This blog is part of the original booklet of the International Business Tour 2012 – Saint Petersburg, 19 – 25 May 2012
IBT 2012 – MONDAY
The first official day on the International Business Tour (IBT) 2012. Ambitious as we are, we start the day early at 7.30 am at the TPM faculty. Since everybody was sharp on time, we could all wait together for the bus to come half an hour late. Our bus driver Dirk (one of the best in its category) drove as efficient as possible in the first traffic jam of the day. But die to “Gas op die lolly” this could not lower our spirits.
An hour later than scheduled we arrived at Improvia (“The best employer of Noord-Brabant”) in Nieuwegein. A young company founded in 2006, with a rich history. After an initial presentation about the company we started working on desgning the future ship lock in Friesland. The IBT Group got divided into architects, concrete lovers, electricity geeks, lock specialists and system pioneers. Trying to find consensus between the different stakeholders led to fierce negotiations, under estimations and extreme safety margins. Also, since Improvia just moved into a new office Maxim felt he needed to check the building quality. After he started dancing on the radiator and Bas fixed the mess Maxim created with Duck tape, we needed to conclude that the building was not finished yet.
Next stop KPMG in Amstelveen the consultants and recruiters of KPMG wanted to test us on our soft skills. They started with a futuristic movie from KPMG, than one thing led to another and people were rapping, acting, roleplaying, pitching and solving riddles. The second round was all about motivating the worried and deadline approaching team. After some motivational ass kicking by the managers it was time for drinks. A few beers, snacks and two KPMG presentations later, we said our goodbyes and once again stepped back in Dirks bus.
The group would have a dinner speech at the office of DHV in Den Haag. DHV is a big technical consultant who is about to be merged with Royal Haskoning. We got to know about the typical challenges DHV faced through the example of the logistical improvement of a part of the Dutch road network. Then, over Domino’s pizza we listened to a presentation about the non-corrupt and non-hard drinking Russians and we were brought up-to-date with the Russian culture. We now know that Poetin sells!
After a short lock in situation at DHV by the elevators it was once again “Gas op die lolly” to our “Van Gogh hostel” in Amsterdam. The evening started with a few vodka shots and a small detour to “The Groene Vlinder”, where we tackled a couple last rounds before going to café Mazzeltof.
Armand Hersback, Timo van Dam, Wref Knaldi
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