Author: Ercole Davide Rovida

Senior Telecom Engineer and entrepreneur

Povera Italia

Posted on by Ercole Davide Rovida

Sempre piú sicuro che il futuro della mia famiglia sará in Spagna. Io sono italiano come il 50% dei miei figli e sono orgoglioso di esserlo per diversi motivi ma oggi credo che debba pensare al meglio per la mia famiglia e purtroppo questo non si trova in Italia.

L’episodio del ponte di Genova é solo l’ultimo esempio dello stato di degrado in cui ci troviamo. L’Italia é sempre stata considerata tra i Paesi piú all’avanguardia in molti settori e lo é ancora in un certo senso. Avendo lavorato all’estero per molti anni posso assicurare l’immenso apprezzamento che riceviamo. Purtroppo, insieme agli apprezzamenti per la nostra tecnologia, la scienza, la medicina e altro ancora, quello che mi viene spesso chiesto è: MA PERCHÉ VI SIETE RIDOTTI COSÍ? Io tento di spiegare i motivi ma alla fine la rabbia prevale perché mi sembra assurdo quello che sta succedendo e soprattutto per i diversi motivi che molte volte non vengono capiti all’estero.

Uno di questi é la nostra estrema passivitá di fronte alla situazione. Nessuno si ribella, tutti alla fine accettano un’ italietta governata da anni in modo assolutamente poco professionale se la mettiamo sul profilo manageriale dove modestamente posso opinare. Gente incapace, poco preparata, pilotata da forze che tutti ormai conosciamo. L’italia se continua cosí é destinata a un degrado ancora piú estremo e a perdere sfortunatamente peso a livello internazionale.

Spero che qualcuno intervenga presto e soprattutto riesca a dare dei messaggi chiari e “misurabili”. Siamo stufi, veramente stufi. Vorrei che quello che é successo ieri scatenasse veramente una reazione a catena che finalmente abbia l’obiettivo di risollevare il nostro Paese ma temo che purtroppo sia solo un’altro episodio che dopo il clamore di pochi giorni, finisca nel dimenticatoio. @GiuseppeConteIT @luigidimaio @matteosalvinimi a voi le risposte.

2018 we start with a strategic partnership

Posted on by Ercole Davide Rovida

Furukawa Intracom

Just one year working in Intracom Telecom. One year full of great achievements. Today we are experiencing another key step on the development of our international go to market strategy: the partnership with Furukawa Electric LATAM.

Something that has been studied with the main target to present an integrated portfolio of Hybrid Fiber-Wireless solutions. My idea, discussed with my CEO and Furukawa´s has been based on the possibility to offer to our customers a complete solution for next generation networks starting from 5G, but not only.

Today the key request from everybody is capacity. This request started years ago and is exponentially increasing every year due to the new market tendencies related to Online gaming, streaming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Big Data, etc.

Independently from 5G networks and future amazing network architectures, the need of connectivity and capacity is TODAY! In Intracom Telecom we are addressing many different projects designed with the aim to give connectivity and, of course, capacity in different market sectors. One of our big challenge is Rural areas coverage. We are dealing with tens of projects worldwide. Projects included in the European 2020 program for connectivity and assure at least 30 Mbps per subscriber, but also projects to increase capacity per subscriber to more than 100 Mbps.

In a big part of these projects is requestedalso connectivity with fiber. Different topology of connectivity schemes that fit with wireless and complete our portfolio. Fiber used to reach peripheral areas and from the last point of presence extend the network with wireless. Fiber used also in the buildings for smart home solutions even in remote unconnected areas thanks to a connection with wireless point to point or point to multipoint systems.

At the end, we can understand why this partnership could generate a tremendous portfolio of hybrid solutions to be delivered to our customers, from one side Furukawa Electric completing with wireless systems and from the other side Intracom Telecom with fiber active and passive network elements.

Resuming, why this strategic partnership:

Because Convergence of fiber based and wireless transport becomes a stronger asset than ever, in the evolving telecommunications market. Operators today can find themselves in the position of accessing a larger tool-box of solutions to homogeneously address fixed and mobile transport network with multi-gigabit transport options.

Main reasons:

  • Complementary portfolio of Fiber and Wireless solutions. GPON, WDM, Cabling, Wireless Transport and Access. Deliver high capacity fiber-like throughputs up to last mile subscribers.
  • Complete solution provider for network infrastructures. Today the market trend in telecommunications sees operators asking for complete network solutions aimed to reduce TCO.
  • International presence and complementary markets. Evident synergies based on reciprocal support with  technology and services, e.g. LATAM and EMEA.
  • Integrated software solutions. Intracom R&D can customize or design software solutions that could manage the full Intracom and Furukawa portfolio. NMS platform and dedicated solutions for IOT and BIG DATA. Big advantage for customers.

2017 new challenge again.

Posted on by Ercole Davide Rovida

Since December last year have been requested to join an big international company. This company is an important manufacturer of wireless Systems and Telco Software Solutions. It’s a challenge without any doubt, I must develop business in those areas where I’ve been working since many years: Italy, Spain and Portugal, Latin America and Mexico. I must enhance its brand awareness, fight against hard competition and give fast results to my board.

You could ask me how could I accept this challenge, so difficult and with a high grade of being unsuccessful. I simply answer: because I believe in myself and I believe in the people who is supporting me.

I’m always trusting people and his capacity to help me. I’m always learning and my attitude is focused on facilitating proactivity. In this way, everywhere I go, I can find high level support and a lot of people willing to help me even in the most difficult activities.

I don’t want to make a long speech about management and managers’ qualities, everything has been discussed many times in my blog. What I can say is that in my work I simply apply what I think is right for me and my colleagues, everything based on an absolute respect but paying attention to establish targets and following up activities aimed to reach our goals.

Today the market asks you to be fast and is asking you to be a killer, avoid errors and straight to the target. Is not easy, I know but is a must if you want to be successful. The “funny” thing is that most of the time, well prepared people able to support you and giving you a high value is just working close to you! Simply they need to be involved deeply and, above all, stimulate them to give their own opinion on how to solve problems, address customers or modify processes to be more effective.

I think that this experience will be very important for me and definitely will make me grow again professionally and as a human being.

Hope to be able to start writing more often about this, because this experience deserves it.

Youncta, Estrategia de innovación como herramienta para la competitividad

Posted on by Ercole Davide Rovida

 

Introducción

Youncta es una joven empresa que ha comenzado su actividad en el verano del 2014. Es una empresa innovadora que se enfrenta al reto de  un mercado muy difícil y a una competencia agresiva cada día.Youncta centro de negocio

Debido a la gran dificultad que conlleva la penetración en el complejo mercado de las telecomunicaciones y teniendo en cuenta que el producto ofrecido, radioenlaces digitales, es un producto estable y que ha evolucionado relativamente poco en los últimos años, Youncta ha tenido que reinventarse continuamente, buscando diferenciarse y aplicando la innovación a 360°

En Youncta hemos innovado tanto en los procesos de desarrollo de negocio, marketing y ventas como  en la gestión operativa y por supuesto en I+D+I.

Ha sido un proceso complicado, ralentizado a veces por conflictos internos, problemas en el enfoque y cambios en los objetivos realizados sin una correcta valoración, dificultades a la hora de hacerse aceptar por los clientes ya sea por falta de conocimiento de nuestra marca, por pocas referencias en el mercado u otros motivos.

Cualquiera se hubiera hundido y hubiera lanzado la toalla, pero en Youncta no lo hemos hecho, hemos luchado para lograr entrar en el mercado y empezar a vender nuestros productos, intentando aprender cada día de nuestros errores. Así hemos conseguido lo que hoy podemos considerar nuestro posicionamiento en el mercado.

Como hemos conseguido cambiar de actitud? Analizando el mercado e intentando proponernos distinguirnos  de la competencia.

Estrategia de ventas

Youncta es una marca que representa una empresa pequeña pero con un gran valor en su I+D+I.

Siendo una empresa con sólo dos años de vida, ha sido verdaderamente complejo afianzarse en el mercado nacional e internacional por distintas razones pero, tras  dos años, hemos logrado individuar nuestro mercado de referencia y gracias la diferenciación, conseguir vender a muchos clientes ubicados en distintos países.

Nuestra clientela es de todo tipo, integradores y distribuidores, pequeños operadores, WISPs, operadores Fijos y Móviles, nacionales y también globales.

Y ante la pregunta: ¿Cómo hemos conseguido vender, siendo totalmente desconocidos en el mercado?

La respuesta es: de muchas maneras:

  • A través de contratos de prueba, permitiendo a nuestros clientes probar los equipos y si no quedan satisfechos, devolverlos.
  • Siendo más rápidos en la entrega de los equipos que la competencia.
  • Ofreciendo soporte técnico veloz y con un seguimiento directo junto a nuestros clientes.
  • Trabajando con el cliente en proyectos conjuntos para la producción de equipos personalizados.

Una de nuestras clave de éxito ha sido sin duda nuestra actitud hacia el cliente. Establecer relaciones de confianza y colaboración distintas de la simple actividad comercial.

Nuestra red de distribución

Youncta es una empresa pequeña como su departamento de ventas. Así que para conseguir estar presente en el mercado y poder gestionar contemporáneamente distintos clientes, hemos tenido que extender nuestro canal comercial a través de colaboraciones con partners seleccionados.

red de distribucionDesde el primer día hemos intentado establecer una red internacional de partnerships  que fueran capaces de vender nuestros productos y también garantizar asistencia técnica. Cuando se vende en un país extranjero, la  asistencia técnica y la logística local es fundamental. Nuestros clientes pueden, en caso de necesidad,  contar con el ayuda de técnicos expertos para solucionar sus problemas de manera rápida y eficiente, sin tener que esperar días o recibir una respuesta de un call center lejano.

Nuestra red de distribución se encuentra en Italia, España, Brasil, Chile, Sudáfrica, Polonia, República Checa, y va creciendo continuamente. Actualmente estamos firmando acuerdos en Australia, Singapur, Argentina , Perú, Colombia y México

Y-Lab

Soluciones personalizadas para nuestros clientes.

Como  he señalado antes, uno de nuestros factores diferenciadores y el que para nosotros es el más importante, es nuestra I+D+I. En Youncta tenemos un departamento de I+D completo, capaz de diseñar un equipo desde cero según lo que nos pide un cliente. Nuestra I+D está compuesta por 5 grupos de desarrollo: Hardware, Software, Radio, System Test y Validación.

Y-LabLos equipos que se diseñan y producen en Youncta son equipos con patentes propias, no integramos productos de otros productores, todas las placas y tarjetas electrónicas han sido diseñadas por nuestra I+D, tanto las partes mecánicas como el software.

La gran ventaja que ofrecemos es poder “dominar” todos los sistemas sin tener que pedir soporte técnico a empresas externas, reduciendo de esta manera los tiempos de resolución de eventuales fallos y permitiendo a nuestros clientes pedir versiones personalizadas de equipos existentes o encargar proyectos nuevos.

Una vez terminado el diseño de los equipos su producción, empezando por los prototipos, se desarrolla en una fábrica local cerca de Youncta, donde podemos controlar el proceso de producción industrial.

Nuestra I+D o (como solemos llamarla) Y-Lab, ha diseñado equipos nuevos a clientes muy importantes y globales en Rusia, Brasil y España. Clientes que han podido apreciar un trabajo casi artesanal pero de calidad extrema y un desarrollo tan rápido que ha permitido entregar los productos en menos de 6 meses.

El futuro, nuestro portfolio innovador

Hoy presentamos un concepto nuevo de radioenlace digital. Todo el mundo sabe que este tipo de equipos de radio han tenido muchísimo mercado y mucho tendrán en los años que vienen, debido a la gran demanda de conectividad que otros medios, como la fibra óptica por ejemplo , no pueden dar si pensamos a países en vía de desarrollo o zonas rurales donde no es posible su instalación.

El radioenlace lleva mucho tiempo desarrollando sus funcionalidades pero manteniendo sustancialmente un concepto tradicional y casi invariado desde muchos años.

En Youncta hemos pensado cambiar este concepto tradicional introduciendo unas funcionalidades innovadoras gracias a la adopción de la programación Java en nuestros nuevos productos

NFC con Lyn3a touchless configuration2
Utilizando Java hemos conseguido acceder a múltiples dispositivos como tablets, smartphones y  Navegadores Web y hemos diseñado aplicaciones útiles para nuestros clientes.

Un ejemplo es lo que hemos llamado “Touchless Configuration” o la posibilidad de configurar los equipos sin utilizar un ordenador, simplemente con un smartphone y nuestra aplicación Android. Hemos integrado en nuestros equipos una tarjeta NFC (Near Field Communications o comunicación de campo cercano) una tecnología de comunicación inalámbrica, de corto alcance y alta frecuencia que permite el intercambio de datos entre dispositivos.

Gracias a nuestra aplicación, un instalador puede configurar, geo referenciar y instalar un radioenlace con un ahorro de tiempo y costes importante.

Brochure_A5_Es_V3Otro ejemplo de innovación en los radioenlaces es la posibilidad de incluir el sistema de supervisión directamente en una unidad instalada. Esta funcionalidad permitirà el monitoraje de otras unidades de manera interactiva y totalmente desvinculada de un ordenador o servidor.

En Youncta estamos integrando Telegram en nuestros radioenlaces. La idea es facilitar la comunicación entre máquina y operador, que recibirá directamente en su móvil los mensajes del equipo y podrá interactuar con el.

Brochure_Sygna_Final2Podríamos seguir elencando muchas otras funcionalidades pero para poder dar una idea de cómo podría ser el radioenlace de nueva generación hace solo falta pensar que en futuro los clientes de Youncta podrán crear también su propias aplicaciones para personalizar, por ejemplo, sus servicios de manera muy fácil y modular, gracias al ambiente Java y a sus múltiples librerías.

En conclusión, en Youncta creemos firmemente que el futuro de nuestros equipos y nuestro éxito está en nuestra estrategia de innovación que sigue imparable hacia un concepto nuevo de equipos de telecomunicaciones.

Last post of the year

Posted on by Ercole Davide Rovida

Year end is coming. I would like to take the occasion to write my last post of the year. 2015 represented a complicated year for me, due to many reasons related to my family and my job. Sad events, my mother and my mother in law passed away. Happy events like my daughter’s birth.

Dealing with a start-up company in a very tough market is not easy. I had to manage sales worldwide with different problems coming from limited staff, brand awareness, strong and sometimes unfair competition. It took some time but at the end we reached a good customer base that could assure us acceptable revenue for 2016.

I must say that 2015 was a very challenging year. I had to manage different issues trying to avoid being overwhelmed and, above all, oblige myself to focus and keep stress at a certain level. Sometimes I did it well, sometimes not. What I can say is that in those situations where I was so tired and disconsolate, I could recover very fast because my values in which I strongly believe, helped me a lot. Family, obstinacy and dedication to work.

I had to put priority many times and I did it sometimes with ratio, sometimes helped by my instinct, advised by my wife who I endlessly thank for her nearness and love. Without her I couldn’t do what I did.

2015 gave me my 50. A very important birthday isn’t it? A very important achievement too. You are feeling wiser and due to your experience you can argue with a different approach. You are feeling stronger and in some occasions you act like you didn’t before. It seems that your subconscious is telling you that now you don’t have nothing to loose, so if sometimes you must tell your opinion in a very strong way and make people understand that they are a fucking assholes you do it!

It happened to me and you can’t believe how good you are feeling after.

Now I have to think about 2016 and my goals to be reached that are quite important and demanding. Both for my family and my job. I don’t want to spend some words on that because it makes no sense. I have clear ideas in my mind. Not so many but few, quite studied and of course absolutely reachable.

2016 will be a very good year, I’m pretty sure. Of course much will depend on me, something from other events and the help of God.

I would like to wish you all the best for 2016, looking forward to hearing from you very soon.

Ercole

La ricerca continua del successo attraverso l’innovazione.

Posted on by Ercole Davide Rovida

Alla vigilia di un evento sulle telecomunicazioni dove presenterò il portfolio attuale e futuro di Youncta, mi sembra opportuno fare alcune considerazioni frutto del lavoro svolto fino ad oggi per indirizzare il nostro mercato di competenza.

hand pushing innovation button on a touch screen interfaceLa ricerca continua del successo attraverso l’innovazione sembra un tema banale, più volte discusso in diverse occasioni, trito e ritrito, ma allo stesso tempo sottolinea il fatto che un’azienda non può fare affidamento su un portfolio prodotti che rimanga immutato per anni. Un’azienda che vuole rimanere nel mercato a lungo ed essere vincente deve per forza innovare.

E fino a qui tutti d’accordo.

Ma allora permettetemi di sottolineare due punti che considero importati:

Primo: innovazione si, ma non solo sui prodotti. Dobbiamo considerare che anche i servizi che questi prodotti offrono, devono per forza essere innovativi. Se parliamo dei prodotti di Youncta, i ponti radio, dobbiamo pensare che oltre ad uno sforzo di R&D per rendere i prodotti competitivi sotto vari aspetti che variano dalle funzionalità alla facilità di installazione e controllo dei sistemi, questi ponti radio dovranno offrire diversi servizi e soprattutto permettere ai nostri clienti di crearne dei propri. L’approccio all’innovazione, in questo caso, sembra senza dubbio rivoluzionario. Rivoluzionario perché stiamo cambiando la percezione che si aveva fino ad oggi del ponte radio, proiettandola in un’altra dimensione che si avvicina al mondo del Cloud ed alle applicazioni personalizzate che si trovano nei vari e-shop.

image-07-fullIn Youncta ci siamo resi conto che un cavallo vincente per avere successo nel mercato é quello di rendere i nostri prodotti molto più interessanti di altri grazie alla possibilità di renderli personalizzabili. I nostri clienti in futuro saranno in grado di progettarsi le loro applicazioni ed integrarle nei nostri sistemi come oggi si fa con i cellulari dopo aver comprato le applicazioni online. Nel caso in cui risulti difficile per il cliente la realizzazione di una particolare applicazione, la potrà sempre comprare nel sito Online di Youncta o direttamente farla progettare da noi.

Secondo: Innovazione anche nelle strategie di marketing e vendita.

Innovare in questo campo richiede particolare attenzione alle esigenze dei propri clienti e si collega ovviamente al portfolio prodotti. La strategia di vendita che Youncta ha adottato e adotterà negli anni futuri ha come base il valore che i propri prodotti possono fornire e risponde alla seguente domanda: come posso offrire ai miei clienti soluzioni vantaggiose che facciano risparmiare e diano la possibilità di guadagno in diversi settori di mercato? E ancora. Come posso offrire soluzioni “a prova di futuro” che possano permettere ai nostri clienti un investimento duraturo?

Le attività di marketing e vendita, che partiranno questa settimana durante l’evento accennato poc’anzi, sottolineeranno come i prodotti attuali e di nuova generazione potranno fornire soluzioni uniche che permetteranno risparmi nelle operazioni di installazione e collaudo e di assistenza tecnica, di supervisione di rete e monitoraggio dei sistemi installati. Oltre al notevole risparmio nelle cosiddette Operations, verrà evidenziata l’importanza del software di apparato che da qualche tempo ha guadagnato un peso notevole nel design dei nuovi sistemi di telecomunicazioni.

Grazie al software i clieY-SDSnti di Youncta potranno contare su un portfolio di servizi e funzionalità definite e una totale flessibilità legata ad ulteriori servizi e funzionalità che potranno essere progettati dagli stessi clienti secondo le proprie necessità utilizzando applicazioni personalizzate. Questi servizi e funzionalità potranno essere offerti anche agli utenti delle diverse reti in cui verranno installati i ponti radio Youncta generando ricavi per gli operatori. Tutto ciò potrà essere fatto per diversi anni grazie all’utilizzo di un layer Java multi-lingua su un OS Linux che potrà essere aggiornato e migliorato continuamente.

In conclusione Youncta ha deciso di investire nell’innovazione di prodotti che fino a poco tempo fa venivano considerati un semplice elemento di rete adibito al trasporto dell’informazione, il ponte radio. La sfida é quella di far passare questi sistemi a un livello di “intelligenza” superiore che permetterà di integrare i ponti radio Youncta nelle reti di prossima generazione con un ruolo totalmente diverso rispetto al passato.

FIGHT! Ingredients to win the market

Posted on by Ercole Davide Rovida

I’ve been thinking very much about the best recipe to win the market with my company and the conclusion is that you must fight! Yes, fight. Simple isn’t it? It seems very easy and elementary to state something like that but believe me, is not.

Is not when fight means:

Focus, Insistence, Goals, Help, Team

Could you say that something appears to be a little more difficult? I think so and I think that talking about a recipe that must be delicious, all the ingredients must be chosen with care, merged together properly, and when melted, reach the result everybody waits for: something incredibly tasteful.

But let’s come back to the scope of my article and discuss about another recipe, the recipe that I thing is the base for successful business.

 Focus.

We need focus. Select our market sectors and chose the ones most suitable for us and our product portfolio. Once selected, concentrate on the most promising ones, forget to follow up everything with the risk of loosing time, money and effectiveness. We shall not be afraid to change strategy and eventually modify our products in order to be winning in the market. Competition is very strong, especially when we are a start-up, newcomers are in any case enemies to be eliminated. We need also to differentiate. Key differentiator can help to gain customers.

Insistence

Success can’t be reached without insisting. Today is very complicated to find customers, I know. That’s the reason why we need to be very committed, aggressive if necessary, and insist to reach our targets. Nowadays if you want to make business you must never give up!

 Goals

Mandatory to have clear goals and a strategy to reach them. Never do the error to “try” something for collecting some purchase orders. A well structured and professional Business Plan is one of the pillars on which we need to base our commercial actions and again, be realistic, stake holders and bosses like big figures, of course, but at the end you should reach them and here is where problems can come.

Help

Intended as Financial Help. This is a must. Quite often, due to the fact that business plans are made without paying too much attention on the business environment a company is going to present itself, it happens that funds are missing or are delivered in a totally insufficient amount. Why? Good point isn’t it? For example,iIt can happen that sales forecast was too optimistic and revenue consequently not enough, so even if investors are delivering funds, are not enough for a good company cash flow.

Help from investors is very important especially if we are talking about startups. Management shall inform the board of directors and investors in the most accurate way about how business and cash flow are going, clearly communicate if some actions must be taken because of change of strategy and above all , if new funds are needed.

Team

Last important ingredient is the team. Without a strong team, committed to reach success in a company it will be very difficult to gain the market. Many times in my experience I saw very promising projects failing because of a simple reason: no team. Of course is a very important duty of managers promoting team building at each level of the organization and controlling personnel to be sure that people is cooperating but sometimes is also a matter of some employees that are so committed and target oriented that are able to involve all the colleagues. Furthermore, we don’t have to think about a team just related to a department a division or a branch of a company; a very good team must be intra-departmental: sales, R&D, Financial departments, for example, must work together and help each other. At some level information flow is a must. Let’s see an example: Sales must talk to R&D about market requests, R&D must talk to Sales about feasibility of some products, Financial department must collect information from R&D about project financing and investments.

Well, I hope I could give my simple recipe for winning the market. I know that this is simple but not so easy to implement in many organizations. Many reasons: different behaviours and work experiences, different cultures and different nationalities, different “political” interferences that can “affect” every single element I’ve been describing. In any case without this five ingredients I’m firmly convinced that is not possible to reach a complete and durable success in business.

One Year in Youncta

Posted on by Ercole Davide Rovida

ER Small 2June 2015, just one year ago I started my adventure in Youncta. I think this is the right occasion to make a quick review of what happened. I left my consulting company because I believed in Youncta.

I believed that we could address the market and be winner. After one year I can say that it wasn’t easy. We had to introduce ourselves again to some customers, fighting with a bad legacy and competition spreading a lot of shit on us! Sometimes we won, sometimes we didn’t.

It was very hard to rebuild credibility, acquire new customers and catch new ones but we did it. We had to reshape many times our sales strategy in order to adapt ourselves in an evolving market, sometimes fighting against our board and stakeholders.

Today I can proudly say that we succeeded in consolidating our presence in Italy and Spain, ASEAN Countries, South Africa and Brazil. We signed important Global Partnership Agreements and OEMs that will successfully drive our business in the next years.

We had to learn Logo Youncta2a lot from our competitors and thanks to this “continuous training on the job” we focused a lot and differentiate. Yes we had to think about our key differentiators and be extremely selective in our addressable market. We studied our potential markets and we proposed tailored solutions to our customers.

After one year I can say that I’m very happy about what we reached with Youncta and, above all, about the potential market that today we are able to address thanks to our actual products and the innovation in our future portfolio.

So, Happy Work Anniversary! I wish many happy returns of this day!

3036209

Running and Problem Solving

Posted on by Ercole Davide Rovida

Not so much time to write something in my blog. Family, business, too busy, I know. But today I would like to share something because I think is very interesting. Something related to one of my hobbies: running.

Some years ago I had to start some sport activity for health, my work too often obliged me to have a sedentary life, too much I must say. Running for me was the right compromise:  I could do it everywhere, even during my business trips. Today I spend some hours during the week in Italy or abroad running in nice places, and the funny thing is that it seems that this activity helps me a lot to relax, to open my mind and to solve problems.

Since last year my work is quite complicated and I need to concentrate a lot, facing very tough situations and trying to change strategy very often. When I run I try to think how to solve my problems and i must say that it works. It seems that when I run my mind is more reactive than usual and I can analyze all details of my business in a very clear way.

IMG_0115When you run, depending the distance you plan to cover, you need to “organize” your efforts, trying to maintain a rhythm during some kilometers, going slowly when you climb or increasing your speed when going down using the slope to help you.

This kind of activity is stimulating you to better analyze problems, finding out the right way to isolate significant parts and setup the correct solutions. Simply speaking, exercise boosts your mental performance and I can state that is true.

Running is also helping you to improve your performance day by day, month by month and year by year. Is a matter of dedication, some effort and a lot of tenacity but at the end results are really impressive.

So I really recommend to my colleagues and followers to think about this simple activity that can be very helpful for your health and work. If you start with some slow and controlled sessions, you’ll see how you can improve. Results are really impressive.

2015 goals in a challenging business environment

Posted on by Ercole Davide Rovida

January is gone and after one of the first important business trips spent in Europe and Asia, I take a while thinking about my goals for this year.

2015 will be a decisive year for my company. Youncta must reach a good level of customer’s bchallengease and start maintaining the revenue flow agreed with our investors. In addition, our sales strategy will be based on a very strict and selective attitude dealing with business opportunities: we’ll follow up them constantly, deciding if each of them will be successful or simply a lost of time and resources. We’ll try to avoid defocusing and concentrate our efforts in the most promising accounts.

Local and international partnerships are very important for Youncta, that’s why we need to clearly transmit  our objectives also to them.  Results must be assured in an effective way without spending too much time addressing wrong customers.

After a very tough 2014, the last of at least 4 years of very hard economic downturn,  our experience teaches us that there is no space for unnecessary business development activities. Besides that, in order to address our market in the most competitive way, we need to apply a strict and continue cost reduction policy together with new product releases with up to date features.

It will be a very difficult year but I can say that in our market sectors we can see a good positive trend. Customers are asking us for solutions that can permit them to make their networks grow in the most flexible and scalable way. We are receiving very positive feedbacks from many Countries where next generation networks are under implementation and I can state that in the future 3 years we’ll se an increasing demand for connectivity.

I’m very convinced that the coming years will bring us quite a lot of business but, as usual, we need to be ready to fight in this challenging business environment.

What I mentioned before is part of our commercial strategy, not so may concepts but very clear. Very clear as the fact that to be competitive we need also to excel in quality and operations.

Best_in_ClassI’ve been already experiencing what does it mean to loose customers because of bad services and poor quality and what I can firmly say is that today nobody has many chances to recover. Customers have many alternatives and don’t mind anymore if you’ll be the supplier or not. Sentimentalisms are disappeared, today rules are different.

Rules that oblige you to take decisions sometimes very difficult but vital for your company to survive. Talking about quality and operations Youncta will be very exigent with R&D and supply chain. We want to offer a very high profile product portfolio and services and because of that we’ll review our partnerships. Contract Manufacturing will be a key point of discussion.

So, this is what I wanted to share at this stage of our sales strategy setup for 2015. I would like to invite you to follow up me during coming months, more interesting arguments will come.