A group of MBA students from the Paderborn School of Business, FHDW Germany, visited the Indian School of Business (ISB) as part of a study tour titled ‘India Excursion’. They were accompanied by Professor Udo Dierk, Head of the International Centre for Management Learning, Paderborn School of Business.

The group was a combination of students with work experience in varied sectors - Sales Managers, IT Managers, Project Leaders, Quality Improvers, Human Resource Managers, Controllers, etc., were all a part of this group. While at the ISB they visited different software firms and rural markets to get a first hand knowledge about the Indian business environment. This was supplemented with lecture sessions by the ISB faculty on topics like, trends in the Indian manufacturing industry, doing business in India, and the impact of global financial meltdown on India. A panel discussion and presentations by students were some other features of this study tour.

Participant Kira Berges shared that she used the opportunity to, “See for myself how fast these economies have grown in the last few years.” Ulf Morfeld noted something particular, about the session on Indian manufacturing, “According to most of us, manufacturing is producing goods etc. Here we got to know India, as the service provider for the world, and the fact that most high-skilled and educated people come from within India itself. This was interesting,” he said.

Carsten Borchert gave an idea of his ‘India experience’. “In Germany everything seems to have a sense of order , and here everything is a big chaos. But what caught my attention was the presence of an inbuilt order amidst this chaos,” he said. His colleague Heike Benik added, “The ISB gave us a complete and balanced picture of the country. The students here are very balanced and open minded, and it is the same for India.”

Professor Udo Dierk, for whom this is the second time at the ISB, remarked that this time around he experienced the striking contrast between the corporate world and the world we see on the streets. “People are proud to work for their companies. They want to take their companies forward, and also their country. And all this is without any political impact. India does not want to become the number one as a state or dominate the world, as is evident in a country like China,” he said.

The tour was facilitated by the Co-Curricular Activities (CCA) at the ISB, and is the eighth successful study tour organised by CCA for this academic year.