Krishna Kiran's

24-05-2006 (Wednesday) On this day we started off to go to Collegio Rio Branco at 7.45 am. Incidentally this college/school is the best managed in Brazil and the Director is one Mr.Gunter who looked like a professor out of the novels that we read. He is quite a serious man and he gave us the information about the college. This college was started in 1946 by 20 like-minded Rotarians and now has 5000 students on the rolls and operates from two places namely Granjavienna and Higienopolis. The college offers from KG to High School and also runs ITAE( Institute for Advanced Technical Education) in addition to running a special school for the deaf children. Mr.Gunter whose name sounds like the place Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, India has been in marketing since 1953 and has a keen eye for details. We were informed that the school gets around 1000 titles of magazines for the school library and Estado de Sao Paulo carries two pages of children related articles on every Monday. The contents al...

23-05-2006 (Tuesday) On this day,we were taken to the SETESP which is a 70 year old transporters union with 6000 companies and 40000 employees in the Sao Paulo state. The number of vehicles managed are a stunning 3,00,000. This is the second biggest such union in the world with the biggest being in LA,USA. The main vehicle being the truck. It was learnt that 8 per cent of the goods are transported by trucks in Brazil. The union works to ensure that the system is in place. In Brazil, there are several restrictions and the trucks are not allowed to go off the main road and enter the city limits. The entry tax is also a huge 55 per cent. The union spends 12 per cent of their income on satellite tracking of the vehicles, sending armed escorts and GSM technology. The number one tyre brand in Brazil is Goodyear followed by Michelin, Firestone and Continental. There was a big and gigantic personality here with whom I had a photo just to show how big he is. From here we proceeded to th...

22-05-2006 (Monday) On this day I was picked up by the driver of a taxi engaged for our travel Mr.Benedito. What I noticed was the moment someone meets another on a morning they ask “Did you sleep well last night?” I have experienced this almost with all Brazilians I met and Mr.Benedito was no exception. I felt that it was a good way to start the day in so many ways. We visited Cobram which is a marketing agency for several big multinational brands like Petrobras, Ford and Abor. We were introduced to Mr.Mario who is the Director-Corporate Communications of the company. His job description included Event Management, and TV/Radio productions that promote brands. One of the major achievements of their company was the Sigabem program of Petrobras. Sigabem means "have a nice trip” and the program is aimed at the drivers. The company has been dealing with Petrobras for the last 14 years and there was good synergy between the two. The Sigabem program was advertised in 212 radio stati...