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I have spent 6 weeks in Russia, my mother country, with numerous exciting experiences. Establishing of contacts, refreshing of my mother tongue and living as well as working in a different culture were issues that enlarged my job-related and personal skills.

I study Business Administration dually since August 2008 with focus on logistics newly. As I have decided to center myself on this topic, I am fortunate to spend my work stages in the HX Procurement.

In the frame of my fifth practical term I went abroad to the GEA-House in Moscow with several aims that resulted from our Procurement Department. During my 6-week stay I had the possibility to get to know five GEA companies that represent each of our Segments and are located in one building. At one of these companies, the GEA Grasso Refrigeration OOO (RT Segment), I had a workplace from where I accomplished my tasks. One task was to get to know the Russian meaning of logistics that was possible trough discussions with numerous internal logistics and procurement experts. The most deciding thing I learned thereby is the characteristic of the Russians duty. Even if Moscow belongs to the European part of Russia, the customs rules are far from the European ones. There are lots of legislations that complicate a logistician’s working life - that is why one should have steady nerves when dealing with cross-border transportations in Russia. Unfortunately this is one reason why many companies, in particular German, work reluctantly with Russian suppliers or customers.

In the context of these interviews I also got an idea of the commodity flows in the in- and outbound area at the GEA-companies in Moscow. The logistics topic is a complicated issue in Russia on which one has to work from the point of view of many logisticians. With the backup of some colleagues we constituted a first database, to see which possibilities there are to bundle or to manage the transportations more economically.

Furthermore I have supported the work on indirect spend categories in the context of the “National Procurement Cooperation Initiative” (NPCI). The simple goal of the initiative is to generate savings at country level by bundling purchases, e.g. for cellular mobile telephony or flight supplier. Within the six weeks we managed to arrange three meetings in whose frames we filtered relevant spend categories, placed responsibilities and started tenders.

Furthermore I tried to get in touch with Russian suppliers to find out how to business with them the best. The conclusion is that one need a specialist, who has the well-founded knowledge of the needed products as well as the technical terms and engages himself exclusively with a supplier analysis for a long term. Some weeks are unfortunately not enough to create suitable results.

As economy in Russia grows constantly, it is the matter of a vast potential market. I am sure that the information base, I created, will be a grate back up for us in the case of spreading HX activities towards the East.

My time abroad was a huge experience in many respects that enriched my personal and job-related skills. Although, I was born in Russia I adopted the German culture over the course of the years. Going back to my mother country gave me the opportunity to rediscover a lot of aspects related to the Russian culture. While I can say that I felt at home in many regards, especially in the private respect, I also realized that by now Germany has become my home country.

Tatjana Afeld