I’m Daniele Belcuore, Technical Sourcing Manager at Industrie Saleri Italo. I have been working in the Sourcing Department for around two years now, but I started at the company back in 2008 as a mechanical design engineer.
 
My “background” is in mechanical engineering and at Saleri I have gained 10 long years of experience working in the R&D department as a designer and as the technical point of contact for our biggest clients.
 
I have worked on mechanical pump design - electric pumps, in particular - helping boost quality at the company, in terms of our skills, market position, image, organisation and work.
 
My experience in R&D and my direct contact with clients allowed me to gain particular skills and a way of working that I took with me when I moved to the Purchasing Department.
 
To really boil down the work I do, you could describe it as follows: I select and manage suppliers who meet Saleri’s needs in terms of price, technical features and quality.
 
The suppliers we seek must therefore be able to develop, produce and manage while pursuing a “customer-oriented” philosophy, the same philosophy that we apply when working with our clients - the leading companies in the global automotive industry.
 
The environment here is totally different from where I was before. It’s as if I moved companies, just by moving departments.
 
Saleri is now “another” company because of the profound changes we have undergone in recent years. In a way, it has been totally turned upside down. This was necessary, on account of the huge changes taking place in the market in which we compete. And that process of change must be made a priority.
 
I believe that growth should, first and foremost, be a matter of cultural development for a company and its managers. It’s important to understand that things inevitably change, but that existing experience and skills must still be treasured - even if they are hidden or we don’t think we have them.
 
I’m exactly where I would have wanted to be, today. That’s because, on the one hand, I know Saleri’s products very well - they are my past - while, on the other, I am in a position to contribute to strategic decisions about our supplier roster - an essential resource at Saleri.
 
The Technical Department and Purchasing Department might seem like two distant worlds. But in reality, they communicate, supporting each other, and the staff know how to speak to each other, how each other work, what the deadlines are. I’m the link between one world and the other, in that respect.
 
For me, the future is putting my technical background and my “newly acquired” relational skills to use in a department of huge strategic value to the company’s financial wellbeing.
 
In other words, managing suppliers and the quality of our supplier roster is vital for growth at Saleri, which is looking at developing more and more business related to the production of electric pumps. That’s how we’ll maintain our role as a leading company for the next 30 years: that’s the future.