Expert Talks with Marco Trullo: the service culture that builds customer loyalty

Daniele: Good morning, everyone. My name is Daniele Delle Case and this is Expert Talks, the Things5 podcast about technology and smart products with industry experts. Today we're joined by Marco Trullo, Head of Customer Care Western Europe at United Machining and CEO of VAM Control. Good morning, Marco, how are you? It's a pleasure to have you with us today.

Marco: Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to this interesting podcast.

Daniele: Would you like to tell us briefly about your story and who Marco is?

Marco: When people ask me who I am, I always prefer to talk about my journey rather than my role. I've always described myself as a somewhat unusual manager, and we'll get into that later, because my background, unlike some of my colleagues who followed a more traditional management path, was a bit different. I'm almost 50; I'll turn 50 in a few days.

I live in Monza, even though I'm originally from Abruzzo. I've moved around Europe a bit, living here and there, but we'll talk about that later. Today I work for a Swiss multinational called United Machining, where on one hand I'm head of customer care for all of Western Europe, and on the other I'm the CEO of VAM Control, a company within the group that specializes in overhauling, revamping, and retrofitting machine tools.

Marco Trullo's journey: from the Carabinieri to industrial management

Daniele: You described yourself as a so-called unusual manager. Can you tell us why, and what this particular story is that eventually led you to become a manager at large companies?

Marco: Yes, I call myself an unusual manager because I come from a non-traditional school of management. I spent more than ten years as a Carabiniere, and it was an experience that shaped me very deeply, not only professionally but above all as a person. I consider my past an added value: being a Carabiniere taught me discipline, respect for people, how to handle pressure, and another very important thing, empathy and leading by example. Today I do a completely different job, but those values have stayed the same; they haven't changed. I think that experience gave me a truly different perspective compared to other managers who followed a more traditional path. That's why I call myself "unusual," so to speak.

Daniele: Sure, that makes sense. And how did you decide to leave the Carabinieri and reinvent yourself by studying Investigation and Security Sciences?

Marco: I think every change has made me the person I am today. For me, growing means stepping out of your comfort zone. I can say that in my life the biggest opportunities came exactly when I accepted something I didn't know. It was the desire to say: I want to do something different. I like what I do, but I want to test myself, I want to go further, to see how far I can push myself by doing something I don't know yet. It's a bit like a leap into the unknown. I've always done it this way, including in the career changes I'll talk about later: doing something I didn't know has always been what pushed me forward.

What working abroad teaches you

Daniele: I read that your first step into the corporate world, after your studies, was at Indesit as head of corporate security. Then you were transferred to Poland. What did this international experience teach you, at such a young age, and what did you carry with you through the rest of your career?

Marco: It was an extraordinary experience. Living and working in another country forces you to question a lot of certainties. In Poland I realized there isn't just one way to work or to lead people; there are different cultures and strengths you can really learn from. I learned to listen, to adapt quickly to completely different environments, and to value cultural differences. Even today, as I manage several countries in my current role, those experiences help me manage different markets and change. It was a really interesting experience.

I consider my time at Indesit one of the best experiences I've ever had. And it's not just me saying it: all my former colleagues who lived through those times can tell you it was the greatest management school there is, not only for me but for a huge number of people. And not only in terms of management.

Daniele: Sticking with this idea of working abroad, would you recommend that a graduate, before starting out in the Italian job market, have an experience abroad like yours?

Marco: Absolutely, yes. I think it's very formative for young people. I recommend finding a way to work abroad, to have new experiences, meet new people, and experience different cultures. It's true that there are university programs like Erasmus that help and make these opportunities easier, but in the working world it's different: relationships between classmates at university are one thing, and relationships in the working world are another. So yes, I highly recommend it.

From security to customer service: a choice driven by curiosity

Daniele: We know you went through a change of role within the company you were working with, which brought you more or less to the role you have now, obviously with different responsibilities, in the world of customer support and service. What convinced you to take that bet?

Marco: Honestly, simply curiosity. It's one of my "strengths." I knew practically nothing about service, and many people would probably have turned down the offer to take on this new kind of work, saying they didn't have the skills for it. I, on the other hand, chose it precisely for that reason: the drive, the curiosity to see whether I could learn something completely new in a field I didn't know. Today I can say that decision changed my career, because I jumped in, and out of that curiosity I built my actual management career.

Daniele: What do you think the business owners, or rather the company's managers, saw in you that made them point to you as a good candidate for that kind of role?

Marco: Here I have to say that luck also meets a person's ability. I was lucky to meet a very capable HR manager, who saw in me someone with a strong desire to learn, a strong desire to get things done, with qualities that many others didn't have. He was the one who pushed me toward this job rotation, offering me several options. I have to give him a lot of credit for seeing something in me, so I was lucky to have met him. And then maybe "credit to me" too, for being able to create something different once I took the leap.

Daniele: It's not an easy change, and above all it really makes you put yourself on the line and rethink the way you see things. Thinking about your journey from 2011, when you first entered the world of service, up to today, when you hold a leadership role on the service side for part of the world at a large company: looking back, what's the most important conceptual leap in the way you've learned to see this function?

What is service, really? Not fixing things, but building trust

Marco: At the beginning I saw service as the classic activity where something breaks, a technician shows up, repairs the item or the machine, and solves a problem. That's how I experienced my first period in service, and it was the idea I had before joining this function. Then I understood that service isn't about repairing something: it's about building a relationship of trust with a customer, with a consumer, that lasts over time. I've become more and more convinced that it's such an important function for every company because it's one of the main drivers of the customer relationship, one of the biggest competitive advantages a company can build. A company with strong service is a company that will certainly achieve significant success.

Daniele: So it's about attention to the user, to their needs, and above all to the relationship of trust you build with them. It's something that always comes up in all our podcast recordings when we talk about customer support: it's a deep relationship between the people working at the company and the people on the customer side, and it should never be called into question.

Marco: I always say you can sell a product once, but the trust you have to earn with the customer, you earn every day, day after day. The biggest job is exactly that: earning customers' trust.

Daniele: Is there an episode you remember in particular, especially from your early days at Indesit, that captures well what service culture means to you?

Marco: Yes, there's a scene that often comes back to me, and that I also tell when people ask me what service culture means. When I joined the service function, as in every company, they had me do some shadowing, tours, visits. They took me to visit the spare parts warehouse. I walk into this warehouse, look around, and see people busy working, moving packages, organizing the picking of spare parts.

I look up and notice that in every bay of the warehouse there was a sign with a photo, very often a lady in front of a washing machine or a dishwasher, with a sentence like, let me try to reconstruct it, "Mrs. Maria is waiting for her appliance to work again." That's when I understood: these people read a slogan, read a sign every day, and you breathe the culture within these walls, you breathe it from these people. Whoever is there picking the spare part knows they have to do it well, that they can't make a mistake, that they have to do it quickly, because on the other side there's a consumer waiting. That's when I understood that service culture comes from deep down; it's not something you build overnight. Having commitment isn't enough; you have to truly believe in it.

Daniele: You've raised a very interesting point, visualizing the output: the result you deliver, emotionally too, for the person you're working for at that moment. Because in the end you work for your company, but you're providing a service to a user who has a problem at that moment, and visualizing that gives you a stronger push to do your job well. How do you concretely measure the impact of service on customer loyalty and repurchase? Do you have tools, specific KPIs?

Marco: Yes, like everyone, we use an NPS, a Net Promoter Score. We run a survey, almost always sent via WhatsApp message or email, where the consumer tells us how their experience with service went, with the classic final question: would you recommend buying the product to a friend or acquaintance? That's how we collect customer satisfaction.

In reality, we do a bit more. In addition to our NPS, which is a standard method all companies use to measure consumer satisfaction, at the close of every single service call we have a diagnostics department that is in contact with the customer and supports them during the machine repair phase. We call the customer by phone at the end of the service call and ask whether everything went well, whether they were happy with the technician, whether there were any problems. We collect this information and use it to improve, with the goal of giving the customer an ever better service.

Building a service culture from scratch: the experience at Elica

Daniele: Moving on to your next experience at Elica, you told me it was a somewhat different experience, because you had to build the entire customer support process from scratch. Initially it was mainly a B2B company, which then changed its focus and had to organize itself differently. What does it mean to build a service culture starting from nothing, and what complexities did you run into?

Marco: The first complexities you run into in a change like this are definitely internal. The first hurdle is your own colleagues, the people you start working with. In that case you need strong commitment, because you need it to talk with coworkers or colleagues you've never talked to before. You're starting a journey, a cultural one if you will, because it's also a journey of change: you're introducing new concepts that had never been used in the past, because they weren't needed, since service was delegated to whoever manufactured the product for another brand and was handled by that other brand.

It was a fairly long journey, but I have to say a very positive one: I found very cooperative people, and that helped me create the service function at that company. A really great company, with many important values, and this is another important thing, with a chairman very attached to the local area, to the company's values, but above all to the values of managing the consumer really well. That helped me and made things a lot easier.

Daniele: It ties in closely with your previous experience, because there too you had a company with very strong values, so this also becomes a defining element.

In my view, you've raised a very important but also very critical point: change management. Let me ask you a direct question: how do you convince someone used to working in a completely different way to embrace a new approach, one that's really different from what they've done up to that point? What techniques did you use? It's a very complex issue.

Marco: Change scares everyone, especially when you're dealing with people who are used to working in a certain way. What I do is be something of a hands-on manager in the field, while avoiding micromanagement. Through leadership in the field, I help people understand how important it is to make that change, and I get them to do it together with me: I'm the one conveying it, but I do it with them. I roll up my sleeves, as they say. Let's do it together, let's see if I can convince myself too that what we're doing can be good both for the company and for both of us. I've always done it this way, and I have to say it has always worked.

Daniele: So the secret is leading by example, really.

Marco: Example. For me the secret is example, yes.

Daniele: We take it for granted, but it isn't always.

Marco: It's absolutely not a given. You can be a great manager, have lots of structures, lots of people, lots of direct reports, but when certain jobs need doing you have to roll up your sleeves, get out in the field, and contribute. People appreciate that, especially in times of change: they say "he's doing it," we do it together with him, and that pulls the team along.

Whirlpool's acquisition of Indesit: cultures compared

Daniele: Moving on to a different topic, but one that had a strong influence on your career: the acquisition of Indesit by Whirlpool, one of the largest industrial integration processes in the history of Italian industry, which you experienced from the inside. What surprised you most in the clash between Italian entrepreneurial culture and the American multinational mindset?

Marco: What surprised me most is that we Italians have a great ability to adapt to situations, respecting the rules while at the same time keeping the flexibility we need to stay close to the customer and to market dynamics. On the other hand, I found an American company with very structured procedures and policies that didn't always fit the specific characteristics of the market. Some of those procedures were essential, but they had to be carefully balanced so that an overly standardized approach wouldn't limit our long-standing ability to listen and respond to the customer.

Daniele: You mentioned that after-sales service was handled differently in the Italian and American approaches. What do you see as the differences between these two approaches, more specifically?

Marco: In my view, we tend to try to satisfy the consumer right up to the very end: we really try everything. They have a different logic: they do what's prescribed to satisfy the consumer, but at a certain point they tell them how things stand. We've reached the limit, that's it, I'm not going any further, this is the procedure. It's a more limited approach, and it often happens that you can't stay within a procedure. We all know that.

Daniele: From your perspective, which vision would you embrace?

Marco: Honestly, I embrace the more European vision, the more Italian one if you like: really trying to do everything to satisfy the consumer, even when "maybe they're not right." The consumer is always right, and over time that mindset pays off.

Daniele: What advice would you give a manager who finds themselves in the same situation you went through, being acquired by another company?

Marco: I'd advise them to follow the rules and procedures, which are important, but also to keep doing what has always been done, because those are the solid foundations of a company that has always managed customers and consumers and knows how to do it.

Artificial intelligence and diagnostics at United Machining

Daniele: That sounds like excellent advice. Today, on the other hand, your job is to manage service at a multinational, United Machining, which works on high-tech machine tools. How does artificial intelligence fit into your service process, from the customer's first contact all the way to resolution? What's the impact of technologies like AI on your processes?

Marco: AI has the biggest impact on the diagnostics side, in the first phase of contact with the customer, where we figure out what problems they have. Basically, after one of our diagnostic technicians connects to the machines, almost always by phone or in any case remotely, we use an artificial intelligence tool to analyze the information and search the history for similar technical cases.

What does this tool do? It supports the diagnostic technician by searching the history for a similar service call, a similar problem, helping the technician find a solution that's faster and closer to the customer's actual situation at that moment.

This means rebuilding a history. You can have it through a diagnostic technician with forty years of experience, who has seen almost everything, or through a diagnostic technician who is technically well trained but doesn't have all that history behind them, which you can only rebuild with tools like artificial intelligence, which goes and searches the past for similar problems for you. Right now it's a huge help for our diagnostics department.

Daniele: What's your approach to developing these projects? Are you more inclined to buy, meaning purchasing external solutions, or to build custom solutions in-house tailored to your needs?

Marco: More the second, because in the past the company acquired an IT company, with which it developed a range of products that we use today to manage, for example, field service and other activities. We try to develop them internally through this company controlled by the group.

Daniele: And in your view, right now, which one is getting more hype?

Marco: Great question, Daniele. I don't know. In my view, today more than ever, with the evolution of artificial intelligence, an external partner could help more than an internal one, because there are lots of external partners and they can help you see things differently. So I'd say, though I don't know for sure, that it might be better to have an external partner, maybe a mix, depending on how well the internal partner is able to grow in a world that's moving really fast.

Daniele: Of course, the speed at which AI is evolving is impressive; in six months the world will probably be different again from how we imagine it today. With all this automation of customer support, how ready do you think consumers are to use these technologies instead of traditional tools like the phone?

Marco: In my view, not all consumers are ready yet. In Europe, a good portion isn't ready to have these digital interactions. The younger generations are certainly the ones who've started doing it and who will do it more comfortably. In the machine tool world, there isn't this new youth, let's call it that. Today technology is important, but it's always people who make the difference, especially in these fields. So I'd say that today it's still important to have the people who make the difference. Technologies will help, they'll support, and it will take us a while to make this cultural shift, because it's also a generational shift, Daniele.

Daniele: I agree it's also a generational shift, but I wonder whether it's also a cultural factor, a geographic one if you like. Maybe in other parts of the world this is already more established. What's your view?

Marco: I think so, yes. In Europe, looking at Italy, Spain, France: these are markets very similar to Italy's, it's a cultural issue, I completely agree with you. There are regions of the world that are definitely further ahead; I'm thinking of China, which makes heavy use of technology. I'd say there are definitely regions that are much further ahead culturally than Europe.

Predictive maintenance: the real change is organizational

Daniele: There's a lot of talk about predictive maintenance, a different kind of AI from the conversational one we discussed earlier that helps you find answers, more tied to the world of machine learning, more traditional if you like. What does it take to do predictive maintenance well, as opposed to those who only use it as a marketing buzzword?

Marco: Doing predictive maintenance means having a different kind of service from the traditional one. It means having a control room, people who don't wait for someone to call, but who look at data and information and call the customer before an event occurs. It means rethinking our organizations. That's the real cultural change, because today machine tools have more and more sensors on board, a lot of information. We're always talking about big data: the information is there, we have lots of it, the problem is using it. In my view we're not quite ready yet; there are some who are already doing it, but the real change has to be organizational. Service structures need to change in order to shift toward predictive service.

Daniele: Are you moving in this direction?

Marco: We're moving, we've equipped the machines with lots of sensors, and there's equipment on the core parts of the machine, the most important ones, where there are more sensors and which need closer monitoring. We're also gradually evolving our organization to make more and more of this data from a predictive standpoint, to do what I was saying earlier: have diagnostics that, instead of waiting for the customer to call, look at a monitor and understand where the problem is.

Why companies don't connect their machine tools: obstacles and benchmarks

Daniele: Earlier you said there are companies that can be considered benchmarks. Would you like to name a few and explain why you think they're concrete projects and not just announcements?

Marco: I can tell you that I went with the University of Brescia, with the department that works on servitization, to visit some companies, several last year, and a couple of years ago one called SCM, with Alessandra Benedetti, who is very good. There I saw it firsthand. Sure, it was a guided tour, but I really saw a control room analyzing data, with operators behind a monitor trying to figure out what the anomalies on the connected machines were. This is something we should talk about more, the cultural problem of connecting machines. I saw something concrete, after hearing about it at countless conferences without ever really seeing it.

Daniele: You've anticipated the topic of connected machines. What's holding companies back from connecting them today, besides, obviously, data protection, although if you want the value you also have to be willing to share?

Marco: In the machine tool world there are a couple of issues. The first is that very often we're dealing with small and medium-sized businesses, with very lean IT structures or infrastructure that isn't always set up for connecting machines. This is a first obstacle we run into often: we have people trained to do it, but very often we arrive at the company and there's no IT infrastructure, there's literally no network, and those machines can't be connected.

The second aspect, very trendy today as I like to say, but really important, is data security. Companies are increasingly focused on data security, because there's sensitive data, because the company has to protect its know-how and its production, and so there are data security constraints that often prevent you from going ahead. Sometimes because of what the company produces, which perhaps can't be taken abroad, and sometimes because of internal policies at highly structured multinationals that, before letting a machine connect to the network, require you to pass very stringent security policies, with very high severity levels.

Daniele: What's the way to convince these companies? Is there a path?

Marco: The way to convince them is to have tools for connecting machines that are increasingly up to date with security policies, and to make the company understand that the tool you use, the platform you use, guarantees a very high level of security.

Daniele: This approach weeds out the amateurs, and that's a good thing for the industry. Looking at other adjacent industries, perhaps not directly related to yours, are there any you think are further ahead in developing digital technology services that machine tool or home appliance manufacturers could learn from?

What can the machine tool industry learn from automotive?

Marco: I'd say automotive, because when I was in home appliances I always thought automotive was ahead, and there were reasons to think so. I have to say that today, in the machine tool world, even though it's very advanced in these respects, I still consider automotive a benchmark.

Daniele: Why do you think that is?

Marco: It is because, and I can start from something simple, if today you take your car to any dealer of the three or four biggest brands, those dealers have an inventory shared with all the warehouses in Europe. They know exactly where that spare part is, in which of the hundred or thousand warehouses that exist within the company. It may seem trivial, but it's a very important thing. In the home appliance world there are central European warehouses, but then there are distributed warehouses or partners' warehouses. Let me give you an example: in the home appliance world there are service partners who have their own warehouse, and the manufacturer often doesn't know which spare parts are available in that warehouse at that moment. Maybe you need that spare part and it's sitting at a service center. Automotive knows exactly where that spare part is, not only in the centralized warehouses but also at their partners. That's something still missing in the home appliance and machine tool worlds.

Then there's app development: in my view, consumers get a benefit from using the machine's app, and that's another advantage, because consumers and technology only work together if that technology gives something back. If it gives nothing back, the consumer has no reason to use it. In the car world, on the other hand, you use it because from the app you can book maintenance for your car without even having to call the repair shop, or maybe the repair shop itself calls you back. There are many things in automotive that are definitely further ahead.

Daniele: Do you think it's because automotive companies are big and have bargaining power, or simply because other industries are behind?

Marco: In my view it's because automotive companies are huge giants, with much greater bargaining power, and over time they've built partnerships with service providers that are different from the ones we've built in Italy or in other markets, where there's often the classic traditional contract that ties you in, but it's not a real partnership. They were far-sighted, in addition to having the financial base to do it, and they keep investing.

Daniele: So it's a matter of business strategy, contractual strategy too: I'll let you be my partner if you accept these conditions.

Marco: It's a bit of what I was saying earlier: it's the customer journey, which starts when the customer goes to the dealer to see the car of their dreams, with the first experience with the salesperson, where you see it in person. If that first encounter goes well, you buy it, then maybe you have some problem, and that's where the third part begins, service, where loyalty really starts. You'll buy another one if that journey was what you expected. The more important the thing you buy, the higher the expectations.

Daniele: Naturally. Building on that: how much do you think the real value of a connected machine depends on the cost the customer incurs when that product stops?

Marco: I'd look at it differently: the customer forgets what they paid or will pay when the service lives up to their expectations. If the connected machine offers a service whose value is almost impossible for that customer to measure, it doesn't matter what it costs; as far as they're concerned, it's what they need. If the service meets their expectations, that's what makes the difference. Having a connected machine, for the customer, means reducing machine downtime, which for them means money. They'll buy it without worrying about the cost of the service, but only if that service gives them something important.

Daniele: That's very clear and well understood in the industrial sector. Less understood, perhaps, on the B2C side, with home appliances rather than industrial products. Why do you think it's less understood?

Marco: Maybe it's less understood because with a car you risk being stranded and not getting home, while with a washing machine you can say "I won't do laundry for four days, I'll manage and do it on the fifth." I'm not sure that's really the case: actually, I think it's understood in the home appliance world too. I've been out of that industry for a while, I don't know how far technology has come, but maybe consumers would prefer to get their broken washing machine running again after four hours instead of four days, because someone steps in on the other end or because a software system supports them. In my view that's the real advantage. You need to create something tangible for consumers, something that makes them say: I'll connect the machine because I know that if I connect it, someone can get it running again remotely in twenty minutes, half an hour, and I don't have to wait four or five days for the technician. Maybe they'll still need the technician afterward, but the expectation has to be that someone on the other end springs into action right away.

Daniele: I see two open questions: on one hand, the ability to communicate this kind of value; on the other, the ability to grasp this need, this opportunity. Is there a digital literacy problem in Italy and in Europe that could be a limit for these technologies?

Marco: Yes, absolutely, I mentioned it earlier too. Culturally, we're not all ready to use technology to that extent. People think: I've got a connected appliance, I'll start the microwave while I'm at the office, so when I get home in the evening the chicken is cooked. That's one part of it, and in my view a somewhat limited one, the one everybody talks about. In my view the different thing is connecting the machine because, if at some point I need it and it doesn't work, maybe it's Sunday morning or a holiday, or it's the middle of the night, I can interact with a platform, maybe an artificial intelligence that guides me through getting it working again, and maybe someone on the other end even notices it before I do. That's the real advantage of connecting the machine.

How to sell digital services in B2B: free offerings and upselling

Daniele: Earlier I brought up marketing in relation to selling these services. I'd like to understand, from your perspective, how digital services can be sold in Italy, and how the market is tackling this challenge.

Marco: From my point of view, these digital services need to be easily accessible: some basic services can be included, and then you build paid premium services. Why? Because customers need to understand that they should use them, they need to get into the mindset, get familiar with the systems, and understand what the real advantages are. So, honestly, I'd try to lower the barriers to entry. Today our company already offers part of these services free of charge, because that's how it should be. Then there are other technology-related services that can be paid, but it takes time: first you need to let the customer try it, let them experience firsthand the advantages of having a connected machine and taking advantage of the technology, and then maybe add premium services, where the customer says: I want a response from an operator within five minutes. On the free platform, for example, you get a response within two hours; if you buy a premium service, I'll answer you live. I'm just throwing out ideas: first a free phase, then a set of tools that can become paid depending on what the customer needs, and if they buy it.

Daniele: Earlier we were talking about automotive: BMW sells some of its car features "as a service," meaning you pay for them as a service, for example heated seats purchased separately. Do you think that's the right approach, or could there be different approaches to selling services?

Marco: No, I think that's the right approach, absolutely.

Daniele: So you sell product features, whereas customer support should be included free of charge, possibly with upselling on premium service features. That's more or less your vision.

Marco: Exactly.

Daniele: What skills does a company need to implement a project like this, a digital project that goes from data collection all the way to extracting value from it, to predictive maintenance and remote support?

Marco: You need company functions dedicated specifically to this, which collaborate across the board with all the other functions. I'm thinking of production, R&D: you also need to start from product development, because you can't come up with something in service if the product isn't ready for it. You need functions dedicated to these IT and AI development processes, working with all the company's functions, from the moment the product is conceived, with the production plants, with service bringing its ideas. It has to be a function that cuts across all the others, with strong commitment from the company and from top management.

Daniele: It reminds me of one of our previous podcasts, with a former Cimbali manager, who explained how design for serviceability had become a fundamental part of machine design. The machine is no longer designed only to perform well, but also to be maintainable, without advanced skills, with spare parts that are easy to produce, with fewer screws and more snap-fit joints, things that simplify and speed up maintenance operations, with very significant improvements in maintenance performance.

Marco: That's one of the fundamental aspects at the company I'm with now: they've worked on it for many years and it shows, it's a hugely important aspect. It reduces machine maintenance and repair times, and it makes some simple repairs easier for the customers themselves, who can do them on their own just by buying a spare part. I very much agree with this philosophy, and it's a philosophy every company should pursue.

VAM Control: giving machine tools a second life

Daniele: Moving on to the other venture you're currently running: in addition to managing service at United Machining, you're also CEO of VAM Control, a company that retrofits machines. Where did this project come from, and how does it work specifically?

Marco: First of all, it was born to give customers the chance to give a second life to a machine tool, often machines with a fairly high purchase cost. Not only to give the machine a second life, but also the spare parts of old machine tools, because the installed base in Europe today is still somewhat old, in some cases with technologies that may be more than twenty years old, and the spare parts can no longer be found or replicated because the manufacturer that made them ten or fifteen years ago no longer exists. The goal we've set ourselves at VAM Control is to put these old machines back into circulation, remanufacture spare parts, and give customers the chance to keep that machine alive. We do a lot of things at VAM Control, but we do this too.

Daniele: Is it more about sustainability or about continuity, meaning creating new revenue streams?

Marco: I'd say both: working with a sustainability mindset, and giving customers a different service from what can be offered to them today.

Why servitization is struggling to take off in machine tools

Daniele: This fits well with the idea of a servitized product. Have you ever thought about it? Are you already doing it? What's your view?

Marco: Yes, we've thought about it: we're talking about pay-per-use or a servitized product, a topic I often discuss with the University of Brescia too. In the world of the machine tools made by the company I work for today, these concepts aren't being pushed very hard yet, because imagining a machine you pay for based on how you use it isn't easy in the machine tool world: machine shops do very different kinds of work from one another, and machining jobs are often very long; a part can stay in the machine for weeks or months.

Then there's a second important aspect, especially in Italy: there are lots of government incentives that make business owners more inclined to buy the machine, because they get discounts or tax breaks, and they prefer to buy the asset rather than have a cost to amortize over the years with pay-per-use. It's partly a cultural issue and partly related to the type of product we make. However, there are many companies that make machines different from ours: I've seen some companies in Brianza, for example in textile printing, where the concept of servitization is pushed much further, tied to the world of consumables. In our machine tools, in a milling machine, there are fewer consumables, a few more in EDM machines. But in textile printing machines there are lots of consumables, for example the ink or the rollers the machine uses: there, that industry finds it easier to do pay-per-use, and customers are more willing to pay based on how much they consume and use. For machine tools we're still a bit behind, especially in milling but also in EDM.

Daniele: Is it more a matter of lacking consumables that could be the real added value sold along with machine usage, or a matter of cultural maturity?

Marco: In my view it's above all a matter of cultural maturity. In mechanical engineering companies right now, there's little generational turnover: these are people who've been doing it for twenty years, who've always bought the machine because they want to own it, they want to use it as much as they want and however they want, to do the work they want. It's also a cultural issue, not just about consumables, even though those certainly help.

What I do see instead is a servitization along these lines: I buy the machine, but together with the machine I buy the service package for the next five years, all the complete maintenance. If it breaks, if it falls apart, I don't want to hear about it, you repair it, replace it, swap it out for me for the next ten years; what matters is that you guarantee my production level. In my view this is a hybrid form of servitization, compared to the pure model, that could suit our world of machine tools.

Sustainability: real perception or marketing?

Daniele: Going back to the cultural issue: is there a cultural issue around sustainability too, today, or is it more marketing than something actually perceived by the people who buy a machine?

Marco: I'll be honest on this point. There are large, structured companies that have to comply with sustainability reporting, and regulations have certainly increased the focus. Culturally we're not fully ready for these concepts yet, but the real challenge is turning sustainability from a compliance requirement into a competitive lever. In some European markets these concepts are much more advanced than in Italy.

How investment funds are pushing toward servitized models

Daniele: I wanted to ask you a question, going back to servitization: with investment funds increasingly entering customer companies, how does the way these companies look at machinery investments change compared to the traditional business owner? Are fund-backed companies more inclined toward servitized models, in your view, or less?

Marco: In my experience they're much more inclined, because they push hard on OPEX rather than CAPEX, which are investments. If a company is managed by a fund, the fund usually pays more attention to return on capital, cash flow, and total cost of ownership, so that company is better positioned to work on pay-per-use, on innovation, on servitization.

Daniele: Can servitization be a lever to sell the product more easily, in your view?

Marco: Absolutely, yes, it's one of the most important levers for selling products.

Daniele: In terms of scalability, what do you think are the key points that make it more sellable?

Marco: Because structured companies are starting to adopt a total cost of ownership mindset: they bought an asset, made an investment, but then they ask themselves how much it costs to maintain throughout its life, how much it's actually costing them. The companies that start doing these calculations, understanding how much the machine costs over its life, are the ones most convinced that pay-per-use is worth it instead of a pure investment.

What incentives are needed to drive servitization in Italy

Daniele: Could the government benefit from the growth of this business model? What should lawmakers do to develop these kinds of models?

Marco: They should incentivize buying services instead of buying goods. In that case every market would benefit, because the industrial world in Europe keeps losing ground: industry is shifting toward Asian countries and operates in a context of growing international competitive pressure. Developing the world of services, as other countries have done, strikes me as a significant economic advantage.

Daniele: I agree, and it also becomes a way to protect our companies, which mainly make high-quality products, very solid, built to last, and which would benefit from a model more focused on keeping the machine running as long as possible, instead of encouraging people to replace their machines. We'd certainly see benefits, and sustainability would probably benefit too, because a servitized product is managed by the company, which is responsible for it, knows it has to manage its end of life, and knows that the longer the machine lasts, the more it reduces its costs, and consequently increases its margins. In my view the government should start thinking about this seriously.

Lessons from European markets and advice on technology

Daniele: We're heading toward the end of the interview, but there are two things I'd like to understand. The first: having worked in many European countries, what lessons do you carry with you from each country you've worked in, and what did it teach you? The second: I'd like you to leave a practical piece of advice for our listeners, business owners and managers working in technology, on adopting innovation in their business.

Marco: As I said earlier, working in other markets gave me the chance to discover different cultures, to open my mind, to see how others work. There are so many lessons. I recommend it to lots of young people, but also to lots of managers who have the chance to have experiences like this, both professional and personal.

If I had to give business owners and managers a practical piece of advice on using technology, I'd say push hard on technology, invest in technologies, because they're what will increasingly help us work differently and more effectively. As I said, technology is important, but it's always people who make the difference. This means that artificial intelligence will be, as far as I'm concerned, a tool to support people, to help them work better and more effectively, to let them focus on activities other than routine ones that just eat up time, leaving those activities to artificial intelligence. So my advice is to invest heavily in technology.

Daniele: How do you picture your job five years from now? What do you think will change?

Marco: Above all, interaction will change. Looking at the world of service, interaction with the customer will definitely change: the human touch will never disappear, in fact it will be essential, but it will be a faster, quicker service, where customers who need to contact you won't have to do what they do today, call on the phone, look for you, and not find you. It will be a much faster interaction, and technology will help us make interaction quicker and let customers solve problems even more independently.

Marco Trullo's advice for those starting a career in service today

Daniele: Thank you. I'd like to move on to the last question, which we ask all our guests and which sums up your whole journey. We'd love to know what you'd advise the Marco of fifteen, or even twenty, years ago, who had just started working: what are the three main pieces of advice you'd give him for his future?

Marco: My advice is that you need to be super motivated, be really hungry, and believe in your dreams. I think things can come true: I'm an example, but there are lots of people like me who dream of doing something and then got there. As I said earlier, I did the biggest things when I accepted something I didn't know. I advise these young people to really throw themselves into something they don't know: you can make mistakes, and it's okay to make mistakes, but you have to take the leap, because taking the leap means learning, putting yourself back on the line, and that's where people's true personality really comes out. Believing in yourself and having a lot of passion for what you do: that's another very important aspect. I'm passionate about what I do, whether it's service or something else, and I always put passion ahead of everything.

Daniele: That passion shows, you can hear it, you can feel it in your words. Marco, thank you for the time you've given us today, for the story you've shared and above all for the insights you've given us, really interesting and distinctive: there are things we'd never heard before, and I really enjoyed our conversation together. To all our listeners, we look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Expert Talks. Leave a like, click the bell to be notified about the next podcast, and see you next episode. Thank you, Marco.

Marco: Thank you, Daniele. Have a great day, everyone.