Stepping off the plane into the bustling metropolis of Shanghai, I could feel the energy and excitement in the air. I embarked on a remarkable journey to one of China’s most vibrant and economically significant cities. It is home to numerous multinational corporations, financial institutions, and tech giants. During my trip, I had the opportunity to progress the project for “Transport Management Outbound for ZF China” for two pilot plants and support my Chinese colleagues with an internal application training. Together with the ZF local colleagues and Qianqian Shan and Xiaowei Zhang from SupplyOn Shanghai we clarified the detailed process steps and worked on the specification of China-specific requirements for Transport and freight cost processes to guarantee a smooth implementation.
During those two weeks, I could experience a better understanding for the Chinese colleagues, the project conditions, and the local network. The SupplyOn China colleagues made it easy for me to feel welcome and supported me with whatever I was willing to do.
They regularly made sure that I was tasting every food worth to try; During lunch we had a lot of different dumplings, buns, noodles, soups, and a lot of milk tea and snacks. We also went for Hotpot one night – that was definitely one of my culinary highlights! Besides that, I was lucky to be in China for Mooncake Season and tasted a lot of different flavors, colors, and sizes of Mooncake. (Moon festival was shortly after my departure on September 29th, 2023).
Moreover, I was invited by Hong Rupeng to travel to the deep-water terminal of Shanghai Seaport for one sunny Sunday. We took the trip via the 42km long bridge to the island where this terminal is located and admired a huge number of containers waiting to be loaded and checked out the destinations of a few smaller ships with the vessel tracker on site. Although the container traffic seemed to be rather calm on that day, the port scenery was highly impressive. The Container throughput of Shanghai International Port (Group) is more than 40 million TEUs (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit) per year.
Thanks again for bringing me to the biggest port of the world!
I appreciate the very warm welcome, dedication and hard work making this trip a memorable and productive experience. Your kindness and thoughtfulness made a significant difference in my experience, and I am so grateful for your hospitality to make me feel comfortable and valued.
Next to the fruitful training and brainstorming sessions, we had a lot of unexpected daily adventures, like a spontaneous dancing class in preparation for the SupplyOn Shanghai 15-year birthday celebration, or a visit at a Chinese hairdresser, what added a special dimension to our time. I also had the chance to take part in the “Bobing” game, what is a special dice game from the region the SupplyOn China Head Zixi Zheng comes from. It is played only in mid-autumn and heavily focusing on rolling the dices to get as many fours as possible to be lucky next year.
These are some for the lasting memories from the business trip. I gathered profound appreciation for the modernity, culture, and culinary delights of this dynamic city. I am confident that the insights gained, and strengthened connections during this trip will continue to benefit our projects and collaborations in the future.
So, I left Shanghai with a sense of awe and admiration for this captivating city, and I can’t wait to return for another adventure.
