Guten Tag! Today was our last company visit and it was our biggest one yet, Audi! Audi is headquartered in Ingolstadt, which is about an hour away from Augsburg. The Audi Headquarters is so huge in fact, that as we found out on our tour later, that it is roughly the size of Monaco, which is 0.78 squared miles (Audi’s Headquarters is 0.77). Needless to say, I only saw a fraction of the headquarters today.

We had quite a bit of time devoted to Audi because we would have to take the tour in two different time slots (our group was too big, causing safety concerns). My group started in the on-site museum, which featured Audi’s entire history and real samples are cars that were produced during the time period. It was gave a simplified version of the technology that made it easier to understand how those cars worked.

Lieder, we could not take any pictures of the tour yet again. Audi was so strict about this, that they had lockers to put our phones and bags in! Audi’s factory was gigantic and the tour guide took us through each step of the process. We got to see cars being assembled in real time, which really helped with understanding how everything fits together. After my group had it’s tour, the other group reunited with us as we went to a speaker from Audi.

The speaker, who actually is an alum from the University of Augsburg, went over with us a recap of the changing market and discusses strategies that Audi was pursuing to be able to properly react to it. Naturally, I can’t share any of that on this blog, but I will say that these strategies made sense and were clearly very well thought out. Furthermore, the speaker presented them in a clear way, which also strengthened the presentation. After the speaker concluded, we had lunch at Audi’s public cafeteria, where I found out that Germans called brownies “small chocolate cakes”, because that’s not confusing in the slightest.

Overall, being a world-renown brand, out of all the companies we visited, Audi is in the best position to adapt to the changing market. Audi not only has the resources and infrastructure to adapt, but they also are well into the process of actually adapting. Hoerbiger and Forvia, are very behind in adapting, while Grob has begun to do so. Furthermore, Audi, being an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) has a more stable demand supply compared to the other companies we visited. There are also more investment opportunities for Audi, due to their broader market appeal, so if one line fails, it will not be catastrophic for the company, like it would be for others.

Back at Augsburg, due to the lunch I had at Audi, I was not super hungry. I did, however, wanted a treat, so I walked to a place called Eis Cafe Riveria, a deluxe ice cream parlor. There, I ordered a deluxe chocolate sundae (pictured below), which was amazing. Not only did it taste good, but it was also (surprisingly!) very light! I stayed there talking to the owner in German for a while; when I found out he was from Italy, I told him that I knew a little bit of Italian, which caused him to go off in Italian (which I did not understand in the slightest). When I left, he gave me a little rewards card so that I can earn free ice cream after 10 visits (and to encourage me coming back). How do I tell him I’m leaving Germany on the 21st?

Since today was our last company visit, my remaining time in Germany will be (mostly) visiting nearby cultural and historical sites. On Wednesday, we will be presenting our assigned companies to the group, but we have no time dedicated to working on the presentations. Morgen will be exciting, because we will be going back to Munich! Tschuss!

German words used:

Guten Tag = Good day

Lieder = Unfortunately

Morgen = Tomorrow (in this conext)

Tschuss = Bye