Business Management visits - GSO

Business Management visits

February 28th and March 6th, 2018

Since the beginning of the school year, we’ve been studying the world of businesses through our Business Management class. During classes, we learned a lot of things about the world of business: what is a business, how to set up a new one, the language of business, the role of enterprises in society, the impact of globalisation on businesses, the different legal structures and much more.

Our teacher Sara Casagrande, decided to make the experience more interesting and fun by taking us to visit two companies – Quadrifoglio S.p.A. and Diesel-Line Srl. We felt really excited and happy about going there, since this was going to be the first visit of the year. This experience helped us to better understand how companies work.

Thanks to our Business Management class, it was easier to understand some technical terms, the legal structure of the businesses we visited, the different marketing strategies of each firm, and each company policy. We realised that we must apply these concepts in the world of business, which also motivates us to keep studying and contributing more with our ideas during our classes.

Both of the CEOs were very friendly and kind and helped us clear all the doubts we had about their firms and even about the world of business in general.

Quadrifoglio S.p.A.

Having already done some prior research on the business, we were able to easily grasp the work of the company and understand how an actual company operates. During our visit, it was such a privilege to be accompanied on a tour around the manufacturing site and office by the CEO himself, Mr Alessandro Cia.

Inside the factory, above the surface of 25.000 sqm and located in one of the most productive areas of furniture manufacturing in Europe, Oderzo, the Quadrifoglio Groupconsists of cutting-edge robots and technology, which are entirely automated. Such procedures diminish human labour to the least possible rate. As a public limited company, the Quadrifoglio Group has adequate capacity to host enormous production line and also tremendous distribution, in particular in sixty countries within almost all continents.

The Quadrifoglio Group consists of four brands: Quadrifoglio, Officity, Offisit, Karboxxand Nyx by Karboxx. The Quadrifoglio brand produces moderate-price furnitures; Officity makes prestigious office environment via exclusive designs; Offisit manufactures seats, such as sofas, chairs, etc;  Karboxx focuses on producing lights, lamps and their renovation; Nyx by Karboxx produces special-design lights and develops their technology, including acoustic panels.

During the visit we noticed that the company is expanding, as a new building is under construction for new offices, which, thereby, improves the condition of company workplace and this may motivate their employees.

The vision of the Quadrifoglio Group is annually changed. “Every day with you” is the current vision of the company, which leads to the mission: “We manufacture office furniture, seating, lighting and accessories for the wellbeing of those in the workplace environment. We are design, flexibility, functionality, quality and environmentally friendly”.

The ethical code of the company is considerably respectable due to its recognition from many qualification institutes. The company is strongly committed to sustainability. Quality, respect, natural environment, security and ethics are approached by the company.

Diesel-Line Srl

March 6th, 2018 – Another visit to a business called Diesel-Line, that re-manufactures and manufactures engine components.

When we first arrived at Diesel-Line Company, which is a green-line factory, one of the 3 owners, Mr Zecchinello, welcomed us as he brought us to his meeting room in order to talk about his family company, founded by his father in 1964. Diesel-Line is one of the most important family companies of engine components in Europe. It exports its products all over Europe, but mainly Germany.

It is now expanding its massive machines production (agricultural sector) from the “taking care” point of view. A year ago it started to adopt the Lean Manufacturing System, which tends to minimise the waste of products. The Lean Manufacturing is a Japanese systemthat allows companies to constantly grow.

One of their major efforts is the fact that they try their best to offer the highest quality at the lowest price, as Mr. Zecchinello says:

Time is money and to be a great and competitive company, it’s necessary to be balanced.

An intriguing comparison was done by Mr. Zecchinello, who compared his job to the job of a doctor: when the products arrive to his factory, they are mostly damaged and his employees need to understand and decipher what happened and how to deal with it. If they go wrong while trying to repair the machinery, they waste time and money, as doctors do (of course doctors won’t lose money, but a life, which is worse).

Diesel-Line is often invited to the most important exhibitions of manufactured injectors such as the exhibitions in Netherlands. They are also trying to have contacts with China and Asia in general, because they want to learn new ways of manufacturing and to discover new injectors.

Having a subject like Business Management opened us the doors of the business sector. With these experiences, we greatly improved our knowledge: even though learning inside the classroom is a great tool, we can still learn much more by visiting and being in contact with the real world of business.

These two visits gave us motivation: we want to keep on learning more about how companies work. Until the end of the IB DP, we will continue visiting more companies with our Business Management teacher, and this will keep enriching our knowledge.

Below are the opinions of us students, after being enriched by these visits.

This is a great way of learning, we enjoyed it a lot and we had fun doing it!

Natalia

I immensely enjoyed the visits to both companies as they offered me opportunities to further understand how a real company operates.

Sithis

I really enjoyed the visit to Quadrifoglio, the CEO is such a generous and easygoing person. I hope to have the opportunity to meet him again and maybe be one of his business partner in the future.

Oliveira

The world of business is tougher than it seems, but ideas, hard work and strategy is all you need.

Farah

I had fun and I am very proud of my father’s job (Mr. Zecchinello).

Sara

I think these experiences helped us understand how the world is working nowadays, it was very interesting and we all enjoyed it.

Elisabetta

I hope this experience has given the kids the curiosity to know how things work. As an IB school, we want to encourage a holistic view of the world of business and to empower students to critically and strategically think about individual and organisational behaviour.

Ms. Sara Casagrande, Business Management teacher

Elisabetta Casonato, Sara Zecchinello, Farah Minwalla, Sithis Yimsamnang, Oliveira Martaona, Natalia Babarczy

GSO students