Manager Training Programme “Fit for Partnership with Germany” at ZEW

From 9 April to 4 May 2018, the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) played host to a group of managers from Vietnam attending the manager training programme “Fit for Partnership with Germany”. 21 managers from companies in various sectors of the Vietnamese economy took part in the training programme whilst fostering new and existing contacts with German businesses.

This is the fifth time the programme has been run by ZEW on behalf of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The manager training programme organised by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is part of Germany’s foreign trade policy. Under the slogan “fit for partnership”, the programme aims to prepare managers from a total of 19 different partner countries for entering into business and cooperating with German companies. Part of the programme involves spending four weeks with the experts in the ZEW Service Department “Knowledge Transfer and Qualification Programmes”.

Diverse training sessions pave the way for real business success

In preparation for their visit to Germany, ZEW’s Manuel Lauer, an expert in professional training, met with the managers at workshops held in Vietnam in order to provide them with some ground rules for establishing business connections in Germany. During the managers’ stay in Mannheim, ZEW’s training team helped them to develop the necessary knowledge for collaborating with German companies through interactive, practical training sessions that dealt with, for instance, conducting negotiations with German business associates, intercultural management and the basics of how to put together a business plan. The participants were also coached to help them achieve their own personal business goals, from preparing for face-to-face meetings to signing the contract. Over the course of the programme, the participants were able to make initial contact with potential business partnerships, even signing numerous letters of intent amounting to tens of millions of euros in expected business. 

The training programme was supplemented by visits to selected small and medium-sized companies in the local region, where the participants had the opportunity to learn management skills first-hand from the German firms and gain a valuable insight into German business culture and its modern processes.