Travels to the Land of Productivity - USA Trip

In September, the FIA Executive MBA travelled to the USA for a week of classes and company visits. One of the striking observations for our team from Brazil is the high level of labor productivity in so many of the service and manufacturing industries in the USA. With a per capita economic output more than 5 times higher than Brazil´s, the classes and the company visits showed many different approaches and opportunities for accelerating productivity and economic growth in Brazil. 

At Jack Daniel´s, we saw a fairly simple production process, making a delicious beverage with high added value. Great marketing, and a lot of high technology presented as very traditional bourbon production methods come together to generate substantial profits and growth for the parent company, Brown-Forman, exporting half of its production as one of the top five premium brands of whiskey worldwide. Nissan automobiles, with a highly automated production system operates one of the most productive auto plants in the World, in Smyrna, Tennessee, where we visited and discussed international quality standards. At the FEDEX global hub, in Memphis, we saw how more than 2 million packages are routed to their final destinations as 120 planes offload then fly again only 3 hours later,  to their final destination. An amazingly effective service operation the connects people and businesses all over the world every single day. 

How is such productivity achieved? The classes at Vanderbilt on Innovation, Strategy and Decision Making, Managing Risk presented techniques, approaches and methods to create value, while classes on Leading Teams, Coaching and Managing Change brought lessons for our executives on how to get the best results from the most important asset the people who work and manage the corporations.

All this in the beautiful setting of the Vanderbilt campus, where the Owen Graduate School of Management brings together experienced students,  great professors, and an opportunity for free exchange of ideas, in one of the most productive research universities of the USA. In all, a very worthwhile experience. 

Prof. James Wright

See some photos:

Trip to USA - International Executive MBA Group

Our International Executive MBA group together with some other FIA students headed to the US for one of the international modules last September. Owen Graduate School of Management – Vanderbilt University, hosted us for a whole week of organized lectures and activities. Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Strategy, Decision Making and Managing Change were some of the class topics that were held during our stay. 

We also enjoyed several visits to outstanding companies. FEDEX innovated by creating the overnight delivery industry, and we visited their super hub in Memphis from 11:00 pm to 2:00 am, when hundreds of airplanes converge from all over the world with cargo and correspondence which is delivered by 10:30 am the next day. An intense and superbly managed operation does this incredible task in a short period with wonderful precision.

At Nissan, we toured the most productive car factory in the USA, where Japanese techniques meet American workers and robots help productivity and quality. Production is being set up at the Smirna plant which we visited for the all-electric Nissan Leaf, as well as battery manufacture, while producing some of the bestselling traditional Nissan cars on the Market.

Jack Daniels was also a great visit! In this small town near Nashville, the world’s 5^th largest selling whiskey brand is produced integrating the most traditional production systems in the US with modern marketing techniques that make the Tennessee whiskey a global success for generations.

And as we were in Nashville, the opportunity to visit country music clubs and venues like BB Kings was an obligatory part of the experience!

Great classes, exceptional companies and a good time were had by all.

Learn about Vanderbilt our long term partner in this and many other initiatives in both research, student exchange and teaching, with the Owen Graduation School of Management:  

For the past 25 years, the Vanderbilt Executive MBA has remained one of the premier, full 60-credit MBA options for busy executives. Consistently ranked in the top 25 in Business Week’s poll of Executive MBA programs, Vanderbilt’s EMBA program is proven to help mid-career managers, executives, and business owners achieve their personal and organizational goals.

All of their programs at the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management come with a promise to students:

“Here is a place where you will be challenged to achieve your potential; find support as you shape your future; discover lifelong friends and mentors; and open doors to new possibilities.”

Josué Gomes da Silva, president of Coteminas

Internationalization Strategy of Coteminas
quarta-feira, 5 de maio, 2010 Notícias Ivana

Josué Gomes da Silva, president of Coteminas presented the sucess story of Coteminas in their domestic growth and internationalization drive into global markets.

Josué Gomes, who obteined this MBA at Vanderbilt University, told a joint group of FIA and Vanderbilt students how he led Coteminas from being a local company in a market challenged by cheap chinese imports to being a global player.

Investing in technology, increasing efficiency, agressively merging with its major U.S competitors and reducing costs, Coteminas was transformed into Springs Global to become an international powerhouse, with 25.000 employees and globally recognized brands in bath towels and bed linen, with ower 3.5 billion reais of assets.

In this presentation Josué Gomes impressed all the participants with his knowledge of business strategy and the fundamental importance of financial management methods applied to his strategic decision process, which he attibuted in great part to his strong MBA education.