Day 5 - AutoAdapt and AB Volvo

Today was one of the most educational days of my college career; I sincerely believe that I learned more in this one day than in an entire semester of Intro to Business.


We started the day at AutoAdapt, which is owned by Bruno (a company we analyzed and visited prior to coming overseas). AutoAdapt develops and manufactures car adaptation equipment to meet the needs of the physically handicapped, and has a highly international presence. It was started 20 years ago with 5 employees in a home garage, and today has evolve to a multi-million dollar international company. One common theme of the entire visit was the amount of respect and hospitality we received; AutoAdapt arranged and paid for a private bus to transport us there and back, provided us with and excellent lunch, gave us a tour, and most significantly gave us a private meeting with both the CEO of the company and the vice president of marketing and sales. We were never treated like college students; everyone spoke to us as if we were professionals and colleagues.

We also ate lunch with the VP of Marketing and Sales, Peter Wahlsten. Wahlsten's heavily involvement in the international aspect of AutoAdapt gave him great insight into international business and foreign cultures.  He gave us examples from his past about some of the challenges he has overcome, and taught us a lot about the obstacles for trading internationally. I learned about inter-Scandinavian business, what its like to trade with Russia, proper customs in Japan, the cons of traveling to Germany, the economy of China, the and the subcultures within Sweden.  He was both extremely friendly and extremely proficient and capable, and I feel very privileged to have eaten lunch with him.


After that, we moved to a much larger company, AB Volvo. It is important to note that this is a separate company from Volvo Cars, which is not owned by AB Volvo, but rather the Chinese holding group Geely. AB Volvo makes commercial trucks (and owns Mack Trucks, Renault Trucks, Nissan Trucks, and Volvo Trucks), buses, construction equipment, leisure boat engines and industrial engines through Volvo Penta, and aerospace components.  It is a huge company (much larger than Volvo Cars), and had roughly $32.5 billion in revenue for 2009, and employs over 90,000 people worldwide. At AB Volvo, we were given a brief history of the company, and overview of the current world economy (with emphasis on its impact on AB Volvo and with anticipated future conditions.  They described current challenges facing Volvo, and Volvo's competitive advantages, and I asked how they share and maintain their brand image with Volvo cars. While the presenter admitted someone from marketing would know better, she explained how the Volvo Holding Group owns the brand and helps market and maintain it.  Although we played with the semi-trucks and heavy construction equipment in the display room, we were still treated strictly like professionals.  I could get used to that.