After the M&A, I've been assigned the role of Business Developer within Breton spa in regards to the Tecnema products. As a business developer my goal has been to create paths and networks of contacts aimed at increasing the profit of the ceramic division by enhancing the existing sales network capabilities.My main tasks have been:• support to Breton departments to process orders and process requests on the products• training of the Breton salesforce • business improvement strategies (marketing, sales, pricing, new equipment)• direct management of USA, Europe, UK and Turkey markets• identify prospects in the market and complete appropriate research into the prospect's business and equipment needs to develop new products• management of the Breton sales network in regards to ceramic requests/leadsDuring this experience I've learned the mechanics of working within a multinational corporation leader within the industry as well as the management processes of a structured company within a M&A operation.The main difficulties have been the consolidation of assets and the personnel management: to overcome these difficulties, we carefully planned the merger process and developed a clear strategy for the integration of activities and personnel by actively involving the employees of the two companies.

Due to the innovative products developed by Tecnema, a strategic joint venture was established with Breton Spa, a company with more than 900 employees leader within the natural stone industry.I've been assigned the role of COO, with the main goal of creating a ceramic division within Breton by implementing useful sinergies between the two companies.My main tasks have been: • restructuring of the organization chart of the company• implementation and control over the business plan approved by the Board• issuing directives and coordinate all the corporate services having direct responsibility for it• performs a systematic review of the periodic reports of the processes under management• sales networks sinergies: coaching, training, integration and management of the Breton sales network• other sinergies: integration of parent company procedures and know-how• HR office manager• M&A operationWithin Sales we've created useful sinergies between the networks by adding new agents in Vietnam, Brasil, India, Portugal, Australia, UK and Spain, while training the whole Breton salesforce (12 people) on our products and customers and expanding our market presence by reaching their leads; in marketing we've re-branded the company to fit the Breton ecosystem by developing a lot of new and better publications as well as services (journals, new internet site, presentations ecc.): due to all these actions revenues went up to 8M in 2019.In the meantime we've also worked in all internal departments to fit the Breton existing procedures and standards while bringing the necessary know how within the mother company: the primary focus has been the transition of the technical and electrical departments.We've also empowered our existing workforce by hiring 6 new people in order to sustain this phase of huge workloads actively.Within the end of 2020 we've then completed the merge and acquisition strategy and Tecnema has been fully merged within Breton spa.

I've been assigned the responsability of our international sales, around 70% of the total revenues of the company, following now directly the US market as my first priority.The internal sales team was composed of 3 Area Manager (AM) and about 15 partners worldwide (agents or re-sellers accordingly to the specific market).In this position my main goals have been:• improve the action of the sales network to increase sales• carry out analytical and propositional functions aimed at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the Sales DepartmentMy primary activities have been:• analyze individual foreign markets- management of AM/Agent/Re-seller matrix to assign and monitor the markets- turnover over the years- type of products sold- competitors' selling prices- analysis of sales forecasts• organization and participation in exhibitions (Marmomacc, Tecnargilla, Cersaie, Coverings,, Cevisama ecc.)• drafting of foreign sales forecasts, based on the data provided by the AMs aimed at assessing their real consistency, any emerging problems and possible corrective actions• proposition and formalization of the corporate strategy in terms of marketing mix, verification of our positioning on individual foreign markets• manage the continuous technical/commercial updating of AMs• organize dedicated missions with AMs in order to verify the consistency of the agents work on the market and verify the customer satisfaction • analyze the commercial costs of the various areas by verifying their profitability, proposing corrective actions• find out about the progress of orders on the one hand and the availability of payment instruments on the other, promptly urging AM in the event of a delay in payment instruments, to carry out a cognitive action on the relative prospects and pressure on the Client who may be in default or late in performingTogether we were able to push revenues up from 3.6M up to 5.7M (+25% YoY) with a 7.2M reached the following year in 2018.

I've been assigned a direct role and responsability in managing and developing the following markets: Spain, Turkey, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.My main goals as an Area Manager have been:• new leads & customers acquisition• existing customers care and retention• scouting of new potential market trendsMy main tasks were:• reach and surpass the budget foreseen for the area• structuring of the local sales network (agents, reporting officers, promoters and re-sellers)• organizing the work of the sales assistants, as well as relations with the various corporate entitities• prepare the periodic reports as requested by the Sales Management, necessary for controlling the activities• collect all the information and data related to the area in order to define, together with the Sales Director, the followings: - sales strategies for the area- sales budget- spending budget (travel, fairs, promotion and advertising)During this experience I've managed to know the customers directly and I've learned the negotiation skills necessary to close a deal: the size and complexity of customers varied from the big ceramic groups such as Porcelanosa, Seramiksan and Villeroy&Boch to smaller companies with different needs.During these 2 years I've found a new dealer in south Germany and Austria to improve our sales, a new agent in Turkey, a new important customer in a new industry (bricks) such as Vandersanden Group and consolidated the relationships with our existing partner in Spain.In coordination with the engineering department I've helped the company to develop new products for the production of slips and corner pieces from full soft mud bricks (see below atttached).I've participated in business exhibitions in different countries and improved the sales by going over the budget; I've also learned to be able to manage my time more efficiently, keeping up a constant communication with all colleagues in all Depts.

As a natural prosecution of my professional development I've moved into the Sales Dept. under the direct supervision and guidance of the Sales Director.My tasks as a Sales Engineer have been:• providing the Area Manager with a feasibility analysis of the customers projects by designing customized layouts to build up the offer and start the negotiation phase• design of complete commercial offers • after sales: spare parts management + technical support for start-up and assistance requests• existing leads management + new lead generation• online marketing (Google YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Hootsuite, Zapier)• other marketing: catalogues, depliant, articles/publications on specialized magazines• creation of an intuitive mobile free-to use CRM by using Trello• ERP modules such as: costing, pricingThis great experience allowed me to be in direct contact with many different customers from all over the world, knowing better the market dynamics and the industry from the inside.I've learned how to communicate with customers clearly and understandably, both via mail as well as in person; I believe communication is key in order to avoid expensive misunderstanding with customers, and I learned how important is to provide a fast and precise feedback to each request since it pays off in the long term.By using my technical experience I have been able to support the Area Managers in the lead generation process successfully and followed each single negotiation from the beginning untill the end.As an Industrial Engineer I have created a free to use CRM within the Trello application that could track the state of advancement of every single deal, and could be used to provide feedback on closingg % for each Area Manager, a great tool for the Sales Director. I've also worked in marketing by creating the online presence of the company and by helping with all marketing activities using InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and WordPress.

I've then moved inside the Technical Dept. of the firm with the main purpose of knowing deeper the products.I've focused my development on learning the basics of 2D and 3D design of the mechanical components, working with AutoCAD, SolidWorks and SolidEdge, and all related side activities such as coding and BOM management by using the SolidWorks PDM (Product data Management) software.As an Industrial Engineer I've also kept the focus on my cross-functional tasks towards Sales, Purchase, and Production Depts, by creating shared documents for internal use only in order to maximze the communication and increase efficiency.My main task towards Sales was designing complete layouts for different production lines during the offering and negotiation phases, working side by side with the sales managers as well as the customers.Regarding after sales, I've designed the User&Mainteinance manuals of both machines and complete lines as well as spare parts manuals, using InDesign and other graphic tools.I was also cooperating with the Assistance team to provide them with specific positional and foundations layouts.This experience has been fundamental in better understanding the products from the technical side and helped me a lot in understanding the processing of ceramic tiles manufacturing: I better understood the functioning and mounting of pre assembled groups, machines and complete lines made of different equipment working in a choerent sequence. Furthermore I managed the complexity of a BOM on several different levels both for design purposes as well as for a faster production and assembly;I believe my work has been also significant by implementing new order management procedures that lasted for several years within the company: I've learned the great importance of "do things right the first time" in order to avoid issues to the downstream departments, as well as the technical mindset and the key importance of this business unit in any manufacturing company.

Tecnema was a small size company (around 40 employees) with a 30 years experience within the ceramic industry: the company produced machineries and customized production lines for the ceramic business with a focus on cutting, profiling, gluing and squaring of porcelain tiles.I started out working in Tecnema within the Production Dept., as a trainee, with the following tasks:• controlling/monitoring the assembling lead times of the equipment in order to increase the efficiency• warehouse management tasks such as picking and pre-assembly preparation• workshop layout improvement• BOM management• non-compliances management with direct support of the engineering department• assembling cost/time detection and allocation for pricing/accounting purposesI wanted to know more about the product flow within the company so I've decided to start in the workshop, where all the outputs from previous departments are gathering; working here helped me a lot to better understand the flow of raw materials within a manufacturing company and its importance as a key phase for quality and on time deliveries.As an Industrial Engineer my role has been useful to better connect the workshop to the technical office with measurable improvements on all the above tasks; this experience also helped me a lot in understanding the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) of the company.By working side by side with the specialized technicians in the workshop I've learned for the first time the importance of teamwork and how great things in business are never done by one person, they're done by a team of people.

This company was specialized within the finishing of ceramic tiles: squaring, lapping and cutting were the main processings.I've made this Internship experience to study more in depth the production efficiency of a fully automated line working on ceramic tiles; the goal was to analyze the downtimes and identify a strategy to increase the production output, as well as the revenues for the company following the Lean Manufacturing principles.My main activities have regarded an in depth efficiency analysis of a cutting and grinding line for ceramic tiles; I've mapped the existing processes along the line as well as the failures and then I've analyzed the data to develop a different and more efficient production scheduling accordingly to the production orders that needed to be processed.I've been working side by side with the Production Manager to reduce the set-up times of the line during the size-exchange procedures. I've also attended various meetings with different customers with a technical support role -Power Points presentations and Excel data sheet analysis- on the possible outputs of our lines and the definition of the target prices for each specific manufacturing.

During this summer internship I've worked inside this mechanical parts production company as a Production Assistant; the company was serving several different industries from automotive to ceramic.I had the chance to work both in production scheduling/optimization, as well as within the supply chain;I've worked side by side with the Production Manager in order to assist the company in the full implementation of the ERP management system: this process allowed me to know the manufacturing cycles of the products as well as the production management flow, starting from order scheduling up to the production cycle and packaging/shipping, dealing with accounting.I could also build the first business relationships with customers and suppliers.Overall a great first working experience where I've learned the basics of the working environment and its dynamics.