pretzel. I have just arrived to Germany…
As you might or might not have guessed, I have lived in Germany before, a total of eight years. But it is still amazing how a few years in a different country can change your habits and even your way of life. This however, you only realize once you are back in your old environment, facing every-day situations and challenges. I have decided to come back to Germany because of exactly this cultural, but also linguistic “ alienation”. I wanted to immerse myself into the Germany culture to possibly set the ground for a future life here in Germany, but also to brush up my language skills in order to seamlessly integrate into work and social life.
Siemens Real Estate gave me the perfect opportunity both to
achieve these goals, but also to learn about a company that has operations in most of the countries
(190) around the globe and to get the exposure in my area of interest: finance. The location
in Munich, one of Germany’s most beautiful and enjoyable cities, only made things easier to decide.
I knew fairly early on that Siemens in Munich would be a good choice for a summer
internship.
Fortunately, the first three weeks with Siemens Real Estate have been very rewarding. Besides putting into action the Excel skills acquired in Dr. Philipoom’s Decision Analysis class to create various financial overviews of a base lining-questionnaire, I have been witnessing something that perhaps will be the most valuable experience in this internship: how a German giant conglomerate manages change. As you might have read in the press, Siemens is going through a difficult time because of allegations of briberies. Our division was affected to as the management board member in charge of overseeing real estate was arrested a few months ago. The company is undergoing tremendous changes, not only in terms of the substitution of key executives, but also organizationally. Siemens is currently in the process of creating a Global Shared Services (GSS) organization which should create scale effects and cut costs. Again, our division is affected as it initially was intended to be integrated into this new organization. Employees have been working six months in our division to facilitate the transition into GSS, while at the same time conducting their every-day duties. However, this past week it was announced that the integration of the real estate division will not take place…
In the next entry, I will provide you with more information about the various functions of Siemens Real Estate, my exact role and further experiences as regards to change management. I hope you will tune in.
Tschüß!
Jozsef