October 11, 2016
Sri Rangarajan is becoming accustomed to working a German workweek — which is 35 hours
at its longest — in his internship with Bayer in Cologne, Germany. His internship
is part of the immersion experience with the International MBA program at the Darla
Moore School of Business.
“The work culture is a bit surprising here,” said the German track International MBA
student. “I’m used to working long hours, but they confiscated my laptop because I
sent a work email late at night.”
Rangarajan appreciates the efficiency that comes out of this shorter workweek and
has been taking advantage of having more free time by traveling around the rest of
Europe on weekends. Since starting his internship in mid-April, he’s been to almost
every surrounding country.
“I love walking around the city and getting to know the architecture and really getting a
feel for the city,” he said. “It’s just so culturally different."
In his internship, Rangarajan works in steam car strategy and innovation on a digital
health incubator. He and his coworkers are trying to automate forecasting demands
based on statistics such as the history and seasonality of products. Right now, in
the pilot phase, they are working on these statistics in Brazil, Mexico and Italy.
“I’m focusing on planning which countries we want to go into next,” he said. “I’m
collecting facts and data to know which ones should be a priority and how ready the
countries are.”
Rangarajan has a finance and accounting background and came to the International MBA
program after working at PricewaterhouseCoopers for about five years. After working
setting up new processes for projects in banking operations, he figured he should
get a specialization in it. He chose the Moore School program because of its distinguished
reputation in supply chain and operations management.
In the future, Rangarajan is looking at doing the Moore School’s Global Supply Chain
and Process Management Capstone Project and eventually working in the automobile manufacturing
industry post-graduation. Although he prefers an American work schedule, he can see
himself coming back to Germany in the long-term.
“It’s perfectly located in Europe,” he said. “It’s the top economy in Europe. The
cost of living is pretty low, and it’s easy to travel. Every other country is a perfect
weekend getaway.”
By Madeleine Vath