Tuesday July 16, 2009 the Wal-Marts / D & S Visit, Allowed a unique insight into an ongoing International market entry strategy, Wal-Marts joint venture with local D & S is Less than a year old and we were given the opportunity hear from the C.F.O. of retail, Corporate Affairs Officer and the Director of Human Resources on the status of the merger. All three gentlemen provided a generous amount of time and information for the Students and answered a variety of questions. A video kicked off the presentation that was created specifically for the Wal-Mart corporate meeting, with the primary mission of introducing D & S to the Wal-Mart organization.

Dances with Chileans

Our MBA cohorts were happy to take part in the Cueca (National Dance of Chile), while dining on a traditional Chilean meal at Los Buenos Muchachos Restaurant in Santiago.

We are pleased to showcase a few of our star performers (via video) in this blog: Anthony, Alfred and Hai dancing the Cueca, and Linda grooving to the Easter Island native rhythm.

All of the other cohorts hit the dance floor at some point during this interactive event! ¡olé!

TATA Consultancy Services Visit

Team Five led the way to our site visit at TATA Consultancy Services in Santiago. Chile Operations Manager, Mr. Sahoo, gave us great insight into this India IT company, which services over 900 Fortune 500 companies.

TCS provides a full range of consulting, BPO (Business Processing Outsourcing), and IT services in Chile and maintains a large Global BPO Services Center with over 1500 personnel, who provide services to over 100 banking, financial, retail, manufacturing and government enterprises in the country.

Mr. Sahoo covered all topics ranging from their 6500 employees in South America (1500 are located in Chile, where 90% are Chilean) to cost of operations and their Global Network Delivery Model. The largest cultural challenge TATA faces is language. Speaking the English language is a prerequisite to employment at TATA.

TCS established operations in Chile in 2002, acquiring one of Chile’s leading business process outsourcing (BPO) firms in 2005 to emerge as a leading technology and business services player in the country.

Sunday Mass

A contingency of MBA students participated in the Sunday Evening Roman Catholic Mass at Parroquia de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles in Santiago, Chile.

Chile Presidential Palace

Palacio de La Moneda is the seat of the President of the Republic of Chile. It also houses the offices of three cabinet ministers: Interior, General Secretariat of the Presidency and General Secretariat of the Government. It occupies an entire block in downtown Santiago, in the area known as Civic District.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Visit

We spent an interesting couple hours with PwC on Monday! The meeting started with a detailed background of Chilean tax structure followed by a broader discussion of PwC's Chilean operations and Chilean business climate. Our gracious hosts, Mr. Julio Pereira and Mr. Colin Becker, offered tremendous insight. Similar to the AmCham visit earlier in the day, there was no shortage of excellent questions from the class; we could have easily spent another hour with our hosts.

There were a number of important points from the visit. First, the advantage that PwC enjoys having a wide variety of services under one roof…legal, M&A, accounting, tax, etc. The other big accounting firms have a presence in Chile, but none with the breadth of service that PwC offers. Additionally, we got a feel for how slight nuances in tax code and other business regulations have a profound impact on business in Chile. Finally, we saw how a foreign operation often involves a variety of international resources and human capital to service clients in-country and abroad. PwC Chile employs local talent in addition to American expats and other nationalities.

Overall, it was a wondeful visit that provided a wealth of information and context for our later visits.

Cheers!
Team 2: Mary, Xiao, Steve R.

A Day in Santiago

For our day in Santiago, a small group headed out on lots of adventures to enjoy the day. Steve R, Ann, Jim Slurf and I made our way for a walk through Santiago.  We were joined by the two dogs that follow Jim S everywhere [especially after buying them dog biscuits!] and winded our way through several beautiful parks and neigborhoods and found a boutique jewelry store filled with lapis.  After a few purchases, we made our way to the Museo Bellas Artes, just about a 3 mile walk.  The sculptures and variations on art-photos, videos and paintings was impressive. Wait until you see the brilliant print Steve purchased! Onward to the Mercardo Central, the amazing fish market we passed earlier in the week. You name the fish, one of the vendors has it! After completing one pass and checking things out, we decided to grab a bite at Donde Augusto, the best place to view the entire market, all of the frenzy and all of the people.  The restaurant actually circles the majority of the central market. Great food, reliving some of the best moments of this incredible experience, we decided on one more adventure, taking the subway back! It is remarkably clean and efficient and a perfect way to travel the city.  Hope everyone had just as much fun as we did! 

Alfred Arrives

Alfred arrives bleary eyed, but better late than never as the saying goes. Although his luggage was running a little behind he is seen here ready to go into TATA, sporting fashions from A-Mac designs a new company exploring market entry opportunities in Chile

Team 6 - SQM

SQM is a mining company that is a world leader in Specialty Plant Nutrition (fertilizer), Iodine, and Lithium. Myself, along with Steve Croke, Stacy Fantauzzi, Jim Jednak, and Yayi Wei had the privilege of leading the group in welcoming SQM's CEO and President, Mr. Patricio Contesse.

Since their mines are over 1000 miles away, a site visit was out of the question, so Mr. Contesse stopped by our hotel for a two-hour discussion about his operation. All of SQM's products extracted from the mines and salt deposits are environmentally safe, as well as all of their waste products. This is unheard of in any other industry.

As with all the other speakers this week, Mr. Contesse was more than willing to talk about his company and field many of our questions. He is very proud of the company, and is not shy about expressing this. In Mr. Contesse's words, "This company is fantastic".

Team 6 - SQM (Mining Company) visit