2008年03月21日
VOLVOｸﾞﾙｰﾌﾟの営業ｶﾝﾌｧﾚﾝｽに参加して（ｽｳｪｰﾃﾞﾝ体験記）
今回は、弊社のアカウントマネージャ（日本語では営業担当マネージャ）が２月にＶＯＬＶＯグループの営業カンファレンスに参加した。
２月のスウェーデンは極寒の地・・・とイメージしていたが、以外にも少し暖かく、訪問した街（ゴーセンバーグ）は雨の降りしきる景色だったようだ。
最近、英語に挑戦しているご本人が英語での原稿作成にトライしたので、ここでは、そのまま紹介したい。
Communicate in Commercial Conference 2008
In Feb. 2008, I went to Sweden on business to take part in commercial conference. This business travel was the first overseas trip after our company had changed name to Volvo IT. The Commercial conference took place at OPERA HOUSE in Goteborg city. 170 Account Managers; “AM” hailing from all over the globe; Central Europe, North America, India, SE Asia, had assembled at OPERA HOUSE.
A Commercial Conference, in other words, is a colossal kick-off of global sales representatives. It included Business lectures and presentation with actual samples related to Sales management. The Main theme was how to augment customer satisfaction. English was the language of discussion in the conference. The participants, in a group of 10, sat around a round table near the stage. It seemed as though we were to give performances on stage as actors & actress, judged by eminent personalities. The practical workshop was most daunting challenge for me. The workshop meant a lot of discussion, exchange of opinions, brief descriptions and making presentations in English. When I looked around my table, all of my colleagues spoke fluent English. The workshop started and my colleagues had begun the discussion, except me. I struggled hard to concentrate and tried to catch their conversation. I had been planning to study English for this conference, but soon I could make out that it would be useless making an effort. To me their conversation seemed like a rapid express train, making it difficult for me to participate and understand it thoroughly. After some time, someone suddenly asked me, “How about you Suzu?” Fortunately, I had figured out only the theme and could somehow input my opinion. Had some colleague had not asked me “How about you?” I would not have participated in the ongoing conversation. I found it very tough to share the conversation and exchange opinions in Rapid Business English. But from what I’d heard, most of the Europeans are multi lingual i.e. they can speak the language of their neighboring countries as well. This multi-nationalization seemed too far for a person like me, hailing from an island country, being exposed to the business culture in a Eurasian continent.
For the first time, I was introduced to the degree of the difficulty and profundity of other languages.
