Management services: Manager Training: benefiting both sides
A programme is enabling executives from other countries to build up business contacts among German companies.
In the Manager Training Programme, executives from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America learn about German companies and how they work, build up business contacts in Germany, and return home with lots of new ideas for their own companies. For the German companies, the programme often marks the start of long-term business relations.
To date, more than 17,000 executives from selected partner countries have taken part in the Manager Training Programme initiated by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). Every year, several thousand German companies participate in the programme, which began in 1998. The aim is to facilitate mutual access to the other country's market for the executives and companies taking part, thus benefiting both sides. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is coordinating the programme on behalf of BMWK. In virtual sessions and a two-week trip to Germany participants improve their management skills, business conduct and negotiating techniques. Through visits to German companies, they also learn about work processes and marketing strategies – and develop solutions for restructuring their own companies.
Economic development through continuing training
The programme thus helps to forge business contacts, mainly between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the partner countries and Germany. Each group of 20 participants has contact with an average of 60 German SMEs. Many of them stay in touch through the alumni networks that they set up and become partners for German businesses. The alumni act as multipliers by sharing and disseminating their experience, thus playing an important role in their countries’ economic development and promoting cooperation with German companies.
Ravindra Mahadeokar, a mechanical engineer from India, is one of the programme’s alumni. 'I could have come to Germany on my own initiative. But who would have shown interest in me and believed in my company?' he remarks. The programme put him in touch with Strama-MPS Maschinenbau GmbH, and in 2014 the partners set up a joint venture in India. Fifty-five people now work for Mahadeokar – almost twice as many employees as he had back in 2011 when he took part in the programme. The company's turnover has been rapidly increasing since then too.
Participating in the programme enabled me to set up a joint venture with a German company. Turnover has been growing ever since – as has the workforce.
Last update: January 2023