Day 10: Wednesday the 21st We split-up the final slide preparation process. I built the main presentation, Garrett took the lead on the direct internet booking model. Doug made several slide on bundling. We frantically work all morning and declined a presentation to Professor Chan just before lunch and deferred it to after lunch. We [...]
First Public Presentation of Our Findings and Recommendations
Day 9: All work and no play
Day 9: Tuesday the 20th Where did the day go? I spent the entire day analyzing data and making the actual first presentation. This presentation barely followed the outline that was presented the day before because the data was showing a much more clear direction. I switched frequently between the spreadsheet and the presentation, trying [...]
All work: Two steps forward, one back
Day 8: Monday the 19th Today was when we first started our presentation construction. Garrett came up with an outline and I included some of the data (in table format) from the detailed financial spreadsheet that was built the previous day. We were asked to present what we had so far to Professor Lyles. It [...]
Day 7: The Vision has begun
Today I felt like we really came together as a team. We met for a late breakfast to start our day (it is the weekend after all). We discussed our strategy for the day. We weren’t deciding which pricing strategy to follow, we were working together to determine the best meeting location for our team. [...]
Day 16: Slowing down, the end is near
Today was a bit anti-climactic. It was even more apparent that a team member was missing since we had more free time to hang-out with one another. It was the first morning since the morning after I arrived in China that I was able to sleep in. the group meet in the lobby at 11:00 [...]
Day 6: Initial progress is made
Today has been much more productive than yesterday. The day started off with long meetings and no specific answers. However, the team was able to meet individually with the finance manager and we were able to get some detailed year-end financial data, at least as much as is available. The accounting leaves much to be [...]
Day 5: Hotel Consulting Begins
Today was a very long and frustrating day for all 5 of the team members. We were asked to formulate a plan for addressing pricing strategies before we left and a very vague plan was included in our pre-trip report. It would have been unproductive to devote any more effort to that plan because everything [...]
Day 4: Sightseeing in Dalian
Today was largely uneventful. I was 20 minutes late to breakfast because I couldn’t figure out how to work the alarm clock. Actually, there isn’t an alarm clock at all in the room, just a sophisticated lighting controller with a time display. I set the alarm on my Palm but that didn’t wake me from [...]
Day 3: Dalian
Garrett and I flew into Dalian today from Beijing. The flight was no problem as everything was both written and spoken in English. The small amount of warm Sprite in a small paper cup was the only unsurprising detail. When we entered the 21st Century Hotel, I was struck by how elegant it was, much [...]
Night 2: Only in China. . .
Only in China can two engineers walk into a bar and be the center of attention for all of the females. Two engineers walking into a bar is usually the opening line of a joke. There are two possibilities here. One, engineers are completely irresistible. Or two, there are a very large number of “working [...]