"Our business is mainly made up of people, who work together to achieve the company's objectives". The essence of Rutronik Italia, the subsidiary of the German broadliner distributor that has been in Italy for fifteen years, is all in this sentence, uttered by its Marketing Manager, Luca Longaretti. Rutronik Italy, a branch of the German broadliner distributor that has been present in our country for fifteen years. " In our work the relational aspect is everything: inside the company and outside, in the relationship with customers". That's why 2020, with the limitations on in-person meetings imposed to contain the spread of Covid-19, was a difficult year to forget: "The impact of the pandemic on people was enormous: many clients found themselves unprepared and needed time, at least a couple of months from the start of the emergency, to get up to speed with new ways of working", says Longaretti. "Internally, however, we were already structured enough to deal with the change, and it was our branch, the first to have to deal with the pandemic, that defined an organisational model that was then adopted throughout Rutronik."
How is the marketing team structured and what activities are they involved in?
The work group dedicated to marketing is organized on three levels: the Field Application, which is in the front line in guaranteeing technical support to the customer and identifying their needs; the Product Specialist, Product Manager and Business Development Manager, who work alongside the Field when there are specific needs and the need to propose particular technical solutions to support customers in the creation of increasingly high-performance and competitive products; the Line Manager and Division Manager, who play a more strategic and organizational role. Being a single team is fundamental to work efficiently and in an integrated way, taking advantage of everyone's expertise on specific products or applications. Collaboration is the key to a working environment like ours, which does not have a rigid division of tasks but is dynamic, equal and, I would say, democratic. From the point of view of the activities we carry out, many are established by the corporate, but many others are left to our initiative: we can thus focus on what we think is best for the Italian market.
What are the corporate strategies for the next few years?
Over the next five years Rutronik will be investing in various markets - mobility, IoT and Industrial IoT, advanced robotics, Industry 4.0, innovative materials, advanced measurement systems, processing, analytics and Artificial Intelligence, automation, energy, biotechnology, medical, transport and logistics - but it will be doing so with a different strategy to that of the "big players" in distribution, for whom the target is to bring the supplier's product to as wide a customer base as possible. Rutronik acts with a view to solutions, even developing its own, working in collaboration with a number of universities. After all, I believe that electronics is experiencing a sort of second youth. Until the crisis of 2009, the market was driven by the so-called killer applications: telecom, smartphones, tablets, PCs. With the revolution brought about by connectivity and Big Data, the approach has changed: we no longer speak of killer applications, but of solutions where electronics is the link between different applications. Among these, IoT and AI are the applications of the moment but in turn they constitute approaches to find solutions in other application areas. The key today is the interconnection between devices, it's how we make them talk to each other: whether it's Alexa or industrial devices, the point is data exchange. In this sense, the opportunities for a distributor multiply. Looking at the Italian market, we believe that industry will still drive the business, but there are many new opportunities also in medical, renewables and electric mobility, for which perhaps we should consider scooters, bicycles and other types of vehicles more than just cars.
What distinguishes Rutronik's relationship with its suppliers?
We build synergies with our key suppliers to develop projects with them that include not only their products but a set of solutions. It is with this strategy that we intend to differentiate ourselves: it would not make sense for us to compete with the giants of electronic distribution, which have other dimensions. Ours is an open approach: we ask ourselves what could be an interesting solution to propose to the market and we make agreements with suppliers in this sense. We reason by applications, where the role of the distributor is to put together several products from different suppliers, justifying in some cases investments that would not be sustainable by a single manufacturer, but become attractive in the perspective of the complete solution.
How do you imagine the Italian market in the future and how do you think distribution will have to adapt to the new scenarios?
I am confident about the electronics trend in Italy over the next five years. We are experiencing a lively situation, very different from that of about ten years ago, when there were few new applications: apart from metering, there was nothing new at that time. In addition, many investments will soon concern electronics: think of the digitalization of the PA and the transformation triggered by the adoption of renewable energy. In such a scenario, distributors will still play an important role: thanks to their capillary organizations on the territory, they have a certain easiness in catching new market opportunities. We will continue to focus on the concrete needs of the Italian market: our nature as an owner-operated company guides us in this sense, allowing us to operate differently from large groups, whose choices are more tied to the logic of the financial world.
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