It is within the framework of this vision that the history of IMG began, a company based in Brescia and specialized in the construction of injection molding machines for elastomers. Founded in 2006 by the employees’ desire to keep alive a strategic business reality for the local economy, today the group has a turnover of 60 million euros.
The business outcome is the result of a virtuous path characterized by a shared planning: a continuous search for innovation and a strong focus on issues of sustainable growth. “We bet everything on the product and we have slowly grown to have today a stable company with a good projection towards the future. What made us achieve this result was the ability of our team to remain united in the pursuit of a goal”, explained Barbara Ulcelli IMG President of the Board during the Brescia event of FabbricaFuturo, the multichannel project promoted by the publishing house ESTE and which for 10 years has been analyzing what is happening in the manufacturing sector, giving voice to local companies.
Customers’support in the implementation of technologies
The arrival of the 4.0 Industry plan did not lead to a radical transformation of the company, already linked to the use of technologies, which had already evolved to be integrated into a Smart factory.
The change of pace rather concerned the relationship with customers which has been declined in a new light: “we tried to make them understand that to have 4.0 Industry technologies is not enough. It is necessary to combine them with a 4.0 vision as well.
We helped the customers in their growth-path by giving them an advanced machinery, but at the same time making them understand what results they could achieve with our machinery.
In a nutshell, a more advanced consulting service has been created”, underlined the President of IMG.
However, the change has not only affected the relationship with our customers. The evolution also involved the business model, which has been updated to better match the needs of IMG’s workers.
More specifically, said Ulcelli, in a pandemic context that has seen an increasing need to reconcile work with personal life, it was decided to introduce greater flexibility starting from the assumption that it’s the company first that must trust people.
In particular during the smart working period this was the company vision: “the employee was empowered in his function and managed the time independently according to the achievement of the result”.
In essence, the focus was on the ability to attract but above all to maintain talents in the company.
To give more substance to this vision the focus was also on effective external communication in universities: in these contexts, IMG has the opportunity to describe its story and its values and to make young people understand the entrepreneurial project they could become part of.
Sustainability and market differentiation
A central topic for the company is also the environmental sustainability: “for IMG it means trying to create green products. And from this point of view the first step was to have a global picture of the environmental impact of our production processes through a life-cycle assessment.
Precisely, we understood that the construction of an injection molding machine has the same environmental impact as a truck that travels a quarter of the way around the earth,” said Ulcelli.
Hence the decision to introduce some changes: the identification of emission reduction targets, obtaining environmental certifications, the adoption of electrical solutions and energy supply from renewable sources.
The attention to the environment was also one of the factors that influenced the group’s choice to bring back to Italy the productions that had previously been relocated: “we decided that it’s better to raise a little the price of the machineries than import from countries that are not aligned with respect to environmental protection “, specified the IMG President also underlining how the fundamental characteristic for the success of a company are: the ability to make innovative choices , remaining adaptive and proactive.
All with the aim of successfully addressing the challenges of a constantly evolving market.