Watch Out: Suppliers Are Growing!

by Lorenzo Cattini, Assiot Vice President

First of all, my deepest thank you to Fabrizio Sasdelli for sharing with us an ambitious ongoing project in his Company; with this article, I’d like to share my experience with you about the tremendous potential that is available for Companies that wish to continously grow their competences and their capabilities to co-ordinate projects. Cattini & Figlio S.r.l. works together with the world’s most renowned manufacturers of agricultural tractors, construction machinery and heavy trucks; all of these Companies are multinational, complex entities that need to integrate a variety of functions and that, sometimes, are in trouble to find a common line leading to a successful execution of their strategies. They are a true melting pot of different nationalities, traditions and cultures where issues not solved quickly may lead to a stop for the entire project. In a sometimes hard environment, I believe that, besides the indispensable technical competence, the innate Supplier’s motivation to problem solving and its capability to act rapidly are the key factors to convince such big Organizations to choose for the “buy” option vs. make, together with the opportunity to transfer the risks to Supplier and make it an easy scapegoat in case of a failure. Supplier’s role, in short, is to act as a catalyzer of the entire project, co-operating with everyone (even with the reluctant ones…) to create a winning team and turning a nightmare into a success story. So, for now, this was our direct experience for the recent past; the big task for me, now, is how to turn these facts into useful take-aways for our readers: first of all, I believe that each Supplier should fuel a reasonable ambition to be leader in their segment by endlessly endeavouring the concepts of analysis of their own context, of the risks and opportunities of their business and of continuous improvement: the new world standards for management model IATF 16949:2016 (automotive) and ISO 9001:2015 (generic), represent excellent ways to lead to excellence. Cattini & Figlio is already certified according to these standards and can confirm that they are of great value in the long term. Equally important, to make Italian companies stand out from the competition, is, to my opinion, the guidance offered by the environmental, health & safety and ethic standards. The second step is to create and give adequate visibility to the entire segment of Italian power transmission makers; to create therefore a Supplier cluster that is capable to attract orders from all over the world by means of the excellent performances of each of the Companies involved in it that can convince Customer to invest less in their own capacity because excellent Companies and adequate capacity are available at the right cost. Finally, to crown the above efforts in a recognized global leadership, is essential to create a culture that promotes social relationship at all levels. It is clear that all Italian Enterprises should start and continue a fruitful dialogue and an ethically correct exchange of information, best practises etc. to create value and the best enterprise culture possible, to create the fuel needed to propel this network through all market challenges and be one of the global winners; this is why I hope that all Companies operating in our segment of business will be part of ASSIOT, to consolidate this heritage of knowledge that is simply invaluable. The new industrial revolution to me is certainly focused on people, because, now more than ever, people are the key asset of every Organization and the human factor will make the difference between winners and losers. Enterprise 4.0 enables Companies to think what they really want to be, takes away all excuses or false uncertainties that were used for years to maintain a comfortable status-quo, and provides all required technologies at affordable cost. Being a top performer has never been that easy and, allows me to say, as my conclusion, that the future is for those Enterprises that really dreamed about it!
I’m pleased to cede the floor to Assunta Galbiati, the newly elected ASSIOT President.