The day started at 7:30AM with teamwork and breakfast. It was a chance for all of the students to interact and introduce themselves. Then, each team was assigned a restaurant, where they would have to evaluate the restaurant's business model.
Restaurants included were Cafe Tacuba, La Cantina de los Remedios, etcetera.
Phd. Rafa Gómez Nava, Dean of IPADE's Master gave a welcome speech, in which he pointed out that Mexico is not a horse and hat country, not a Chavo del 8 country; Mexico is a strong value country adapting to the modern world... Mexico is a country for young and talented people... and this week is going to be a great life experience for all of us" Antonio Casanueva set the goals for the week and suggested the main questions students should ask themselves this week: Are there opportunities in others countries that can use a Mexican bussiness model? (see the official presentation that Antonio gave us )
In this DBiM we have 12 students from Darden, 6 from Endicott, 14 from Kenan-Flagger, 6 from IESE, 7 from Universidad Católica de Chile, 2 from IMT, 2 from Bitten, 1 from SMU and 73 IPADE's students.
Next was Edmundo Vallejo, former CEO of GE Latin America, came over to discuss about the implications of the crisis, we discussed the main axis that need to be taken into consideration, covering the world economic forum and some interesting initiatives by ashoka.A discussion arose here, with good skeptical points made by Marcus and Rachelle that got us into thinking of the implementation barriers the sustainable projects have, and what kind of variables need to be taken into account, such as education, politics and social stability of the zone where the project would take place.Then the group split in order to have some closer attention for each participant: both of them had sessions with Mario Zavala and Juan Pablo Nuñez, but some had Mario first and some others had Gustavo first. With Mario we discussed the Inverlat case and wiht Juan Pablo
With Mario we discussed the Inverlat case, which involved culture management and how sometimes even the best intentions are not enough to get a real synergy, because the actions that result are based on superficial judgements of the other's culture. We studied the culture as a multi-layer system where the basic assumptions are the core for everything else, but at the same time are hidden from the surface.
Mario has a fun yet pushy style, which makes up for an amazing, fun discussion that gets us to dig, layer by layer, until we reach the core of the problem.
Juan Pablo, from Grupo Pando one of the oldest companies in Mexico, showed us a successful case of social responsibility in the southern state of Chiapas, where coffee productors passed from selling their product for peanuts and spending it on liquor to creating a valuable product and spending it on the improvement of their communities.
During a break Daniel Reilly, a student from IESE said, "we are having fun everyday", a lot of the students said that they are waiting eagerly the trip to Teotihuacan, alos the "Lucha Libre". One of the foreign students said that she was impressed of Mexico city when she saw it from the airplane, she said "I thought that i was on a sea of lights"
Later on, each team went on to explore their assigned restaurants and study their business models. We'll know more about their findings on friday, when they'll present us their work and a winner wiill be named
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