Europe Trip Summary 

In Paris, Schlumberger received our MBAs in the very same building in which the Schlumberger brothers started their company!  SIS Consulting Managing Director Antoine Rostand discussed how he started Schlumberger’s new Oil & Gas Consulting division a year ago.  He further shared his insight of the energy industry, emphasizing the shift from finding oil to optimizing asset utilization.

The second French company our Rice MBAs visited in Paris was Sysload Software, which sells software solutions to monitor and analyze IT network traffic.  They discussed with International Sales Manager Pierre de Saint-Sernin their business model and some of the differences between dealing with his American customers and French customers. Mr. de Saint-Sernin commented that American firms were more likely to want to install Sysload Software solutions themselves rather than to request a Sysload IT expert for installation.

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