Critical Evaluation of Marketing Students and AT&S

This morning, I was ready by 8 AM. Ramesh and Rahul Venkateswaran came at about 8:10 and picked up Harvey, Gene, and me. We first went to the golf course and dropped off Harvey, Gene, and Rahul for their round of golf and I headed to the institute to meet with the reporter.

I really did not know what to expect and what she wanted from. Still, I had thought of a few things to talk about like how business education in India and US differ. Her first question threw me off completely. She said she had read my CV and was interested in an article I had published about the quality of undergraduate marketing students in the US. She wanted me to detail why I had done the study and what the findings and implications were. I was completely taken aback and tried to cover the key findings of the study. We then talked about the US academic system and the goal of increasing globalization and the importance of global exposure for students around the world. She said she would send me a link to the article in a few days, but given the range of our discussions, I have no idea what the focus of the article will be.

In the afternoon, we headed to AT&S, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&S (Austria) a printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing facility. Since they had Austrian executives visiting the plant (and using the conference room), they couldn’t do a presentation for the group but had someone give us a plant tour. It was absolutely fascinating to see exactly how PCBs are made. This plant makes PCBs of all sizes - from cell phones and small auto cruise control circuits to much larger computer boards. They showed us the process of creating multi-layered PCBs, etching, cutting, tinning and de-tinning and more. It was extremely interesting and fascinating to see this spotless manufacturing facility that exports almost all of its output to Austria for further distribution. Basically, they are simply a manufacturing location for the Austrian parent. I guess it makes economic sense for the company. Like every other one of our site visits it reinforces the fact that right now, your cell phone from a Finnish company could have been assembled in Mexico with a PCB from an Austrian company that was manufactured by their plant in India.