Dr. Franco Bonello takes over as MD of Indian Operations
Savio India is a leading Italian manufacturer of twisters in the country today. The company has established a strong presence in the market by catering to the specific needs of Indian and overseas customers. Its modern plant on the outskirts of Coimbatore is Savio’s only global-level facility at which two-for-one twisters (TFOs) are manufactured and sold both within the country and overseas.
A team from The Textile Magazine recently visited Savio’s Indian establishment and met Dr. Franco Bonello, who is at the helm at Savio India since 2015 as Managing Director, for a freewheeling discussion on the company’s current market position and its plans for the future.
It has been just over a year since Dr. Bonello took over as the Managing Director of Savio India. Asked about his stint till now in India, he said: “It has indeed been very exciting. It is good for me to be back in India. Remember, I lived in Mumbai during 2001-04 when I was earlier working for an automotive giant. My predecessor, Dr. Gabrielle Checchini, was a man of action. He was literally everywhere. I am working to improve on what has already been done. Our focus broadly has been to improve efficiency, strengthen services and be closer to the customer. Now, we have also inducted Mr. Shrikant Gajabi as Sales Director. With his extensive travel experience, he has been engaging with our customers and interacting with the frontline sales team for enhancing customer relations.”
Customer-focused approach
Speaking about the challenges that the company faces in the Indian market, Dr. Bonello stated: “There are undoubtedly many challenges, but our team is confident of surmounting all of them. Our motto is – ‘we want to serve the customer faster, better, and more’. We are improving on the logistics side, the network, and supplies side. Inside our factory, we want to have more standardized and structured processes. Product development has to be done in a certain way, and when it comes to service, we have to be ready to respond to the needs of the customer promptly.”
He added: “Of course, we have set targets. We have a one-year target, three-year target and a five-year target, and so on and so forth. All our efforts are focused on improving quality and bringing in more efficiency at all levels.”
Queried whether the company wants to expand its supplier base in the country, Dr. Bonello replied: “The answer is yes and no. In some areas, we are in the process of broadening the supplier base because our production in those particular product lines is increasing. The number of machines delivered per month is increasing. So, we need an enhanced supplier base. In other cases, we have several suppliers for the same commodity. The basic business in their case is so small that we need to focus on consolidating them into two or three large suppliers. It makes more business sense for us as well as for them too.”
Steady growth
India continues to be a key global market for Savio and the company intends to keep investing in the Indian market. Elaborating on the same, Dr. Bonello said: “We believe that India has great potential in terms of cost and people. The youngsters here are well qualified and eager to learn and succeed. We have been consistently recruiting some of the finest talents in the industry. If production continues to increase the way it is in India, there is no constraint for Savio to continue investing in this key market.”
Savio has been catering to the requirements of key global markets from its manufacturing hub in India. Throwing lights on the company’s exports, Dr. Bonello said: “Last year, the ratio of exports to domestic supply was 50:50. This year, we expect about 20% growth in production. The growth is being pushed by demand from both domestic and export markets.”
Dr. Bonello feels that there is always scope for improvement. “Quality is of paramount importance to us. There is always margin for improvement. We are going ahead with kaizen across the production process. Everyone, from the staff handling the line to the chief of the line, and the head of the plant, needs to follow a certain set of rules as per kaizen which helps in improving efficiency”, he remarked.
Recently, Savio India and Savio Macchine Tessili of Italy, through its dealer Itema Asia, entered into a strategic partnership with A.T.E. Enterprises Private Ltd. for sales and marketing of Automatic Winders, Two-For-One Twisters, Continuous Yarn Shrinking Machines, and OE Rotor Spinning Machines in India.
Explaining the thought process behind the same, Dr. Bonello said: “The idea was – here are two entities which need each other. We are number one in the world in our product segments, which is TFO and Automatic winders enjoying a 40% plus market share worldwide since several years. The Savio brand is well-recognized the world over. Back in India, we wanted to further expand our customer base. Thanks to this partnership with A.T.E., things are now looking up. A.T.E. has lots of experience in working with major global OEMs as well as a sound and long relationship with the largest Indian corporations. They have the widest portfolio of products and solutions for the spinning industry and with Savio’s products can now deliver almost turnkey projects right from the blow room to the finished yarn package. The partnership will help us even more to project our brand image in the market and at the same time be closer to the customer.”
New portal launched
Savio India had, during the Tex Fair show held in May 2016, launched ‘e-spare’, an exclusive online portal where our customers can create their own unique IDs and passwords and order for spare parts. Going into details about the portal, Dr. Bonello stated: “The portal is very user friendly. It is just like using Amazon. You enter a product code and you will immediately get details like price and availability of the particular spare. If it is okay, then the part will be dispatched to your address. Our response time has almost become ten times faster, thanks to the portal.”
The company has now been strengthening its service network. “We have many technical centers located across India. We have small warehouses in all these centers for emergency situations. We want our machines to work round the clock without any interruption in a mill. These small warehouses have just about enough spares to attend to a machine in a breakdown condition. Our biggest spareparts center is located in Coimbatore. We have the capability to dispatch spare parts 24×7 from this center”, he added.
Dr. Bonello also disclosed that the company has been recruiting more engineers in order to strengthen its service offerings. “Each one of these engineers will be dedicated to catering to the specific needs of our major clients.”
Future plans
Outlining the company’s future plans, Dr. Bonello said: “We have already installed more than 2,600 winders and 600 TFOs in India. We are constantly getting customer feedback. For us, ethics is also very important. If we do our work properly, then results will follow automatically. Thanks to the efforts our team has put in, we are already seeing improvements. India will continue to be a key market for Savio and we would like to double our production next year.”
Sounding optimistic about Savio India’s presentation at ITME 2016, Dr. Bonello said that customers will greatly appreciate the company’s world-class and innovative products at the event.