A company was set up halfway between Bologna and
Modena in the 1980s which has become a leader with a strong international
position. GA Ricambi specializes in the supply of spare parts for earthmoving
machinery, trucks and industrial vehicles. Emilian roots and a global ambition:
the company currently boasts over 2,000 clients worldwide. For FARE INSIEME,
Giampaolo Colletti interviewed Valeria Basile, CEO at GA Ricambi
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
This is a story of love. Of course, do not be mistaken, in the following lines you will read about and listen to an entrepreneurial story linked with that Emilian ability to do things well. But, in this story, you will be able to grasp that will to make a difference. We find ourselves in San Cesario sul Panaro, in that vast Modena province halfway between Modena and Bologna. This is where GA Ricambi is located. The company moved here in 2000, leaving east Modena to get nearer to the industrial area closer to Bologna. A choice that strengthened the connection with that part of Emilia that is the capital of mechanics and where businesses linked with spare parts are located: it is difficult to think about mechanics outside the Modena production district.
Company history. The company was set up in the swirling Eighties. The engineer Alberto Gozzi was the person who came up with the idea, making a “life-changing” entrepreneurial choice. Skill, courage and initiative and then - maybe - a small yet necessary dose of rashness. Gozzi came from a mechanical company where other local entrepreneurs also came from. He wanted to set up his own business and so he did. “He then got married a second time, this time to my mother and in a short while my path became mapped out, although I did not yet know it at the time. In my head, I wanted to be an accountant, but after a bit of practice I was told ‘Good, now your time has come’,” recalls Valeria Basile, now CEO at GA Ricambi. She graduated in Economics and Trade and started working for the company in 1997. “I started doing everything in all the departments. I truly worked my way up, just like my brother who started working for the company later and is currently the General Manager. After the death of engineer Gozzi, this choice became a true vocation,” says Basile. Alberto Gozzi passed away when he wasn’t even sixty and so she became the one to lead the company in his name and because of his history. A promise made on his deathbed and that would be honoured day after day. “We are a solid international company, my alter ego is Simone Pettinari, who is a partner and administrator. Keeping up with the times, looking to the future, having the courage to change and reinvent themselves: this is what we can wish for our businesses, especially the family ones, but also to persevere and never give up. Being an entrepreneur entails great responsibility, commitment and sacrifice. We are traders: we purchase and resell and therefore distribute spare parts for earthmoving machines in a market where fast deliveries, flexibility and good service are essential,” stresses Basile. Emilian roots and global ambition: the company currently boasts over 2,000 clients worldwide.
Warehouse, technologies, people. “The wish to be international, flexibility, high-quality, good service and a wide range of spare parts are elements that are part of our winning strategy,” explains Basile. Then there is the headquarters, an innovative facility covering 25,000 sq m, 18,000 of which indoor, that is entirely managed by a building management system that enables the assessment of its performance and the containment of environmental impact. We also have a photovoltaic plant: combined with the open-cycle geothermal system, it helps self-produce the energy necessary to allow the automatic systems to have an inexhaustible source of energy, constantly available and renewable. A pioneering choice made in 2010. Then there is also a warehouse equipped with the most modern technologies for the arrival, storage and shipment of goods. Clients do not wait. The logistic system takes advantage of the wide spaces and enables the storage of at least 350,000 codes that are always available, plus the quick handling of at least one million items in a catalogue that features over six million pieces. “Success depends on the ability of the team to acquire an increasingly wide range of products and to distribute it with an excellent price-quality ratio to a large market. The choice is to constantly invest in research, innovation and safeguarding the environment. We involve our human capital in the implementation of strategies, establishing relationships based on trust and cooperation. The actual competitive factor is therefore not technology in itself, but personnel combined with a long-term vision: companies are made of people and their work, it is difficult to move forward without everyone’s full commitment,” concludes Basile. We cannot argue with that. People come before hi-tech solutions. A principle that is always valid, now more than ever.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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