Sareenah's first day in Budapest

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Today was our first day in Budapest and we had an early start. At 7:30 we all piled in the bus and headed to the Acell factory which assembles bikes, mostly for Northern European countries. On the two hour journey there we passed through wheat and hops fields, saw Soviet bloc housing, the shells of old factories, as well as idyllic dachas (I pretty much felt like I was back in Kazakhstan). When we got there we took a tour of their production facilities where they put together bikes (they don't produce the frame components as they source most of these from Asia). After a short presentation we were able to take a tour of the facilities. As MBA students in Boston, we don't get to visit factories that often, so it was amazing to see how the different wires, and metal pieces ended up as a bike, and it was surprising how much manual labor still goes into making a bike. It was also interesting to see where the Velib bikes were produced, as we had just heard all about their deployment throughout Paris a few days ago when at JC Decaux.

After leaving we headed to a mall to grab a quick lunch at the food court before our next meeting. We could choose between Asian Wok, Burger King, McDonald's (Hungary seems to have embraced fast food), and a Hungarian lunch counter. Most people in the group chose to try the Hungarian food which was mostly good and very filling. There was one dish that was a deep fried meat ball the size of a baseball, which I was not a fan of, but the stews were delicious as was the sour cherry strudel.

We then had a meeting at EGIS, a pharmaceutical company that makes branded generic drugs. They have $500M in sales and a staff of 4,000. They are obviously in a pretty good business as they had 38% growth last year and have average margins of 40-50%. The presentation was excellent as our speaker not only covered the Pharma industry but touched on the economic crisis and its effects on Hungary and many other CIS countries. The effect of the economic crisis has been a theme that almost all the businesses we visited touched on, and it is interesting to compare how the crisis has affected dfifferent industries. The pharma industry does not seem to be hard hit, other than wholesalers in countries whose currencies depreciated considerably.

We got back to the hotel right on schedule at 4:00 and finally had a chance to explore to the city. Many of us chose to climb Castle Hill which was a walk, but worth it once you got to the top. There was a view of the entire city on both sides. Unfortunately the church at the top was closed for renovation but the beautiful statues, square, and little cobbestone streets make the walk worth it.

For dinner the group all met at a Middle Eastern Resturaunt with abundant food, where some of the more adventurous members tried Unicum, a local Hungarian liquor. By the looks on their faces I do not think I will be taking a bottle back home. On the walk back home we stopped on the river for a nightcap and to take in the city all lit up. It has been a long but amazing day. I am excited to go to Audi and Lear tomorow and compare their production facilities to Accell's. But it is also sad, I think we all feel the end of the trip aproaching, and I for one am not ready to go back.

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