For those who work in Rutronik the customer relationship is the beacon that illuminates everyday business. Its Credit Manager Paolo Brenna, who, with the operational support of his colleague Antonella Ricciardulli, is no exception. In his function, in-depth knowledge of the client is basic. As he explains, "Already at the coding stage, we analyze the client, using our insurance partner, the company Coface, and assess him in terms of financial reliability. Based on the assessment, we then set payment terms and start a relationship that we always hope will grow and strengthen over time."
The focus on the customer is, therefore, the common thread of the daily credit management activity, which includes checking orders to be fulfilled, checking and possibly raising or lowering the overdraft threshold, monitoring payments, maintaining customer and bank records, and debt collection. Of course, it may also happen that we have to manage the "end of life" of a customer: "We have a package of over two thousand customers and it is physiological that some of them may go into default: in these cases we always try to find a mediation and put the customer in a position to pay. Of course, we have a company policy that provides for certain procedures, and when these are unsuccessful we have to use an outside firm to adopt, as a last resort, the appropriate legal instruments."
Who is Paolo Brenna
Who is Paolo BrennaBorn in Milan in 1975, after graduating in Economics and Business at the Catholic University of Milan and a first important work experience at the Comis Lombardia exhibition organization, he landed in the Finance sector covering the role of Credit Analyst in Europcar Italia and later that of Credit Collector in Shell Italia. He entered the world of electronic distribution as Credit Controller in Avnet, in 2010, to move, after a parenthesis in Hunday Italia, to Rutronik in 2015. He is associated with Acmi (Credit Manager Association Italy).
Why is customer relationship also so important for Rutronik in the business of credit management?
We have to consider that our customers are manufacturing companies and buy essential components for their business from us. When one of our customers is struggling to meet payment deadlines, we must first understand the reasons for this and do what we can to avoid blocking a shipment of material, which would create a real domino effect: the customer, in turn, would halt production, be unable to sell, and be unable to pay its suppliers. It is therefore important to know the context and commit to finding solutions, such as re-entry plans, that allow us to safely ship the material the customer needs-this is our way of maintaining a relationship and collaborating in the interest of both. To do this we need to be flexible, respecting procedures of course, and to be able to anticipate any critical issues: it may happen that we propose to the customer to reschedule payment deadlines if we anticipate that he or she may face difficulties in the coming months.
Being close to the customer, then, does not just mean going to see him or her when things are not going the way they should be...
Exactly: one should not go to customers only when there are problems. Even a simple "courtesy visit" has great value in deepening mutual understanding and is a valuable opportunity to ascertain the health of the customer himself, because it tells us perhaps much more than a balance sheet figure or a rating. After all, the credit manager's job today is no longer tied only to numbers: in the last twenty years I have experienced firsthand a change that has seen the importance of the relational aspect grow, even for those who, like us, had always made assessments essentially on the basis of figures and percentages. Of course, data remains the ABC of our work, but deepening our knowledge of clients and their business projects has become fundamental: this is how we have managed, for example, to build trusting relationships even with clients who were initially "problematic" from a financial point of view.
He has worked for companies operating in different industries. What did you have to "learn" once he joined Rutronik?
Credit management itself is a fairly standardized activity, although it varies according to company policies and the type of product, or service, the company sells. I started in credit management at a car rental service company, Europcar, then moved to fuel cards at Shell Italy and, most recently, to electronic distribution at Avnet. When I joined Rutronik, I dropped into a business reality with a philosophy of its own, different from what I had known in Shell, a multinational company with impressive numbers starting with customers, which numbered in the tens of thousands, or in Avnet, which is yes a distributor but is a publicly traded company, with a very different business outlook than ours. Once I learned the philosophy of Rutronik, a family-owned company that is as attentive to turnover and results as it is to the balance between the various budget items, I brought my experience to the company and introduced, with the support of the Finance Manager, tools such as factoring, which had never been considered before, and work procedures that streamlined some processes.
What was the year 2022? And, although making predictions is complicated, what will the the coming months?
The first half of 2022 experienced the excellent results of 2021 and 2020: thanks to the injection of liquidity at subsidized rates operated by the government, companies were able to regularly pay for goods purchased. Today making forecasts for the coming months is really complicated. We must necessarily look carefully at the international economic scenario: after the pandemic and lockdowns in China, events such as the war in Ukraine and the uprisings in Iran are heavily affecting the market. We cannot overlook the high cost of utility bills, which even for some of our customers has reached unsustainable levels in recent months and puts their ability to produce at risk. At the moment, the most felt issue concerns delivery delays. Several customers find themselves with very high inventory levels, but are unable to monetize them precisely because of the lack of certain components. It is a stalemate situation, which I believe will bring criticality in the coming months-I expect it will be difficult for many companies to keep their commitments and meet their return schedules. In general, I think it will lengthen the average collection time. The indicators are unfortunately negative, and an increasing number of arrangements with creditors and bankruptcies cannot be ruled out either. There is clearly a need for strong state intervention and business support from banks and financiers to prevent the situation from precipitating into a crisis of proportions equal to, if not worse than, that of 2008. Having a clear picture of the situation does not, however, mean indulging in catastrophism: for our part, we will continue to be cooperative with customers and suppliers, and we hope that all our interlocutors will do the same.
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