work experience BMW

BMW (Bayerische Moteren Werke) is an AG (Aktiengesellschaft). The head of BMW is located in Munich, but Leipzig has one of the biggest costruction sites of BMW in the world. In addition, the famous i-project from BMW is builded here. It was constructed 2005 and is today 208 Hectare big.
BMW is in selling cars. They costruct every 76 sec. one car, which makes a total of around 750 cars per day. BMW is also a partnership with MINI and RolceRoyce. BMW is one of the leading companies in selling cars. The BMW mission statement is to provide the best quality for there costumers for cheap prices. At the work placement they told me that BMW has actually vision statements. But the main vision statement is that the whole world drives a car from BMW. But for the new i-project, the vision statement is to be the leading organization in selling electric automobils and make a change in the world for the "green". As already told, BWM wants to make a big change in the natural environment and wants to sell only electric cars in the further future. And this with success. For the next years, the new i-project is already sold out. So BMW can and will make a change in the natural environment. Maybe they started a domino effect which now also other comapnies might find attractive.

The stakeholders of this company are as always the managers and directors as well as the employees, these people will all try to gain something out of this business, that being a profit. The customers will want to be provided with good products for a good price, therefore they will want BMW to improve their cars without increasing their price. The shareholders of this company will also want BMW to make a profit so that the shareholders will get a proft as well and the value of their shares increase. Lastly, the competitors will want to sell more cars than BMW and will therefore be interested in developing newer and better technologies quicker than BMW.

There are many links between this company and our syllabus and the 6 key points. One of these points would be innovation which can be seen in the development of the new i-project which is environmental friendly and will hopefully globalise so that there will be no more cars that damage the environment. As well as that, this will also induce change throughout the world and make it better, which is also ethically correct. This shows that BMW is also concerned with its ethical behaviour and tries to establish a good image.

I have gained a lot of experience at this work placement. I also think I understood the concept of BMW, and because I liked it there and I feel an interest towards cars and have the know-how for this sort of work experience. But anyway, some numbers really shocked me, e.g. that BMW every 76 seconds a car finishes. My car doesn't feel as important anymore, because I imagined this different. But I learned a lot at this work experience and had fun the 2 days.

 

 

Bilfinger Hochbau Work experience

Bilfinger Hochbau is just one of many "daughters" of the head firm Bilfinger SE. It is located near Messegelände, Walter-Köhn-Strasse 4a, 04356 Leipzig. The company is a german stock company, so a cooperation. The mission statement of Blfinger SE is providing our clients with highest level of quality. Therefor, their vision statement is to become the leading construction firm in the world. Their aims and objectives are to strenghten and repostion our corporate brand Bilfinger. And because of the new daughter companies Bilfinger Power Systems and Bilfinger Services, it can uses their financial strenght and operate potential for the next phase in its development. Supported by the strategic programs BEST (Bilfinger Escalates Strength) and Bilnger Excellence, output volume could grow 12bn. euros by 2016 and net profit will increase to about 400 Million euros.  The organization of Bilfinger SE is organized decentrally. "Bilfinger SE is a holding without its own business activities. The operating activities are carried out through subsidiaries which act on the market as independent profit centers."

Bilfinger SE is a complex system with many departments. There is one head department, Bilfinger SE. Bilfinger SE is then devided into four other "daughter" companies: Bilfinger Industry, Bilfinger Energy, Bilfinger Real Estate and Bilfinger infrastructure. Bilfinger Industry is then devided into 6 other companies: Bilfinger Industrial Maintenance (also devided into four departments: Bilfinger maintenance, Bilfinger chemieserv, Bilfinger IS Schweiz and Bilfinger industrial services Inc.); Bilfinger insulation, scaffolding and painting; Bilfinger oil and gas (also devided into three departments: Bilfinger salamis group UK, Bilfinger salamis inc., Bilfinger industrier group); Bilfinger industrial fabrication and installation; Bilfinger engineering, automation and controland automation (also devided into two departments: Bilfinger GreyLogix, Bilfinger tebodin group); Bilfinger Support services. Bilfinger Energy is devided into three other companies: Bilfinger power systems, Bilfinger piping systems and Bilfinger offshore systems and grids (also devided into three departments: Bilfinger marine and offshore systems, Bilfinger mars offshore and Bilfinger FRB). Bilfinger real estate is devided into four departments: Bilfinger buidling (also devided into four departments: Bilfinger hochbau, Bilfinger modernbau, Bilfinger tesch and Bilfinger wolfferts gebäudetechnik), Bilfinger facility services (also devided into three departments: Bilfinger HSG facility management, Bilfinger Haus- und Wärmetechnik and Bilfinger ahr healthcare and services), Bilfinger real estate and Bilfinger water technology. At least Bilfinger infrastructure is devided into two departments: Bilfinger construction and Bilfinger infrastructure. This is related to our business class, because Bilfinger used the horizontal and vertical integration to expand their company.

Bilfinger is not really affected by the environment, because the permission to build in a certain area already needs to be provided by their customers. Bilfinger is only slightly affected by the natural environment. On the construction side, where they build the three villa's, they had to build around some specific and endangered trees, because they are protected by the city.

In this organisation there are multiple stakeholders such as the shareholders, customers, employees, managers and owners of the company. As well as that, the government and certain pressure groups are likely to show an interest in what the company builds, where these buildings will be located and what environment and people are affected by them.

The Bilfinger Hochbau Company also relates to the topics of change and innovation seeing as that it is their job to reconstruct different buildings. This means that they put a lot of time and effort into planning and carrying out their projects and that they try to change something about their surroundings or the surroundings of others.

From working at this company I have learnt a lot of new things about construction and I thought it was very interesting, especially the meeting with HSEQ (Health Safety Environment Quality), but I still can't imagine doing something like this or working in this industry in the future.

China trade data beats expactations

China's September trade data beats expectations

China's exports and imports in September were far higher than expected, according to official data.

 

Exports from China rose by 15.3% and inports rose by 7% compared to last year. This made a surplus of $31bn for the month. Actually they expected only a rise of 12% in exports and a fall of 3% in inports. This is suprisingly, because China's economy is really struggling this year. "The big implication is that imports are much stronger, so no matter what the reason I think it will cool off a bit of the concern about domestic weakness bringing down this activity," he said.

This article is about strategy. It showed that China also can make money with imports, because actually China expected a fall of 3% compared to last, where it actually was 7%. They should make a strategy how they can now keep up this rate, especially in imports. This article is also about globalisation. China delivers all around the world, that's why the exports are always at a good level. They showed that they are reliable, otherwise they wouldn't have such a data. So ethics also playes a role. They made their image come look out good, which could help to keep up this rate.

BP asks court to reconsider ruling

BP asks court to reconsider 'gross negligence' ruling

BP has asked a US court to reconsider its ruling of "gross negligence" over a 2010 oil spill in the golf of Mexiko, which boosted its potential fines to around $18bn.

 This is about the big oil spill in the golf of Mexiko 2010, which was a very big and dangerous case for nature. The golf of Mexiko is still not the sea which it was before 2010. But BP has new evidence, and through this evidence, the oil company said the the case should be amended or the there should be completely new trial. For this incident where 11 workers were killed, the company set already $42bn aside to cover the total cost. BP said in a statement: "Through its motion, BP has asked the District Court to amend its September 4 Order or, in the alternative, to grant a new trial because the Court's findings and conclusions are based substantially on expert witness opinions that the Court appropriately and expressly excluded from evidence at trial. Because those opinions were excluded by the Court, they cannot support key aspects of the Court's findings, which should therefore be set aside. The Court should order a new trial to permit BP to explore the lack of basis for the witness's opinion."

 This is about globalisation, because the golf of Mexiko wasn't just affecting Mexiko, but also the US and Cuba. Also a lot of the oil went also into the atlantic ocean and affected the species which live there. Its also about change, because after the huge catastrophe, nature was affected very badly, which also affected us humans, because fish was poisened through the oil, and big fish companies were fishing there. When they couldn't fish, they had no work, so the government offered them to help out picking the oil out of the sea for money. Also the company had to make changes, e.g. they had to set up new safety intructions, because 11 people died, and they needed to be sure that this will never happen again, and invested a lot of money into new things, but also they had to save money to cover the cost of the catasrtophe. Now it's about strategy, because they will need to come up with a new plan to save huge amounts of money, but still make profit so they could pay the workers and re-invest in new technology, which is for oil companies very important, because it's very rare, expensive and could damage nature very badly.

 

 

Toyota recalls 690,000 trucks in US

Toyota recalls 690,000 Tacoma pickup trucks in US

Toyota is recalling 690,000 Tacoma pickup trucks in the US because of a potential vulnerability in the vehicles' suspension systems.

Toyota said that the pickup at the back could fracture and come loose through stress and corrosion. The loose pickup could then hit the fuel tank which could cause a leak. Even fire could break out. They found the build-up mistake before anyone got injured. But this isn't the first mistake of Toyota in the US. Last march, the US justice Department fined the firm $1.2bn for misleading costumers over safety issues. That was the largest criminal penalty imposed on a car maker in the US.

This is related to our course because it is about ethics, strategy and globalisation. Ethics because it is meant good from Toyota to return the cars to them to check on them so no one will get injured, but the owners of the Toyota's won't be happy about it and think that it's unethical. Also strategy, because Toyota is a big firm which need to focus on their strategy. Through the $1.2bn which they need to pay, they will have a very big loss, because it wasn't planned. Maybe their strategy was it to gain profit to start on a new project next year. In addition to that, is't also about globalisation, because Toyota is spread out all over the world. This is not good for their marketing, which is also all around the world. People in the US might now not buy it as often, so they might need to focus more on Europe or Asia.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29419253

Tesco inquiry into profit forecast

Tesco says it overstated profit forecast by £250m

Tesco says it has overstated it's expected profit for the half year by £250m.

This happened by mistake, but not a bad mistake. Tesco made £250m profit six months earlier than they expected. Early commercial income was the reason as well as not including some costs.

"I expect Tesco to operate with integrity and transparency and we will take decisive action as the results of the investigation become clear," Mr Lewis said.

Tesco would have made £250m profit by 23 August. Now it's expected they have a profit of £1.1bn. by 29 August

This little article is about change. It shows how quicky things can change and by how much. This happends not a lot, but it can happen. Also strategy is important. Their actual strategy was to have have a profit of £250m by 23 August. But they made already so much profit, so their new strategy is to have a profit of £1.1bn. by 29 August.

 

 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29306444

Samsung accuses rival LG of damaging its washing machines

The article I chose is called "Samsung accuses rival LG of damaging its washing machines" and is about two big electronic manufactures, one of which acuses the other. Samsung said that LG employees vandalised Samsung washing machines  in Germany earlier this month (September 2014). LG's response was that this damage was merely an accident. "They said the damage occurred because the model's hinges were weak." LG said they wanted to get more information about rival's goods. Samsung wanted LG to pay for four washing machines although they damaged only two.  The police has already questioned the people involved.

This has something to do with SWOT analysis. Especially with threats, because it is external and it happened in public. Also because one business caused another business problems. This could be a strategy of LG to cause problems for samsung. Maybe LG's strategy was not to get caught, so Samsung thought that their new washing machine was a failure and needed to invest in a new project, which costs money. Or the plan was to get caught to create a sort of distraction.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29198728

BizMan Hw (September 4, 2014)

Nuclear plants offline until winter

Four nuclear reactors were turned off in the UK because of a crack, which was found only in one nuclear reactor. The other three reactors were then turned off because they were from the same design and could have had the same problem. An accident didn't happen, there is only concern about the shortage of the power for the citizens. Now it depends on the reparation for how long the nuclear reactors will be turned off. Sure is, that the UK can't compensate for long, because a quarter of the nuclear reactors are already turned off and will futher be till the winter. The reparation and the checking of the other three nuclear reactors could be ready between end October and end December. During this period of time, EDF Energy said that they want to work on a new timetable. But first they need to see how they want to compensate this incident. EDF Energy said that they are already working on it.

Christopher Fey

 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29058644