Shanghai

Shanghai Thursday April, 9th 2015

On Thursday April, 9th we went to the Shanghai Office of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). CIMA prepares people for a career in business. It teaches skills for strategic advice, managing risk and making key decisions with a focus on management accounting.

We listened to a presentation by Celine Ji about the origins of the company and the certification and about the opportunities a CIMA certification can provide. CIMA is generally recognized in the anglo-american countries and growing in the rest of the world.

CIMA provides tuition, online courses and even self study options are available to learn at one's own pace and the exams are available online for additional flexibility.

The CIMA offers diplomas complementing  each other. Firstly, there's the  CIMA Diploma in Management Accounting for the operational level. Next is the CIMA Advanced Diploma in Management Accounting which covers the management level. Lastly there are courses to develop  the strategic level.

For most participants of the excursions it surely was an interesting presentation, that showed a different path that is available after the I-BWL studies.

After our company visit to CIMA and a short lunch break, we drove by bus to the Chinese office of KUKA Robotics.

KUKA Robotics is one of the leading manufacturers of robotic systems worldwide. KUKA offers a unique and wide range of industrial robots and robot systems, covering all common payload categories and robot types.

KUKA Robotics offers a wide product range including clean room robots, welding robots, heat-resistant robots and high-accuracy robots. Every robot is customized and built up for the customer's special needs.

We had the great opportunity to visit not only the impressive showroom, as well as the production facility in Shanghai.

After visiting CIMA and KUKA Robotics some of us went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. A smaller group (Nils, Eva and Viktoria) visited the Metropark in Shanghai because they had a huge shopping list for electronic articles. The visit was a little bit disappointing because they found out, that all Chinese sellers did not know Chinese products except for Huawei.

It was very surprising because Nils had informed himself well in advance and had pictures and technical details on his list but they had no success and had to go back to the hotel.

Shanghai Friday April, 10th 2015

On Friday April, 10th we went to Sanofi Shanghai. It is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Shanghai and also in China.

First we got a short overview of the whole history of Sanofi itself. It is a big company with a lot of sites all over the world.  We could also take a look at the products Sanofi produces in Shanghai for the Chinese population.

We learned a lot about Chinese people,  for example how their eating habits are changing, and the  diseases they are getting more and more often. A bigger theme was the medical care in China. They don't have that many hospitals as we do and the medics aren't as good as they should be.

It was a really interesting day, because we got unforgettable impressions of China, the medical care and the increased significance of pharmaceutical companies in China.

We had to fly to our next stop Hong Kong early the next morning, so we decided to stay in the hotel, celebrating a nice birthday dinner with Viktoria. The dinner was great, after having eaten Chinese food every day, it was necessary to eat something you can recognise at first glance.

After that we enjoyed the wellness facilities of the hotel. We were swimming in the huge pool with a plexiglass wall giving excellent views of the city below and enjoyed the sauna and whirlpool. It was also great to do just nothing because the whole day was very exhausting and impressive. So we felt tired but looked forward to recovering in bed.