THE CUSTOMERS' VOICE

From left:

Rosolino Pomi

Patrizia Pomi

Paola Pomi

Investingin digital

technologies to compete

in the era of crises

The meeting is set for an early summer afternoon. We have got used to conducting interviews only remotely: before lockdown, the alternative to in-person interviews was the telephone, but now that we have become familiar with the beginning of the new normal, we can choose among different digital platforms that attempt (not always successfully) to replicate the live experience. When the telephone rings there is no answer on the other side. A handful of seconds goes by and then a message of apology for her absence arrives, followed by a telephone call that explains what happened: after months of remote business contacts, on the day of our interview a prospective client - reversing previous meeting arrangements - showed an interest in meeting the delegation of the system integrator in person at his company offices. Paola Pomi, CEO of Sinfo One, did not let this opportunity slip away: “It was an opportunity I couldn't miss,” she confesses on the day we have rescheduled for the interview, telling us about the meeting. “Up until that time we had only discussed things through remote calls and the offer to meet in person was certainly an important opening towards us.” At a time of mandatory social distancing, being able to look people in the eye - while complying, of course, with all safety measures - is a breath of confidence in the future. Covid-19, however, has not stopped Sinfo One from carrying on its activities and even negotiating important partnerships during Phase 1 of the emergency, like the one with Infor, one of the major global

sellers of Enterprise resource planning solutions (see related box). “Until May we were not able to either host or visit potential new clients; it was a different case for our consultants, who were allocated

Investingin digital

technologies to compete

in the era of crises

The era of companies' 'off the cuff management' is over. Today we need Data driven models. To monitor all activities and to change course if the scenario dictates it. And especially in a moment of uncertainties, solutions such as ERP, Business Intelligence e PLM remain indispensable to guide companies. Sinfo One talks about its emergency management and its experience gained always remaining alongside its customers.

Interview with

P a o l a P o m i C h i e f E x e c u t i v e O f f i c e r o f S i n f o O n e by Dario Colombo

03CoverinterviewInvesting in digital technologies to compete in the era of crises

their own spaces in the companies we collaborate with.” The situation started changing in June, but still called for caution. On the other hand, when we talk with Pomi, news of new pandemic clusters is coming from Westphalia, in the north of Germany. “For us at Sinfo One it's always been important to welcome clients to our offices, because it's a demonstration of the transparency on which we base our relationship.”The last time we talked, we were in full lockdown; now we are facing a new emergency phase, in which everything is still up in the air. Our (new) conversation with Pomi starts here.

From your particular point of view, what kind of times are we experiencing and what have we learnt from the first emergency phase? Some sectors are sure to recover, others will struggle more. For example, the food sector had a problem with the supply of raw materials, although there are cases of companies that managed to meet the new challenges. It’s a time when we need some inventiveness: it's not easy to find a recipe, but we must realize that everything is in flow and the solutions we used very recently don’t apply any more. The central issue is managing the complexity of the new supply chains by redesigning them and identifying new market opportunities, including domestic ones, since relations with foreign countries are now more complicated due to the pandemic.

Speaking of restarting, in April Sinfo One was only working remotely. What has changed since? Although the new government measures permit staff to return to the office, most of our people today are still working remotely, because we want to enable them to balance work commitments with their different daily private needs; it is certainly an alienating situation, because it doesn't allow them to communicate personally with colleagues and we all need human contact. This is why we have sought a balance that takes these aspects into account while ensuring safety. Therefore we let teams organize a few face-to-face meetings in the office, so that people can feel part of a group.

There is a lot of talk about smart working: should we forget this experience or carry on with it even after the pandemic? In our case it was a precious resource at the beginning, thanks also to the high sense of responsibility of Sinfo One employees; but we are an organization that needs a stimulating environment that can facilitate the exchange of ideas and the sharing of our values. This is why we continue with remote working, but at the same time encourage safe meetings to reconnect the ties between the teams and also to enhance the experiences of all colleagues. For example, all the training courses that were run remotely during lockdown are now organized both ways, so as to offer the opportunity - in particular to new hires - of a real team experience. But it's not only the operational

teams that want to share the work environment: Personnel Department staff, whose work involves payrolls and therefore would have no difficulty in working remotely, have asked to be allowed to do

W E N E E D T O R E - D E S I G N

S U P P L Y C H A I N S , I D E N T I F Y I N G

N E W B U S I N E S S O P P O R T U N I T I E S

Patrizia Pomi,

Counselor of Sinfo One

04 Coverinterview Investing in digital technologies to compete in the era of crises

some of their work in the office. This proves how important physical space is for work and I am glad that our company is a place where people feel happy and at home. The office is the representation of a culture in which we can challenge ourselves, creating relationships that go well beyond the technical aspects of the work.

So there will be no more smart working? We will not go back to the past and therefore we will make more use of smart working (the real one), even during times not necessarily linked to emergencies. Still, we will not be a company based on remote working: we need a space where we are aware of what we do, of the more profound sense of work, and where we can share time and experiences with those who work alongside us. Change will bring something positive, but the lack of physical presence, to me the most evident expression of the sense of belonging to Sinfo One, is an expression of the fact that our business is based on relationships, not just on technologies.

Given the situation, how do you plan to organize your traditional annual kick off event? I am confident that we will be able to have the event in mid-December, as we do every year: I have told all the colleagues coming to the office that we will. In the hope that restrictions will have been

relaxed by then we want to organize a large internal event. This is an important occasion for Sinfo One: it's the only time when we are all present, since normally many people are busy with outside projects.

W E W O N ' T B E A R E M O T E

W O R K I N G B A S E D O R G A N I Z A T I O N :

Y O U N E E D A S P A C E T O H A V E A W A R E N E S S

O F W H A T Y O U D O

Rosolino Pomi,

President of Sinfo One,

and Patrizia Pomi

06 Coverinterview Investing in digital technologies to compete in the era of crises

Continuedon page 10

P a o l aP o m i

Paola Pomi - 46-year-old wife, mother and manager - has significant experience in Business Management in IT companies: she is CEO of Sinfo One. After helping to create the system integrator team, Pomi still has many ambitions and dreams to fulfil and leadership skills to offer.She is an expert in managing projects involving large national and international teams, and has conside-rable experience of corporate processes, particularly in the areas of production and distribution. Among her many skills, Pomi is considered a leading expert in the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Business Intelligence (BI) systems, and in the study of custom-made, innovative solutions, on both the dome-stic and foreign markets.The CEO of Sinfo One has a wealth of experience in the sale of complex national and international projects with a strong innovative aspect, both in terms of tech-nology and with regard to market and implementation procedures. Pomi also has a great ability to relate to major clients and understand their needs.

08 Coverinterview Investing in digital technologies to compete in the era of crises

We analyze results, discuss the more innovative projects - sharing solutions and challenges - and we watch the ‘representation’ by various colleagues of company values, developed creatively in the style of a talent show. It’s the most playful aspect of the event, but a very important one because it gives tangibility to the creation of team spirit. In a normal situation, the company kick off is a crucial opportunity for sharing ideas and experiences; in 2020 its particular importance will be to indicate the direction we want to take.

Has the pandemic halted the expansion of the number of employees? Unfortunately hiring has slowed compared to recent years. So far we have ‘only’ recruited six people, despite having planned for greater investments in staff expansion. Some of the new employees even started their jobs at Sinfo One during lockdown. I must admit, though, that we miss the many opportunities for discussion and growth that we have always encouraged within our organization. I’m thinking, for example, of the Sinfo Colleges with the new hires, staff training courses which also created a sense of community among colleagues, who are often busy with different projects and therefore have little opportunity to meet and discuss their work. During the emergency we organized the Sinfo Colleges remotely, but this version has a limited scope.

I imagine that it’s too soon to take stock, however, after months of the pandemic you probably have a more precise idea of its impact on business: what results do you expect? Unfortunately in 2020 we will not hit budget targets - which were set well before the outbreak of the pandemic - but we will probably close with higher numbers than 2019, which I believe is a challenging goal in itself and, in light of the current situation, a satisfactory one. To date we are happy to have added a number of people to our team and to have trained them. Training projects are key to Sinfo One, because they are conceived, designed and delivered professionally - they are not merely an obligation to be met.

How do you run a company at times of great uncertainty and, above all, how do you ensure its survival? During this phase it's essential to manage company information with real-time dashboards; flexible systems are needed to access information constantly. Now more than ever we need to manage all the data to control every aspect of the company and not just what is reflected in the income statement. While before you could wait until the end of the month, now you might find yourself from one day to the next with production halted and this requires finding immediate solutions. It follows that to be able to change course you need systems that can also be run and operated remotely. Doing this with a real-time monitoring system is definitely easier. We have always offered services and support to our clients, even taking care of needs not provided for in the contract. This also confirms the importance of the flexibility of solutions: we have worked with clients who suddenly changed their target market and therefore faced new challenges.

If we are destined to live in a permanent state of crisis, how can technology facilitate business management? In order to react to this situation it is necessary to strengthen what we define as the company backbone - consisting of its ERP and Business Intelligence (BI) -, which must be flexible in order to manage different requests (regarding times, methods, production, logistics, etc.) and support the financial management of the organization. In the lockdown phase, for example, the help desk and application maintenance service that we offer over the whole range of ERP, BI and PLM products were key to keeping all the services of client companies working. Managing this aspect also made the difference for Sinfo One.

How do you mean? This level of support was taken for granted and considered ‘normal’ both by us and by the clients used to working with our company. We have understood that this kind of service is not a given: during lockdown we started a relationship with a prospect because he found out, talking with another client of ours, that we had been able to offer

support since the beginning of the crisis, even managing an increase in the use of certain applications. Now we have one more strength to emphasize in our business negotiations.

T O R E A C T T O C R I S I S W E N E E D

T O S T R E N G T H E N T H E C O M P A N Y ' S

B A C K B O N E F O R M E D B Y E R P A N D B I

10 Coverinterview Investing in digital technologies to compete in the era of crises

human aspects of the relationships. As is well known, at the beginning of the pandemic Italy had to deal with the emergency before the other European countries, which did not understand the full extent of the crisis; however, we were also among the first to capitalize on what we had gone through and we used these experiences to manage business operations remotely. In our case, the three go-lives allowed us to remain close to our clients and to act not just as consultants for the implementation of the technology, but also as privileged points of contact for the discussion of various topics. For example, I had a virtual meeting with the General Manager of a company who wanted to find out more about the tools we were using internally to organize meetings: he wanted to understand what to make available to his salespeople so that they could be effective even when working remotely.

Why do you believe ERP and BI to be the essential tools for managing a company in times of crisis?Today more than ever we need the certainty of information and the ability to process data into useful information for making decisions. Having numerous disjointed systems does not allow you to obtain integrated information and this can prove dangerous in a phase of crisis. What is needed is a single, effective vision: a collaborative approach underpinning the ERP is successful in these situations, because together with BI it provides real-time monitoring and speedy

In addition to service, the use of appropriate, always up-to-date technology also made the difference. How did you manage this aspect?As far as BI and Performance Management are concerned, we continued to invest in our technological solutions: in 2019 we invested about 2.5 million euros in R&D and in 2020, despite the pandemic, we chose to increase our planned investment by 5%. For Sinfo One it's essential to continue the work of improving the functionality and flexibility of technology, so that it may be ever more effective in supporting clients’ challenges. This choice is part of the DNA of our company: even if the market continues to slow down, we will go on investing in R&D, also because we have the internal resources to do so and projects to manage. Those who will continue to invest in digitization will secure a competitive advantage for themselves in the future.

During lockdown you managed numerous projects: how did you provide service remotely?In the first phase of the pandemic three projects of large international companies (two in Europe and one in North America) went live - two ERPs and one PLM. The main challenge was dealing with different time zones: we managed the projects by providing constant support to the work teams in all phases of implementation. We worked shoulder to shoulder with clients, also giving great importance to the

Rosolino Pomi is

a Knight of Order of

the Italian Republic since 2017

11CoverinterviewInvesting in digital technologies to compete in the era of crises

management of various critical issues. Speed was the element that made a difference during the pandemic, since many clients needed to modify products, production processes or even their target market (the cases of those who chose the sanitizing gel market are well known). In the case of the food sector, for example, companies had to face a sudden slowing down - and then shut down - of HoReCa: those who had moved to this segment had to convert to different areas.

Why is it more effective to manage these aspects through technology?Managing a conversion depends on many aspects, but certainly those who had a PLM system had a considerable head start, because they didn't have to improvise. PLM allows you to monitor each phase of development and release of a product and with ERP you can interpret data correctly even remotely, without having to continuously discuss it. Take, for example, the case of the production planning of a biscuit company. Naturally you need to know the data about raw materials, available production lines, packaging, and price. During the pandemic, we all know, there was a great demand for flour: at that time the company had to purchase the raw material from other suppliers. But what would be the impact on price? It’s probable that the originally budgeted price was no longer sufficient to cover all production costs. Now, let's think about the difference between the possibility of having this data only at the end of production or at the beginning. It's easy, then, to understand how during a crisis it’s crucial to increase the level of control by managing data in real time.

T h e S i n f o O n e - I n f o r M 3 d e a lThe partnership between Sinfo One and Infor, signed in June 2020, involved the two companies in an exchange of ideas that lasted over a year. The dialogue was born out of shared values, such as the strong focus on vertical solutions and the constant drive for innovation, the adoption of cloud paradigms and the creation of an optimal user experience. The agreement is based on a range of solutions designed for the specific challenges faced by the food industry business: both companies believe that the combination of vertical applications and great business skills are the foun-dation of clients’ success; also, when it comes to organizational problems, having at your disposal complete technologies that are easy to use and available in the cloud helps to build a competitive advantage. In particular, the partnership provides the complete and flexible suite for managing operational processes, financial and regulatory aspects, and data analyses in food companies (Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage e Infor M3, integrated with Infor Birst); the solution for digitizing and optimi-zing maintenance operations and reaching new levels of efficiency in the management of company assets (Infor CloudSuite EAM); the solution for solving the complexity connected with new product development, managing the innovation process, and ensuring accurate labelling, with special attention to product quality and safety (Infor PLM Optiva).“With Infor we share solutions for vertical markets, combined with the aspects relating to training and to flexible solutions designed specifically for our clients,” says Paola Pomi, CEO of Sinfo One. Furthermore, the Parma-based software house considers Infor's partnership with Amazon Web Services as a great advantage for offering in-cloud solutions. “This agreement raises us to the level of global players and allows us to continue our international expansion.”

So the companies that will survive in the future are the data-driven ones?During this period, those who had set up data-driven organizational processes and models were able to experience the benefits of doing so. Unfortunately there are still companies - often family-run ones, although this is not a determinant characteristic - which are dominated by the culture of what they can see and which rely exclusively on an entrepreneur 's insight. This model can work - despite its limitations - until a crisis occurs that, say, forces staff to working from home; at this point, if the organization is data driven it 's possible to keep an eye on all the indicators which, as before, can then be ‘interpreted’ in the light of one's experience. I know the son of an entrepreneur who, unlike his father, asked us to get him remote access to all the data that until the day before his father had been fetching by walking to different parts of the building. The same principle applies to both of them, but it 's obvious which model is the more functional one.Isn't there the risk of delegating to technology activities that should remain human?The data-driven model has transformed what was previously managed on paper into a digital version. It is needed in order to organize things, but also to ‘clean’ the data that can now be really useful to obtain very rich information in real time. That would have taken too long using the old paradigms. And, as I mentioned, now more than ever speed makes the difference in the new crises.

So far we have collected Paola Pomi's thoughts and Sinfo One's experience. In the following article, we analyze how the Parma system integrator's customers have leveraged digitization to address the crisis and the restart

12 Coverinterview Investing in digital technologies to compete in the era of crises