In a period of an uncertain market context and staff shortage, Galli Spa has decided to focus on innovation and staff training to face the challenges of the near future
Galli Spa, leader in the design and development of machinery for the leather goods and footwear industry, stands out for its unceasing technological innovation and its commitment to providing a complete and personalized service. Founded in Vigevano in 1979, Galli Spa is a byword of excellence thanks to its ability to develop cutting-edge solutions to meet the ever-growing needs of the sector. The company is known for designing and manufacturing highly specialized machinery, which includes machines for edge coloring, die-cutting and embossing, gluing and other crucial stages of production. Innovation is at the heart of everything and Galli Spa constantly invests in research and development to ensure that its products are always groundbreaking. The company also stands out for its commitment to providing a complete and personalized service and works closely with customers to understand their specific needs and offer tailor-made solutions. Its team of highly trained professionals provides technical assistance, training and ongoing support to ensure customers get the most out of their investment. In this interview, Carlo Galli, CEO of the company, tells us what the prospects for the future are and the projects the company will focus on.
What are the biggest challenges you will face in 2024?
“Pursuing customer satisfaction is a goal we are constantly committed to; we often offer them free services, and this is a much-appreciated added value that allows us to provide complete and innovative solutions to their problems. In order to guarantee top assistance, we are also investing in our structure and our skills: in January we added two new members to our team. Furthermore, we are reorganizing our internal tasks and investing in the training of our staff. Last year we provided more than 600 hours of in-house training, and this year we plan to further increase it. Training is an essential investment for us, because it let us improve our skills and respond to the increasingly complex needs of our customers. In particular, we are focusing our efforts on three specific areas: software development, design and production planning, with the aim of optimizing production processes and satisfying our customers’ requests in increasingly shorter times. Apart from improving our skills, these investments will strengthen our position and will let us being able to keep on meeting the needs of an increasingly variable and complicated market.”
How do you ensure to offer always on the market high tech machinery usable to its full potential?
“The largest investment we have made in recent years has been in software. This has allowed us to develop and integrate functions not previously present, which greatly facilitate the daily work of individual operators, enormously reducing set-up times, thus allowing a saving of time which translates into economic savings. We also worked internally, renewing all our 3D CAD systems, which we use both for our in-house activities and for the development of our products. We have also completed the relocation of our management system, which we have entrusted to Team System, one of the main Italian companies in the sector. These investments are essential for our competitiveness. They let us improve our efficiency and productivity, and to offer increasingly innovative and competitive solutions. Choosing Team System as our strategic partner is a further proof to the quality of our work. We are proud of this collaboration, also because we have become their ‘ambassadors’, and we are certain that it will allow us to reach new goals.”
What advantages did this choice bring you?
“This software has allowed us to improve the efficiency and speed of our decisions. We have purchased almost all the available Team System packages, and thanks to Business Intelligence we are able to immediately access forecast data that previously would be three-moth old. The world of production is increasingly complex and multifaceted. It is no longer enough to know how to build a machine: it is also necessary to know how to manage it efficiently. This is a key skill to compete in an increasingly competitive market.”
How do you deal with the problem of finding new professional figures?
“Staff shortages are one of the biggest challenges we face today. This problem affects all companies, not just ours. We believe that the team is our main asset. For this reason, we are investing heavily in training and in the development of our employees. Training is essential to ensure that new employees can join the company quickly and efficiently. Employee development, however, is important to create a positive and motivating work environment that encourages employees to remain in the company. Our focus is not only on scaling the turnover and opening new markets, things that we are doing anyway but, at a time when we are facing a period of economic uncertainty, it is important to be able to look to the future and not stop. We are confident that our strategies will enable us to overcome this challenge.”
The prospects for 2024 are not rosy, especially if the conflicts do not cease.
“We are moving on with our plans, but we do not yet have a clear vision of the future. This is because we are a growing and evolving company, and our investments come with costs. However, we are confident that our strong team will allow us to overcome this phase of uncertainty. Each of us knows what we have to do, and we are setting ourselves accordingly.”
What new projects are you working?
“We have numerous innovations in the pipeline, which we will release in the coming months. These innovations concern more intelligent and flexible machines, and are the result of the investments we have made in recent years. We have decided to rewrite our software platform to make the machinery more coherent with each other, and to make them more industrial. This is an important change, which will allow us to offer our customers increasingly innovative solutions. Furthermore, we have decided to accelerate innovation, even in the short term. In the next three or four months, in fact, we will reveal some innovations that could be appreciated by the market. We are convinced that evolution is the key to success, and that it is important to keep on investing in R&D. Even in an uncertain market period, like the current one, we don’t stop and we keep on focusing on innovation.”
Carlo Galli, CEO Galli Spa