1.Situation

In MYPRODUCT5 and MYPRODUCT11 I detailed some of my involvement in the commercial support provided in 2013-2015 to Rhone Vet, a company responsible for distributing and selling Merial’s veterinary products in Hungary.

This project included intensive business travels in the sense that for three years, one week per every month I worked in Hungary with the Rhone Vet team.

In general the nature of my commercial responsibilities involved a strong component of business travel, whether we are talking about the usual field visits to clients or international business trips for meetings with potential suppliers, clients, collaborators, partners or training sessions.

2.Task

Friends always told me that I have a very attractive job because having these frequent trips outside the country I have the opportunity to see new places, to meet new people.

But how correct is this very positive perception regarding the business travels?

3.Action

It is true that middle and top management responsibilities come in a package with frequent travel abroad.

Nice, isn’t? But let me explain the unseen part of the business trips.

For example, my experience of business travels in Hungary:

-awakening at 5 to take at 8 the flight to Budapest

-at arrival I was expected by a colleague from Rhone Vet and we went straight to company’s office where we immediately started the working session based on the agenda agreed before the visit

– lunch, work session, eventually a relaxing dinner where invariably the conversations were around the business

– around 20-22 I arrived in the hotel room and many times I worked for few more hours to prepare the sessions from the coming days

– day 2, day 3, day 4 the same: 9 at office – work – lunch – work – dinner – hotel – work or take one day of field visits to clients together with a sales rep

– returning day was the same: 9 at office – work – lunch – work – airport to get the evening flight –arrival at home near midnight.

Or the meetings organized by the manufacturer with distributors from more than 20 countries: airplane – accommodation – working meetings during the whole day – one afternoon or evening with some special activities – dinner – hotel – airplane – home.

4.Results

Looking retrospectively, business trips took me in Athens, Budapest, Belgrade, Vienna, Prague, Dubrovnik, Bonn, Milan, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Nurnberg, Brussels, Rotterdam, Lyon, Marseille, Seville, Istanbul, Tbilisi, Malta.

5.Key Leanings

Obviously, beyond the professional responsibilities, I had the opportunity to visit new places, to socialize with collaborators and partners from many countries, to get contact with culture and traditions and to taste the local culinary specialties.

All these represent a huge capital that enriches the professional dimension.

But this positive capital is packed with fatigue, stress, mental and energetic consumption to be permanently connected to discussions, to successfully meet professional challenges and to fight for reaching the business goals established for the meetings.

Synthesizing, business travels have pleasant ingredients, but these travels are far away from the pleasure trips imagined by some people.

Notification: MYPRODUCT reflects my real professional experience and expertise as well as my subjectivity. I do have a profound respect for all the companies I collaborated to and for all the people I worked with. It is not my intention to approach any sensitive, confidential or offending information related to companies, projects or people.If you the reader deduct or recognise companies, projects or people in my examples, I kindly ask you to respect MYPRODUCT and my professional and ethic approach and to not share any detail, information, situation, name, company