Down under - My first trip to Australia

Good morning everybody here in my blog. For my today`s post I have chosen to share with You my first ever travelling experience to Australia. 

During our annual "Global Management Meeting" in November 2018 at our HQ in Herne, Germany, the CFO of the Vulkan Group (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/holding) - meanwhile Sven Oelert has become our CEO -  to whom I report luckily and proudly, invited me to visit our sister companies in South Africa and Australia and to develop a project for strong colaboration between our three "Southern Hemisphere" companies Vulkan Australia (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/holding/vulkan-companies/australia), Vulkan do Brasil (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/holding/vulkan-companies/brazil) and Vulkan South Africa (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/drivetech/vulkan-companies/africa) and for a joint market expansion project with our industrial products on the Australian and African continents. 

This was due to the fact, that Sven liked very much the success which we had shown during the years 2015-2018 with the massive expansion of our industrial sales from Brazil, where we have since several decades become one of the market dominators with our wide portfolio of locally developped and manufactured couplings, brakes and backstops for all kinds of industrial mechanical power transmission applications, like in mining, iron & steel, cement, sugar, pulp & paper, oil & gas and many other industries, to the whole Latin America region including Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and all South America. 

The analogy was even more given, because all our main customer industries like mining, steel, cement, sugar etc. are all definitely present allover the Australian and African continents as well and we clearly saw the opportunity, to enter massively these new market regions for our industrial division Vulkan Drive Tech (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/drivetech) with our proven and highly competitive products and services.

Shortly after my return to Brazil from our Global Management Meeting in Germany I mounted a core team of close colaborators at Vulkan do Brazil, with whom I got immediately started on the brandnew "Vulkan Southern Hemisphere" project. And at the beginning of December 2018 we flew to Johannesburg and Cape Town for presenting ourselfes to our wonderful South African colleagues. We spent just an initial week there and kicked our new project on the African continent off. Many further trips and joint activities to South Africa and many other African countries would follow during 2019.

Once back to Brazil, we changed our suitcases, finished some preparations and left again for Guarulhos, Sao Paulo International Airport - this time on the way to Sydney, Australia.

I can tell You with all my respect, that travelling from Sao Paulo to Sydney is a real challenge. For flight cost reasons we decided, to fly from Sao Paulo to Dubai and to continue from there to Sydney. Door (of our houses in Sao Paulo) to door (our hotel in Sydney) this took us about 40 uninterrupted hours of travelling time. 

We have optimized this in the meantime and choose flights via Santiago, Chile, to Auckland, New Zealand, and from there to Sydney, which take us "only" a little more than thirty hours of travelling and I can tell You, that this already makes quite a big difference for You as traveller. Even more, when You are travelling in economy class. But You know - hard men & women, hard live......

I did these initial visits to our colleagues in South Africa and Australia together with my close colaborator and friend Marco Santos, HR & Special Projects Director of Vulkan do Brasil, and a colleague from our brazilian financial controlling department. The reception by our colleagues in bouth countries was overwhelming. We made great friends there immediately and started quickly to design our first joint "war plans". I think that what had broken the initial, natural "ice" between us, was the fact that I had explained to our colleagues at Vulkan Australia and at Vulkan South Africa upon our first meetings, that we Brazilians had not come there as "invasors" or with any "master" approach, but as "brothers in arms" and that our intention was, to work closely and trustfully together with them - and learn from them!

For me Sydney at the first glance was a very beautiful, exciting, lifely and very international place. Lots of young Brazilians earning money there in all kinds of service jobs. And for sure - many Asian, especially Chinese, people living there and doing all kinds of business. 

The Australians have a very easy going live style and - no matter from where You get there - You as a stranger will hardly find difficulties to get welcomed there in an extremely friendly manner. Australia - not only weather wise - can truly be called the sunshine country.

But I must admit, that until today I have serious problems with the adaptation of my inner clock to the time difference of +13 hours when travelling there from Sao Paulo. In the early afternoon I feel extremely exhausted and want to sleep, but when the Australian night comes, I am fully awake and don`t find easy means to sleep. And even then I still can`t sleep there normally more than very few hours. Thus during all my travels there I have been sleeping very little, which "kills" You after a couple of days. There has been no other travelling destination around the globe so far for me, where I have encountered similiar difficulties to adapt.  

Stephen Samson (stephen.samson@vulkan.com; +61 477 018 277), Managing Director of Vulkan Australia (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/holding/vulkan-companies/australia) and his wonderful team of colaborators gave us a warm welcome and introduced us to their business and to the economy and industry in Australia in general. 

Even for us coming from the huge country Brazil it was impressive to see the size of the Australian continent and to understand the travelling distances between the major cities and regions, where the different businesses and industries are concentrated.

Although we were only scheduled for staying at Sydney for one week, Stephen and his team members managed to give us not only a deep look into their company, business and into the general market situation in Australia, but also allowed us to enjoy a little our first stay in beautiful Sydney and the coastal region, where our local subsidiary is located. For sure we went out for dinner at night in Darling Harbour, walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, visited the Opera House und went up to the Sydney Tower Eye. 

For me as quite active global German associations networker it was a must, to visit the German-Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (https://australien.ahk.de/en/) in Sydney, where I started my wonderful friendship with Jürgen Wallstabe, Manager Competence Centre for Mining & Resources. And for sure we - means Vulkan Australia - directly joined the AHK Australia as a new member company. Since then Stephen participates actively there, mainly in the activities of the AHK`s Competence Centre for Mining & Resources, which are extremely interesting for us as a mining industry supplier company.

This is more or less, how we got started on our "Vulkan Southern Hemisphere Initiative" project in Australia shortly before years end 2018. And since then, this project has developped strongly. In some of my future posts, I will give You more insights and I will also share some interesting experiences and learnings with You. 

As a music title expressing quite nicely the dynamic of our unpatient desire, to visit immediately one after the other our sister companies in South Africa and Australia, still shortly before X-mas 2018, here one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs, actually this was their debut single released in June 1963:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCUxr-nyx5Q

Thanks for accompanying me during my today`s post. I wish You a wonderful day full with success. See You back here again tomorrow.