What a trip! Portugal was a life-changing experience that really shaped me as a person for many reasons. One of the biggest takeaways from the various company visits was the push towards sustainability businesses have in Europe that American companies lack. While there have been increasing consumer sentiments that we need to be pushing renewable energy more and more sustainable business practices, American companies still far lag behind companies in Portugal. One company in particular stood at me called Impetus. Impetus is a vertically-integrated textile company that we visited during our second week in Portugal. Their decision to be vertically-integrated stemmed off a desire to make their entire business process from production to end-user as efficient as possible. During the factory tour, it was interesting to see many concepts from SCMT 364 being applied to their production process. Many of the topics we covered in that class were being used at Impetus to ensure maximum efficiency and minimal waste.
Aside from the textile company, we also got to visit a cork farm, an olive oil farm, and wine farm. All three experiences were incredibly unique and taught me quite a bit about the production process for the respective commodities. One commonality amongst all three was not overusing the land and a push for natural growth rather than accelerated growth stemming from steroids and fertilizers. This idea behind letting things happen naturally rather than trying to impose your will had a huge impact on how I view things, especially in terms of my career. Overall, this study abroad has been very impactful and rewarding and I know there are so many lessons and relationships that I have taken away from it that will stay with me for the rest of my life.