I also saw a jewelry ad that featured a pregnant woman working at her desk job with a tagline that said ‘be unstoppable’. It was a unique way to try to sell jewelry. I believe that it was implying that without her jewelry her pregnancy would have stopped her from being her job or that she wouldn’t be able to do her job without jewelry.
The other day we learned about a four story limitation on buildings. I have seen a lot of buildings that are the exception to this rule. The building that are larger than four stories are typically hotels or company office buildings. I have also seen more female officers here than I have anywhere else in India.
As I said earlier Bangalore seems to be more westernized in appearance and practices than the other cities we’ve visited due in large part to the presence of many IT/tech companies. There’s over 212 of the tech companies in the world are in Bangalore.
A road observation that I’ve consistently made on the way to Walmart are big posters wishing politicians a ‘happy birthday’. This is an intriguing concept to me because in the United States we don’t really has public displays such as this about politicians’ birthdays. We don’t wish our politicians happy birthday with billboards around the city – it would certainly be interesting if we did.The company visit to Walmart Global Sourcing was jam-packed with great information. Walmart has 1 billion customers around the world every day and is present in 28 countries with more than 11,000 stores. It was great to have the familiarity of a company such as Walmart in India. It was interesting to find out that Walmart has 21 wholesale stores in India because in our prep classes we learned that the traditional Walmart like the ones we have in the US were not compatible with the everyday Indian’s way of life and their shopping expectations.
There are various names for Walmart in other countries and there are multiple filters vendors have to go through for Walmart global sourcing. A vendor has to have finance, capability and capacity -> responsible sourcing and supply chain security. Common standards were developed and safety was assessed for supplier’s facilities following the fires and collapse of a supplier’s building in 2012.
Going back to Walmart operating in India. So Walmart global sourcing operates in India but they support countries outside of India. It was interesting to learn that there was not any big changes in Walmart’s interactions due to cultural impacts at their different global sourcing locations. It was great to learn about their selection processes and Project Gigatron (a project to remove greenhouse gas emissions) and their Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative.
The factory visit was extremely important to me. We learned about the WIF (Women In Factory) program that was launched in 2012 to help train and empower female factory workers. I was amazed by the women that spoke to us after the presentation at the factor. They had become so confident and well-spoken through their hard work and training. What’s even more profound is that they have taken their knowledge and skills and passed it on to their children and the villages. They have created a snowball effect or chain reaction that will work to empower future generations.
--
Don't miss your opportunity to study or intern abroad!
Learn more about studying abroad as a Walton college student at: http://walton.uark.edu/global/
