Shanghai – Bosch, GE, Abbott Dinner

After a well-needed good night’s rest, we headed out for our second business professional day of corporate visits. After a great breakfast in the hotel, our first stop was Bosch United Automotive Electronic Systems (UAES), a subsidiary of Bosch with operations in China. We sat in a really neat meeting room – it was an interesting cross between western interior amenities and eastern architecture. The presenters shared their experiences as expats from Germany as well as some fundamental information about Bosch worldwide. Afterwards we got a tour of the factory and saw a lot of the automobile testing the facility conducts for other parts of Bosch worldwide, followed by a quick lunch near our next stop.

After lunch our next visit was to General Electric’s China Technology Center (CTC). My group was responsible for briefing/debriefing and presenting gifts to our hosts. As a result of our research we learned that GE China has ties to University of Illinois via Dr. Xiangli Chen, the president of the facility (and an alumnus of Illinois). Dr. Chen and his PR specialist Nancy again emphasized the importance of localization when conducting business in China and how GE is moving towards actually producing products it plans to sell to the Chinese market in China, a part of its “In China, For China” effort. Following the presentation we participated in a brief tour of the lobby while hearing more about GE China’s contributions to the conglomerate’s advances in energy around the world.

For dinner we watched a brief presentation from representatives of Abbott Laboratories in China, after which we each had the opportunity to sit in a group with a professional from the company. My table ate with the controller, a native of Hong Kong who had experience with financial operations all over eastern Asia. We discussed on a more informal level what it is like to have a management role in such a dynamic environment (he mentioned that he had been to the United States and Europe multiple times on business). Despite his professional success, he was one of the most approachable people I’ve met while on the trip which was both impressive and motivating for all of the students present.