Deep Dive (Russian edition) - AbInbev

Supply Management Trainee at AB InBev

To begin with it was two glorious months.

After a long and challenging application process I’ve suddenly found myself drinking Tripel Karmeliet in the Head Office of Zone Europe in Belgium. It was open bar at Thursday. I was surrounded by my colleges SMTs and other professionals, top management included. Everybody was just having a beer and chatting to each other openly. It felt like there were no walls between people no matter how far they went up in their career.

It was the first thing I really liked.

The second would be that everything’s been changing extremely fast. You almost have no time to get used to things. After two weeks in Leuven I went back to my country. And, o my, Russia has its own exciting challenges.

I want to start with the distance between locations.

My Supply Deep Dive took place in Siberia. Time difference with Moscow was 3 hours. I have to say that my biological clock wasn’t that happy with me getting up at 3 a.m. at first. Also, sharply continental climate teaches you how to put all your clothes on extremely fast and equally fast to drop them.

If you don’t know anything about Siberian people then when you first met them, you’ll think they are not really pleased to see you. But they need time to warm up to you, and after that they’ll be the most welcoming in their own honest manner. But you really need to win their trust. It’s not that easy, but we managed.

The project itself was a complex one for sure. We spent a lot of hours after work trying to make everything right. In times like this you realize that your team is crucially important, and you can’t do everything on your own. But this company has the best people for sure!

3,5 weeks passed and I went to Klin (city near Moscow), where I had my operational experience. We tried to talk to everyone and got to every function possible. It was fascinating to talk to such professionals. Everyone knew so much about brewing, packaging, logistics, quality and we tried to learn a bit of their knowledge.

All this hard work payed off and I’ve passed the first serious exam on beer knowledge. IBD exam.

Now I’m like licensed to talk about beer or something.

Can't wait to update you on future challenges!

Cheers!

#bestbeerjob #abinbev #secretproject