Bled School of Management is small, but impressive and we had a lively session on change management with the part time students in management that are at Bled. The tag line is the School with a View.
As it turned out this view was pretty distracting! The sky darkened in the afternoon and then it started to rain. Then heavy rain. Then frozen rain. And finally snow.
And it snowed and snowed until late in the evening - beautiful but freezing and a bit dangerous underfoot - especially for the girls that were mainly in heels as we were in formal dress code.
The following day we were a bit late on the bus (operating on Italian time) but made our way through the snow to Elan, a manufacturer of skis and snowboards, as well as powerboats in a village in Slovenia near the mountains. They have some interesting ski technology and it was great to hear from the Director of Marketing about their brand and positioning. It was also good to see the power boats and to do some virtual shopping about which would be best for when we have made our millions!
In the afternoon we went to a dairy in Ljubljana - hence the return of the silly outfits and worse hats! The operations are amazing, almost all automatic, but these are tough times for the Slovenian dairy industry and with our MBA training under our germ-proof hats, we all think that they face even more challenging times ahead. We did our bit though, as many of us bought yogurt in the on-site shop. Massimilliano will be eating yogurt for the rest of the week - and long into the weekend I think!
Then back on the bus once more, and onto a meeting with the Mayor of Ljubljana in the City Hall. Lovro presented him with a picture of the Ferdinandeo Palace (our home base) but I am not sure whether it will be gracing his walls or not! Maybe if we had managed to give it to him in a frame....! The Mayor is fairly new to the job, he used to head up Merkatur, Slovenia's Tesco equivalent, until political wrangling occured and he was unseated. We think, after his award winning performance, that the mayor should watch out - Lovro could be next in line for his job!
Business in Slovenia is interesting as the privatisation process that the country opted for has resulted in government investment in almost all businesses. Obviously this mixing of business and politics is not always ideal, or certainly the Mayor may have thought so when he was booted off the board, but the country seems very prosperous given this blurring of boundaries.
In the evening we were supposed to stay in Ljubljana for dinner, but a critical mass of people wanted to get back early so we cancelled dinner and left early back to Trieste. The last photo here is the snow at the service station on the way back to Trieste.
The second half of winter had hit Trieste too - with the Bora blowing hard and cold when we got back. I went with Max to get a pizza then struggled home against the cold.
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