Sina's Blog

one for all - all for one

(I like playing tennis and I prefer it to basketball, but I am 1.60 meters tall ;-). )

During our work in the BA students' representatives in Mannheim every project is done in a team. Therefore I appreciate teamwork very much. Such projects afford jobs that need to be done in a group and others that have to be divided. You cannot do all jobs in a team in order to work effectively, but you can save a lot of effort throughout teamwork.

I would say, teamwork plays a special role during the assignments. Usually such a team consists of about two internal auditors and sometimes it needs to be completed by some Co-sourcers. The team stays for a couple of weeks on a sight, averagely for two weeks. Afterwards the teams change.

It is necessary that Alcan's whole Internal Audit team shows good teamspirit and cares for best interpersonal relationships, because the teams change a lot. Meanwhile their relations need to stay some kind of professional that they can avoid difficult interpersonal problems.

I have been very impressed by the positive atmosphere in Alcan's Internal Audit Team. It has been very friendly, but of course professional.

Teamwork = More power, less effort, more output relatively to the effort (synergies) => and as result more benefit for all!!!

farewell ...

Before the Weallcan program ends, I want to add a last comment on the program.

I cannot tell you about the benefit that Alcan gained throughout the program. I hope that the total social benefit ;-) is as big as it could be.

I suppose you are more interested in my experiences and impressions. Most of them you will find during my other contributions on the blog, especially in that one about “My Alcan Day”.

In the following part you will find out about experiences I like to highlight.

Indeed, the “Alcan Day” with Antoine was the most important and most interesting part of the program the biggest surplus or benefit the program contained for us. Who would call this a surprise?

Teamwork seems to play an important role in Alcan’s Internal Audit team. Antoine has to interact with his colleagues throughout most of the time and this important role that teamwork plays sounds very attractive.

Antoine’s job does not seem to be as dull and boring as many people would suppose. As Internal Auditors travel a lot and get in contact with many interesting people, I have been given the possibility to get to know an attractive job.

Before the WAC program (at the end of my last semester) I had not had any knowledge about IFRS and other international accounting standards nor about the French accounting system. The surprise was that I had not had to know about it to understand Antoine’s job. I was very surprised that a big part of Antoine’s work consists of controlling and auditing the internal control instruments and systems of Alcan’s sights and that only a smaller part consists of financial audit.

The blog was a very helpful and interesting experience. That means that I learned a lot about Alcan and about Internal Audit.

Okay, it's time to say goodbye! Some of you I will meet in Paris... See you soon... :-)

Third Topic

Innovation

"Innovation is the sequence of activities by which a new element is introduced into a social unit, with the intention of benefiting the unit, some part of it, or the wider society. The element need not to be entirely novel or unfamiliar to members of the unit, but it must involve some discernable change or challenge of the status quo." - Michael A. West; James L. Farr, 1990
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation

Two key competencies that are often mentioned in job descriptions, concerning a job in internal audit, and required from an Internal Auditor are creativity and innovation. Antoine should be able to adapt or create new and innovative ideas, because he visits and audits lots of different sights, departments and people. Antoine needs to understand structural innovations and changes. The ability of fast and adequate adaption to every kind of situation is an important personal skill that an internal auditor should have.

In regard to the creative part of internal audit, we fix that it is, obviously, limited. In the course of an assignment Antoine writes reports. He reports about risks and problems. In the section "Management Action Plan" the internal auditor gives advises and instructions how to improve or prevent risky situations and the negative impact such problems could have on the company's business. The ideas of a Management Action Plan might contain innovative ideas for the involved Managers.

Second Topic

THE INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS AN INTERNAL AUDITOR HAS TO DEAL WITH

Inter-national: The word inter comes from Latin and means originally "between". The word national refers to nation. Inter and national in combination verbalize any kind of relation between nations. In other words international describes cross-country, cosmopolitan, inter-country, global or multinational.

Some people even might say that the word international means "no limit". There is a limited number of countries in the world: 194, but, as you can imagine, there is a huge variety of international relations. Alcan is present in about 55 countries all over the world. Therefore it is a good example for an international corporation.

Stocks of an international public companies are often noted at different stock exchange markets all around the world. Alcan for example is noted at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), in Paris and in Frankfurt.

Alcan’s locations are devided into two audit regions. One region is North and South America and the other is Europe and Africa, whereas Asia is more or less devided in half. The American group is situated at the Canadian headquarter in Montreal and the other part of the team at the European headquarter in Paris. The internal auditors of the Internal Audit team come from different nations which are the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Hungary and, - obviously - France.

As you can see, my coach Antoine works together with people from lots of different countries and cultural backgrounds. On the one hand his international colleagues and on the other hand the people he meets on his several journeys. He often has to adapt to different ways of thinking and to different kinds of manners.

During the last six months Antoine has traveled to

Portugal

China

                                     Czech Republic

Spain

Mexico

          

                                 

Morocco

Spain (currently)

At each location he stayed about two or three weeks in order to do his assignment.

Considering this example it is obvious that all of these countries differ in language, culture and ways of thinking. The challenge for an internal auditor is to be highly flexible and be able to quickly adapt to new situations. Therefore Antoine not only has to prepare himself for the professional part of his work but also for the intercultural aspects.

Within the ongoing globalization English has become the most important business language in the world. Of course, English plays also an important role in internal audit at Alcan. All audit reports are done in English and the team has to report in English to the Audit Committee.

The language which all internal auditors have to be fluent in, both written and spoken, is English. During the assignments they speak, if possible, either the local language or, in most cases, English. If there is no internal auditor who is able to speak the local language, a Co-sourcer from Ernst & Young has to support the assignment team.

First Topic

Our coach’s clients and suppliers

It is easy to define Alcan’s clients and suppliers according to its business, but not those of its employees. What we have to talk about are our coach’s clients and suppliers.

As my coach Antoine works in internal audit, I will start with a short overview about internal audit at Alcan. In the scope of Corporate Governance Corporate Audit plays an important role. The internal audit team is responsible for good internal control in coorporation with the Audit Committee (members). The instruments to use are independent and objective internal control reviews, education and business process consultation. Their aim is to create or raise efficiency and effectiveness of the corporate’s internal control. To raise the efficiency of their own team they recruit highpotential staff of an optimum scale and deploy external co-sourcers when specialized skills are needed. The main part of the internal auditor’s job is done outside of the headquarter. An internal auditor travels 70 % of a year and works on about 10 assignments per annum. That means that he spends approximately two to three weeks at the audited plant and in between about one week at his office. Working on an assignment, Antoine has access to all the databases and records he needs to prove the internal control of a plant.

Antoine has to do, inter alia, pre-divestitures for Mergers & Acquisition (M & A). In the course of such an assignment Antoine focusses on figures in order to provide the M & A managers with useful information about possible risks which have not yet been known to them. The M & A managers need the information about the value of an asset for their negotiations about the price with the potential buyer. Obviously one of the internal audit’s clients is the Mergers & Acquisition department.

As already mentioned above, the Audit Committee authorizes Antoine to audit the efficiency of the internal control of a plant or a part of a business group. In this case, the plant managers are the suppliers because they provide Antoine with necessary records and information. The real client of the internal audit team is the Audit Committee.

The internal auditors sometimes need specialized skills (language skills) which nobody of the team possesses. One possibility to dispose of these skills would be to hire auditors who have these skills, but this would barely be efficient as specialized skills are rarely needed. A better way to get these skills is the deployment of a Co-sourcer, in our case Ernst & Young. Ernst & Young is Antoine’s supplier in a classical sense, because they have to pay for the service they take. Nevertheless most of the services Antoine affords or takes are not extra-payed.

My Alcan Day: Additional Photos

 

Such a beautiful Day!!!

Here are some fotos I took in order to share with you this beautiful day!

 

Enjoy the wonderful ;-) view out of my window

Hope you have as much sunshine as we got!

Enjoy the sunshine or at least dream of it!

Sina

Welcome to my weblog

Welcome to my weblog! Feel comfortable and free to post...

anything you want to ask or add. Our WEALLCAN program is an opportunity for us, the 34 bloggers, to get to know a specific job and our coaches do their best in order to exchange their esperiences with us. Our task is to present everything we have learned throughout the program with you on our (we)blog. Your task can be to support us while contributing your opinions to our blogs.

About me

As written above my name is Sina Litterscheid. My full name is Sina Jae Hee Litterscheid. I was born somewhere near the capital of South Korea, but I have never gone back to look for my roots (if that was a question you wanted to post). It’s difficult to say why. I am German and that is the only thing to say about it. I mean you can choose any Asian country and ask me why I have never been there and that wouldn’t make any difference. I came to Germany at the age of 8 months and grew up with my adoptive parents. Ups, one year later my younger brother bombed into our family. Hence we were four. Yes, I suppose I am lucky... It changes a lot if you have your own family. Okay that’s a bit sarcastic, but that’s me, sometimes.

I went to a christian Gymnasium that is situated on a little island in the Rhine river between Bonn and Koblenz. It was really calm, pittoresque and cut off from the the rest of the world.

I have tried a lot of sports. I started with gymnastics at the age of three and did it for about five years. I tried a lot of sports - ballet, judo (2 years), badminton, athletics, basketball (4 years), volleyball (3 years)... I really enjoy playing tennis and I have already played for 13 years.

I had not played any instruments apart from xylophone up to the age of 16. At this age I decided to learn playing the guitar according to my great affection to guitar music and let us call it a lack of education that I felt in those days. So, as the musicians among you and maybe the others as well can imagine, playing the guitar is more than a decision. I found out that it is passion and talent - however you may define this talent - and of course many hours of practice. I am not trying to find any excuse. No, no, but I am not sure if anybody would call it music when I play the guitar. ;-)

There was a time when I dreamt of being a famous journalist like Karla Kolumna in the children’s story “Benjamin Blümchen”... You don’t know these children’s stories of Benjamin? Then you definitely miss something ;-). Honestly? This is definitely not the right job for me.

After this short eposide of journalism I turned to the field of business administration, did an internship in the Debelux Chamber of Commerce in Cologne, improved my French language skills as au pair I in the middle of nowhere in France and started studying Business Administration at the university of Mannheim. I enjoy living alone in my tiny little 24-squaremeters-appartment in the beautiful (debatable) city Mannheim.

Nevertheless my family is very important to me and since Octobre last year there is Titus. Our cute little dog who convinced me - me who has never wanted a dog - that a dog is the human being’s best friend.

Here is some kind of description of myself in a few words: frank, optimistical, strong-willed and disciplined. And I set store to a certain kind of gentleness, honesty, faith, commitment and reliability. I really enjoy the French gentleness and politeness.

Of course, my friends play an important role in my life and I try to spend as much free time as possible with them. I enjoy travelling, reading, having parties, playing tennis, surfing in the internet, travelling and learning languages. I love visiting and discovering foreign cities.

I got a little creative touch. Last year, when I discovered a shop in Antwerp that sold funny modern broches which inspired me to create my own ones. So I must confess, yes, I do handicrafts and it is such a great fun that I can understand my grandmother. My current project is to create my own earrings.

I like to meet new people as well as to develop unknown areas, always having in mind that I could discover something that inspires me. That was the reason for me to try bungee jumping which was a terrific experience. Maybe some of you do agree?

This kind of curiosity is one of my reasons to take part in the We All Can program. Of course, I want to get a better insight into an international company and its atmosphere as I suppose all of us (the bloggers). It seemed to be challenging to get in contact with professionals and to discover a job. This is a great opportunity and I have hoped to make lots of useful experiences.

Have a look into the section “My Alcan Day” and you will soon find out about the experiences that I made during the most exciting part of the program.

About my coach

• A - Antoine
• B - born in 1977
• C - classic
• D - de Corbière is his last name
• E - Ernst & Young is his former employer
• F - flexible
• G - gentle
• H - highly ambitious
• I - inhabitant of Paris
• J - job: internal auditor
• K - kind
• L - L’EDHEC Lille
• M - measures 1.80 metres (about 3 ft)
• N - needless to say, he is nice
• O - open-minded
• P - Parties with friends
• Q - quotation: “Many people judge the french accent as charming” (Antoine’s colleague Dominique)
• R - rugby
• S - Spanish speaking
• T - team player
• U - unattached
• V - Versailles
• W - worldwide travelling
• X - XV aout is his rugby team
• Y - younger sisters
• Z - zest for life

HIS JOB

Between 2001 and 2003 Antoine worked as external auditor for the big accounting company Ernst & Young and left E & Y as a senior. There is no specialization in audit at a Grande Ecole de Commerce. Therefore experiences in external audit are a good basis for a job in internal audit. Since 2003 Antoine has worked in internal audit. At the beginning he worked for Pechiney which was already acquisited by ALCAN in the same year. You will find out more about internal audit in my report about the alcan day.

SPORTS

Antoine loves sports, e.g. tennis, but his passion is rugby. He plays in a team that he founded with some friends. It is called XV aout. Have a look at www.interim.com/15aout .More about rugby you can find on http://wesclark.com/rrr/define.html .

EDHEC LILLE

The best schools in France are the Grandes Ecoles. They are different from university, more practical oriented. The main difference is the hard preparation of two years after their French baccalaureat and the “concours”. Antoine graduated at EDHEC in Lille which is one of the best Grandes Ecoles de Commerce in France. Find out more about http://www.edhec.com/ .

ABOUT HIS PERSON

Once upon a time there was a little, we assume, cute boy born in 1977(?) somewhere in France. His father went to sea. His mother stayed at home. After some years there came another child. The female power at home increased until he had three younger sisters. Most of the time his father was not at home, so he tried to get some mor male impact and began to play rugby.

Antoine is single. He seems to be a French gentleman from top to bottom.

Antoine collects souvenirs e.g. basecaps.

THE WEALLCAN PROGRAM

Antoine volunteered in order to share his experience with young people. His motivation is to help young people to get to know a job which they could imagine to do. He likes internal audit very much and wants to inspire young people. Originally he would have prefered to invite me to one of his assignments instead of a day at the headquarter. Instead of this trip which would have broken the program's budget, he made a fantastic introduction into his job in Paris.