Five Questions with Nick Falgiatano

Sandvik Coromant: We’ve all had to pivot away from traditional interactions during COVID-19. How has the accelerated move towards remote and digital affected you, your team, and your customers?

Nick Falgiatano: My team looked at COVID-19 as an opportunity, shifting our focus to redefining our ways of working, embracing our digital tools, and utilizing them to stay connected to our customers and our organization. We focused on value-adding activities and became overwhelmingly customer-centric. To become more customer-centric, we’ve had to transform from vendor to partner, acting as a trusted advisor, operating more efficiently and effectively, having an even more in-depth understanding of the customer’s business, and optimizing the overall customer experience.

This era of the customer means new challenges but also new opportunities for companies such as Sandvik Coromant. In many ways, the changes in customer behavior are an acceleration of digital trends that were already in motion before the pandemic hit. With that in mind, we’ve found that “getting it right,” means delivering on the three things our customers value most; speed, transparency, and expertise. It has become apparent that digitalization is critical in helping our industry adapt to the necessary speed it takes to compete in today’s market and is a primary driver of resilience in this new era. As a team, we view digitalization as more than just technology, it has to encompass a new framework that enables rapid response to changing situations. Overall, the key takeaway for our team during this global pandemic has been the need to build resilience into our DNA, and I feel as though we’ve done a good job doing so.

SC: From “new normal” to “next normal,” what challenges have we overcome when interacting with customers, channels, and machine builders? What new challenges are on the horizon?

NF: Had we not been so prepared from a digital standpoint, working within the “new normal” and transitioning to the “next normal” would be nearly impossible. From a customer standpoint, we’ve been able to stay engaged and have played a very active role in keeping our customers operating at an optimal level by offering all different forms of support via our digital tools. In fact, I feel as though our collaboration when transitioning to this digital way of working has heightened the customer experience and increased the level of expertise we’re able to provide to our customers. In this new remote environment, work is networked, enhanced with technology, team/project-based, collaborative and we’re utilizing fluid real-time data to better support the demands of tomorrow. The way we work, where we work, how we manage, how we organize, products we use, and how we communicate has rapidly changed over the last several months and I feel the way we’ve been able to adapt as an organization is a testament to the people and processes we had in place before the pandemic even hit. Real-time collaboration has been our most valuable resource in this virtual environment. We preserve it by turning to centralized communication first, creating new habits with each form of technology. We use meetings as a purpose, not as a default. We’ve needed to develop new ways of leading and managing teams that are working virtually, putting extra focus on outcome vs effort. We have equipped our employees with the right technology for the right work, created the right work experience and environment to be effective virtually at scale.

SC: How are conventional on-premise solutions falling short or changing for customer-centric companies?

NF: I feel as though on-premise solutions are quickly becoming antiquated solutions, especially as the manufacturing industry continues to navigate its way around COVID-19. Most disasters are localized, you deal with immediate cleanup then deal with recovery. With COVID, recovery has been drawn out indefinitely, making the need for organizations to invest in cloud-based platforms and solutions necessary. An industry-leading solution such as Machining Insights allows organizations to stay connected, informed, and in touch with everything happening on the shop floor, while eliminating unnecessary exposure during this global pandemic. Cloud-based solutions work in real-time, the constant connectivity provides unparalleled visibility, keeping organizations informed while on and off-campus. During the pandemic, markets have closed, consumer behavior has changed, the assumptions business were built on have broken, but with all of this comes opportunity. In my opinion, that opportunity is the ability to repair broken processes and make them remotely accessible, enhancing virtualization and digitalization of processes and data. For any organization, the priority in any digital transformation should be to embrace cloud utilization ensuring technology can scale and perform to support remote work.

SC: Historically known as a turning company, how is Sandvik Coromant changing mindsets with other robust products and solutions in milling, solid carbide, and digital?

NF: Respectfully, I would say we have been mislabeled as a turning company. Sandvik Coromant is a solutions-based company with the largest cutting tool portfolio in the industry. In short, we are a carbide company, we provide industry-leading solutions in a variety of application areas such as milling, drilling, threading, parting, grooving, and turning. We’ve also quickly emerged as a digital pioneer in our industry, launching solutions such as CoroPlus Machining Insights, creating a connected ecosystem where real-time collaboration and live data sharing is possible.

SC: To be a progressive tooling company, change is a constant. As a leader, how do you encourage others to not only accept change but also embrace and thrive in a state of change?

NF: In my opinion, what most people fail to realize is that change is one of the most powerful development tools available to them. Change forces you to step outside of your comfort zone, challenging your current ways of working, forcing new habits to build upon yesterday's success. At Sandvik Coromant, we are constantly changing and evolving to better position ourselves for the demands of tomorrow. This change has allowed us to remain the industry leader for many years and will continue to do so as we look to shape the future together. Resilient leaders remain focused on the horizon, anticipating the industry demands of tomorrow and embracing the long view. Change prevents our teams from stagnating, a stagnate salesforces starts to work mechanically, going through the motions and giving very little consideration to the unique details of each and every customer we service. When it comes to change management, I focus on three areas – communication, collaboration, and commitment. During my role as Regional Sales Manager, I’ve been fortunate enough to manage teams that embrace change, recognizing that without change there would be no improvement in the sales process. Also recognizing that making adjustments brings the opportunity to become more successful as a team and as individuals. As a team and as individuals, we remain heavily invested and committed to improved processes and the constant evolution of our organization.

Bonus question: What’s your favorite Sandvik Coromant tool and why?

NF: While Sandvik Coromant offers many excellent solutions, my personal favorite is CoroPlus Machining Insights. Machining Insights utilizes analytics to optimize operations and increase overall efficiencies within the manufacturing process. The software allows end-users to uncover opportunities for improvement, gain insight into machine utilization, increase profitability, and increases transparency at all levels within an organization. Manual time studies or data aggregation is a thing of the past, machine monitoring is the future.