Driving Business in Beijing

I come from a small coastal town in Connecticut and didn't learn to drive until I was 25. My first car had a 1977 diesel engine because it was easy to maintain and the fuel was cheap. It must have been fate, because I now work in the auto industry in Beijing for an American diesel-engine manufacturer.

I graduated from the Yale School of Management in 2004 with a concentration in finance. Today, I serve as general manager for Cummins Engine Company's (CMI ) eight distributor branch offices in China.

UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMERS.  Cummins ranks as the largest foreign investor in the China diesel-engine industry and has six manufacturing plants in China. The company produces engines, turbochargers, filters, alternators, and generator sets. Our organization of around 140 people is responsible for delivering parts and service throughout China.

I report to the general manager for international distribution and have a profit and loss responsibility (P&L), as well as nine employees who directly report to me for the following functions: Branch office operations, business analytics, and new business development. I chose to start my career in distribution because it was the best place to gain operational experience and a deep understanding of customer requirements.

When our customers buy a Cummins Engine or related product, they expect the best. If it breaks, my team will fix it -- we offer 24/7 service nationwide. This is quite a challenge, especially in a country as large as China.

Here's a snapshot of a typical day on the job for me:

6:50 a.m. -- Wake up.

7 a.m. -- Conference call with the U.S. We have regular teleconference calls. The 13-hour time difference means the calls are either early in the morning or late at night. This one is to discuss the aftermarket piece for a new engine-plant joint-venture agreement. We talk about nationwide support for parts, service, warranty claims, and other related issues.

Creating the document requires collaborative work with multiple parties in the U.S. and China. In business school, the cohort culture provided incentive for us to rely on experts rather than reinvent the wheel. In a company as big as Cummins, there are plenty of experts. Learning how to use them effectively is an important skill for general managers to develop.

8:15 a.m. -- Commute to the office by subway -- because the traffic would double my traveling time.

8:45 a.m. -- Read 60-plus e-mails and reply to the urgent ones. Some are from the U.S., but most are from China. We operate a system called "Three Lines of Support," in which the 198 Cummins dealers are the first line of support.

Our regional branch offices manage those dealers and provide the second line of support for issues that cannot be resolved locally. The third line of support comes from the national service team in Beijing. Managing a nationwide retail network is more complex than I had imagined.

11 a.m. -- Conference call with one of the offices to discuss a business plan and proposed contract terms for an investment to build a large service workshop to better service some regional mining customers. I lead the call and involve representatives from finance, legal, and facilities. They are the experts.

11:30 a.m. -- Meet with human resources to discuss head count and people issues. I've been involved in co-managing the implementation of human-capital realignment in a section of the country. The MBA skills were useful for the three months of analytical work necessary to evaluate potential options. However, nothing in school can prepare you for the difficult implementation decisions.

12 p.m. -- Eat a quick lunch at my desk. That way I can multitask between the three or four projects that I'm juggling from the morning.

2 p.m. -- Call individual branch-office managers on various issues ranging from sales and service capability development to capital-allocation approvals.

5 p.m. -- Eat dinner at my desk while preparing various reports and replying to e-mails. One of my recent tasks has been to coordinate a nationwide corporate social responsibility drive. Each Cummins entity in China will use one working day in May to lead a social-improvement project in the local community.

7 p.m. -- I've been working on the project management for construction of a large service workshop in Xinjiang province, which borders Afghanistan. We used decision analysis and financial models to evaluate the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) and risk vs. return for different options. The venture-capital coursework at Yale helped to provide a framework for evaluating the investment.

9 p.m. -- Take the subway. Sometimes, I get off at the Forbidden City stop and then stroll home.

12 a.m. -- Watch the late-night news, and then get some rest.

My original plan was to spend two years in business school to improve my financial skills, and then join my friends and colleagues back in the Chinese Internet space, where I had previously worked. As a result, I didn't participate in the job-recruiting process at school. I just focused on my classwork and passion for organizing China-related activities.

I unexpectedly learned about Cummins through the Yale China Study Trip. I then formed a business lecture series about China and invited more than 20 senior executives to come speak at Yale. Cummins really stood out to me for its combination of entrepreneurship and ethics.

SICKNESS CHALLENGE.  After reading up on the company, I took the summer internship route to see if the corporate philosophy applied to the China operations and found a strong match. They gave me a challenging project -- a chance to be part of the five-person negotiation team for an aftermarket agreement with Cummins' largest joint-venture partner in China.

Despite the challenge of performing a negotiation during the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak, which caused heavy government travel restrictions, we beat the completion deadline. And Cummins gave me an opportunity to return after graduation. I left my comfort zone of the Internet space and took a leap of faith into the auto industry. For MBAs interested in working for Cummins, the summer internship is a great way to test-drive the company.