A Company Visit to Henkel
Our MBA is now going into the fifth month of the programme, when the core modules are almost complete and the summer seems to be approaching rapidly.
The last weeks have been packed with courses, exams, extracurricular workshops and other events and of course preparation for the rowing competition I have mentioned previously.
Thus I have many great stories to share, but I will focus on a company visit to Henkel headquarters in Düsseldorf which took place recently.
We were welcomed by Bertrand Conquéret, Head of Global Purchasing at Henkel, and his entire leadership team. The day was planned down to the last detail to offer the greatest insight into the organisation from a purchasing perspective. This included an introductory presentation about the challenges facing Henkel purchasing, listening in on a live global purchasing conference call, hearing one of our predecessors present his thesis on the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility in Supply Management, a plant tour and a presentation by human resources about career opportunities at Henkel.
I was delighted to see the extent of international representation in the purchasing team which had a truly global vibe. Furthermore, it was inspiring to observe people doing their everyday jobs which we as MBA students might aspire to in the future, and to have the opportunity to learn from their experience.
Mr. Conquéret shared some stories with us from his personal background. I want to pass on some of this advice to all of the readers of this blog. The key takeaways for me were that a management team should be rotated after some years to keep people focused and to always draw from a fresh perspective but also to give other people a chance to prove themselves and to create greater synergies across departments in a large organisation.
On a more personal note: you have to work hard always, never take a job for granted, have a vision and know what you want to achieve but remain humble. Nobody needs someone with a “big head” who thinks they are more valuable than the rest.
