“How are we reacting to this emergency? In every possible way, doing all we can to face a situation that no one could ever imagine...
Stefano Mauri
Co-owner, GIARDINA GROUP (Figino Serenza, Como)
www.giardinagroup.com
- How are you reacting to this emergency?
“In every possible way, doing all we can to face a situation that no one could ever imagine. The efforts made in the past two years to “merge” the experience of Giardina Finishing and Mauri Macchine, to equip the production unit in Figino Serenza and to develop our new Innovation center have resulted into the adoption of production systems, technology and digital platforms that are now proving very valuable. With my brother Riccardo and all our employees, we reacted immediately, first of all setting up a team to ensure the safety of environments and people; at the same time, we have increased the provisioning of components and supplies and pushed productivity, so that we can not only deliver all the orders scheduled in March before the lockdown, but also have machinery and systems ready to be shipped within a couple of days as soon as we reopen.
Having improved our technical and sales network, we have been able to deploy assembly teams with the necessary experience in many countries: these people, connected to our engineers in Italy for proper guidance, have been able to commission the plants we have delivered.
We have been quick and most of all available, close to our partners, resellers, customers: we have even been able to close, though with unusual methods, four major and complex orders in China, South-East Asia, South America and Germany.”
- What do you think is changing or will change radically?
“We have realized that what seemed to be “accessory tools” can be used much more profitably: the reorganization I mentioned before has involved our “digital soul”, from new production management systems to equipment configuration, from logistic and purchase management to social media and web communications, with a new website release ready to be launched in these days. We have adopted tools that are enabling us to work differently and I really believe that, in the future, these tools will be essential to establish new and effective relations with customers, partners and suppliers.
But most of all, we have learned that emergency management, for any type of emergency, should be one of the top skills in any company.”
- What should the authorities and all of us do?
“The costs of this “crisis”, if you want to call it like that, must be borne by everyone: governments, which will have to do their best to support citizens and businesses; companies, that will pay a price, the higher, the smaller their capacity to dare, invest and look ahead. And there will also be costs for individuals, people, families… I wish we can develop new capacities to understand, share, act like a community.
Everyone will have to play their part, honestly, respecting customers and suppliers, meeting their commitments. It must be clear that we all belong to a supply chain, a system that can get out of this tragedy only if it stands united and keeps looking ahead…
I would like to close by saying that today, unfortunately, is the time to cry over those who did not make it: from a human standpoint, it’s been a tough experience… I hope this is a useful lesson for all of us…”.
