Almost three thousand employees all over the world, 1,200 patents by over 500 engineers and an R&D investment of between 10 and 12% of the turnover. “Research is key, but technology is not an end to itself and it must be developed based on clients’ needs. The solutions, even if protected by patents, can be copied, but people remain the most important value”. Giampaolo Colletti interviews Datalogic CEO Valentina Volta for FARE Insieme
di Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Had it been established today, we would
have described it as a start-up. Or,
actually, a scale-up due to its
ability to innovate, internationalise, grow in turnover and raise interest.
However, this story started in the Bologna hinterland in 1972. A story that,
from the University of Bologna travelled around the whole world, changing the
market everywhere. Datalogic entered the tumultuous 1970s, characterised by a
global economic crisis and the order dictated by the Cold War, the Watergate in
the US and the “Years of Lead” in Italy. While the world was living through
this period of protest, there were also people working on propositions.
Studying, experimenting, even making mistakes, but trying again and finally
making it. In the end, this is the recipe for innovation, with those
coincidences that help the daring. “Datalogic
was born to meet the needs of packaging companies when it came to mechanical
controls with optical-electronic sensors. My father started this
entrepreneurial activity from scratch. After all, how these companies got in
touch with universities to find electronic solutions for their machines proved
a coincidence. A professor asked my dad, who was an assistant at the time, to
work on it. And he accepted the challenge. At the time, the university approach
was closely linked to theory, so what my dad did was truly revolutionary. In
2022, we will celebrate our 50th anniversary. We are a business based on
innovation,” explains Valentina Volta, CEO of Datalogic since 2017, a leading
company in the world of the bar-code readers invented fifty years ago by her
father Romano.
The starter-upper engineer. However,
let’s proceed step by step and, before reaching the present day, let’s go back
to Mr. Volta and that intuition which he had after years of study. His garage,
to refer to an image so dear to the US classic idea of innovation, was located
in a room which was part of the rectory of the San Michele Arcangelo parish in
Quarto Inferiore, a town of two thousand people forming part of the Granarolo
dell’Emilia municipality in the Bologna province. The idea was launched to
innovate the global packaging valley, as most leading global companies to do
with packaging are located in this part of Emilia. Volta created a first device
called Color Mark Reader to detect slight contrast differences on the packaging
material, which is still installed on all packagers. But the truly disruptive innovation was the capability
of combining optics with electronics which, by means of sensors, led to the
creation of the first bar-code readers. Thanks to the swift
internationalization of the company, Mr. Volta came into contact with this
technology in the US in the mid-1970s and immediately realised its great
potential, and so started to develop the first readers for industrial use in
Europe. The bar-code reading technology
for product identification was first developed by US university professors in
1948 and was first implemented in 1974 in a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, then
making history. Nowadays, that first scanner is on display at the National
Museum of American History in Washington and, thanks to an important
acquisition, has been part of Datalogic’s story since 2005. “My father, who had a practical
approach and great manual skills learned at technical school, started to test
these products based on demand and, once he left university, he started working
for himself: he developed, produced and sold in trade fairs in Germany and
Europe. What dad did was rather risky at the time, there were no backers, you
needed to collect payments from clients in order to pay suppliers. Our company
is still that visionary and entrepreneurial business it was at the beginning.
Our roots and values have not changed, as we have maintained our pioneering
spirit. My dad is the executive president and still supports our strategic
decisions,” reports Valentina Volta. To think that it was only him in the
beginning, the starter-upper engineer, while now Datalogic boasts 2800
employees, 55% of whom are located in Europe, 20% in America and the rest in
Asia (a considerable figure, as there is a leading production site in Vietnam).
Then there is also the skill of over 500 engineers. Our clients include the
largest companies in the world, 40% of the 500 that appear on Fortune's list of
the largest companies. Our evolution has led us to being quoted in the Star
segment of the Milan stock exchange in 2001.
The new identification valley “For us, the market we currently work
in is the identification valley. A unique and innovative sector linked to
identification. Today, Datalogic’s main competitors when it comes to bar-code
readers are American,” stresses Volta. Datalogic is part of this context in
motion - a company specialized in the design and manufacturing of bar-code
readers, RFID, detection and measuring sensors and other electronic devices.
There are fixed retail, hand-held and industrial scanners used by stores,
factories, airports, logistic centres, manufacturers and hospitals. This is how
we recovered after last year's situation characterized by the pandemic: we
registered a turnover of €300 million during the first six months of 2021, with
a growth of 31% at constant exchange rates, with an EBITDA of €47 million on a
turnover of 16% and a net profit of €23.5 million. Then there are order trends
which, with a double-digit growth, have gone back to the levels of 2019. An
innovative and technological company. Nowadays, Datalogic boasts over 1200
patents which are part of the equity and have a huge value because they
constitute competitive advantages and are fruit of the invention of 500
engineers committed to R&D all over the world, in both the two facilities
in Bologna as well as in the two US facilities in Oregon and Pennsylvania. “In 2016, we invested 9% in R&D,
while now we have reached 10-12% of the turnover. Because knowledge is still a
value. Research is everything, innovation is key. Our clients are always
expecting the latest innovation, and pleasing them is our objective. We have an
indicator that measures their satisfaction and the quality of our offer in
technical terms. I am talking about the Net Promoter Score, a measuring system
that enables us to always listen to clients. After all, the future is a journey
that we face together,” highlights Volta.
From Bologna to the whole world. The headquarters are located in Lippo di
Calderara di Reno near Bologna, but the production facilities and repair centres
are to be found in Italy, US, Hungary, Slovakia and Vietnam. So - with roots
firmly planted in Emilia, and a capability of conquering the markets with a
successful glocal recipe. “The
secret is thinking big. In the US, we have acquired a significant presence
focusing on acquisition and people growth, which has brought about ideas,
values and cultures. Nowadays, almost half of our workforce is located outside
Europe. We are a single large company that includes our headquarters as well as
all the foreign branches.” What about the future? In Valentina Volta’s view,
the future always depends on clients. “We
need to consider them as compasses to understand the direction we need to take.
We high-tech companies are often too focused on our technology, but technology
is not an end in itself, but must rather be developed based on clients’ needs.
The solutions, even if protected by patents, can be copied, but people remain
the most important value. Unlike the past, we now think more and more about how
to develop our talents, offering them opportunities for growth and promoting
sustainability within our group. Just like in the past, people make the
difference,” stresses Volta. Clients’ needs change: while readers were once
needed to scan bar-codes, now there are more advanced solutions, such as the
artificial intelligence introduced into supermarket check-outs to identify the
products in the shopping cart. “We
are now working on the next generation of readers featuring innovative
solutions that can provide product recognition via vision systems. What is
more, the new readers and mobile computers can be charged wirelessly. For
mobile computers, which are like smartphones and use the Android operating
systems, we have made an agreement with Google,” explains Volta. Just like that
pioneering and visionary bar-code invented fifty years ago, the future must be
decoded together.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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