The Step-Up project
We have already discussed the VUCA world. Every company, large or small, lives with this constant threat. However, we must try to anticipate change and manage it for our own benefit.
A year ago, Gnutti Carlo launched a project called Step which aimed to define the strategic path to fight the crisis and guarantee future growth.
Following the pandemic, we felt the need to give a boost to our project and we relied on management consultants to transform the crisis due to Covid-19 into an opportunity. After a careful selection, Gnutti Carlo chose Boston Consulting Group (BCG) which is considered among the “Big Three” in the world of management consulting. The support from BCG will consist of analyzing and understanding changes, designing new strategies, and finding solutions in line with our business objectives: Step-Up was born.
BCG will carry out a check-up of our Group to understand the organizational, production, commercial and financial situation; it will propose solutions to be implemented, monitor operations and results, help us use the best planning tools to make the most effective decisions. All this because our goal is to grow and become a point of reference in our sector.
We interviewed Mr. Jacopo Brunelli (Head of Practice Operations in Boston Consulting Group)
- At first glance, what did you think of the Gnutti Carlo Group?
It is a Group with a century-old history and prestigious customers. I have noticed a skilled and passionate team. There is a desire to get involved and find new solutions to the problems that impact the automotive world.
Today, Gnutti Carlo is a point of reference in components and is faced with important challenges to ensure its market leadership is maintained in the coming years.
In its recent history, it dealt with extraordinary transformations and growth, addressing the important challenges imposed by the automotive components sector. The Group interpreted these challenges by evaluating and seizing opportunities for both organic and inorganic growth to compete in the sector on a global scale.
Therefore, the Gnutti Carlo Group has characteristics of marked dynamism and the ability to give an important impulse to activities, even on an international scale. It is the basis for continuing to be successful even in a delicate period like this.
- What is BCG’s support for Gnutti Carlo?
BCG is at Gnutti Carlo’s side to support in the processing and evaluation of strategic scenarios for the direction of the Group in the near future and with impacts in the longer term.
The challenges of the automotive sector are incredibly interesting and today more varied than ever. BCG is bringing its knowledge and skills about the reference markets and the opportunities for further improvement of industrial activities. Gnutti Carlo operates in a context of high rate of change, with the cycle of product renewal that is getting shorter and shorter and with the recent crisis that has increased the pressure on margins globally. At BCG, we also try to bring a new perspective, an external point of view that can help find new solutions from a different perspective. For example, the Gnutti Carlo Group has assets and capabilities that can help renew its product portfolio and generate revenues in new product categories while increasing the saturation of production plants.
- Without going into detail, what are the first practical tips that you would suggest?
The dynamic context in which many industrial sectors have been operating for some years now requires thinking about the future without excluding creative options, less consolidated in the reference sector, even outside the current areas of competence of the company. In practice, this consists in considering a multidisciplinary approach in analyzing opportunities and defining a plan for the company of the future.
In the short term, the initiatives will be aimed at improving corporate competitiveness and strengthening the core business. In the medium to long term, we will try to obtain new business and seize opportunities outside the current company radar, also working on strengthening some key skills.
Companies must be able to anticipate changes. Not only must the company ask itself what to do in the next 12-24 months, but it must also try to understand where it wants to be 10 years from now.
- In your opinion, what is the most frequent mistake that companies make?
The “mistakes”, that is the apparently unsuccessful attempts, actually often represent for companies a value to capitalize on, as they allow to acquire experience and knowledge on which to leverage in order to improve and find new ways of creating value.
We believe that encouraging creative activity and supporting field choices, including those of significant impact, represent a goal for companies. The innovation and pivoting activities of companies should be supported by structured analyzes of the context in which they operate and the strategic opportunities that the sector offers, acting with calculated risk, and leveraging on the strengths of the company. On the contrary, the real mistake would be to underestimate the changes and face the new challenges with the usual methods, that is to proceed by inertia without challenging the status-quo, asking questions, trying new development paths, carefully observing what happens in the world, both in the same sector and in the adjacent sectors.
- How does BCG see the future?
BCG see the future full of potential to be expressed, especially in the historical period we are experiencing. Technological and product developments (think for example of digitization to support production activities), the needs of the end customer (for example in relation to e-mobility, which in 2030 will represent 50%1 of the market total), regulations and sensitivity about environmental issues and the global geopolitical context, certainly offer and will offer significant market opportunities.
To grasp this potential, it is essential to invest in people. Companies that invest to grow people are the ones that will be ready to seize opportunities. Companies like Gnutti Carlo that aspire to be industry leaders must aspire to this.