Many factors determine the strength of an industrial reality. Between these, one of the most important is adaptation, which implies the ability to know how to grasp the good from the most difficult situations. Beyond the obvious negative consequences, the pandemic had the merit of highlighting this particular feature which was already strongly present in the Nadella Group, an organization that for over 90 years specialized itself in the production of solutions cutting-edge technologies for handling mechanics.

The Group CEO, Liviana Forza - who entered in company in 2019 as Manager of the Linear Business Unit - acquired the current position in June 2020, right on time to witness this delicate but also significant period for the development of the company. “Looking over my shoulder, I see 2020 as the year that has us also granted to prepare us to a future of growth. We have had a chance to improve our products, but also to take care of other projects and other important factors such as innovation and internal organization. Fortunately ours is a big-shouldered Group, and this guaranteed our companies of continue its work despite difficulties even during the lockdown. Today we are starting to reap the rewards of our investments, one collection that we look forward to carry on and grow during the next few years" says the CEO.

The organization

“Nadella's story is a one of development, marked by numerous acquisitions. During the past year we took advantage of the situation to strengthen our central functions in order to make the Group more and more cohesive, applying a coherent strategy internationally. In 2020, for example, our current Nadella CTO Enrico Rolih entered the organization at the top of all engineering of our reality, which are divided in three main areas:

R&D, active on the part of innovation

Application Engineering, which works closely with our Sales Engineers and with our customers. Product Management, established by all those who work to the product strategy e on the competition benchmark.

The result of these investments on the engineering part is evident: of the 400 employees distributed all over the world, over 60 are sales and application engineers figure. As for acquisitions, Nadella has focused on both strengthening existing partnerships and forging new ones. The Group is in fact reaping the fruits of the last two agreements - signed in 2020 and resulting from the work of the M&A department headed by Davide Solbiati - with Shuton and Ipiranga Husillos, two Spanish companies specialized in production of high precision ball screws.

In particular, Shuton is focused on the machine tool sector and thus on the digitization of our products: during EMO MILANO 2021 exhibited iBallscrew, a new smart ballscrew that, through a 4.0 monitoring system, reports in real time the state of lubrication, vibrations and temperature and thus allows predictive maintenance. Always with a view to digitization",continues the CEO, “we have outlined our digital roadmap that will take us to expand the range of services offered by Nadella".

The value of skills

Training is also a fundamental aspect for Nadella. The continuous refresher courses of its employees and the parallel search for new talents are indeed a necessity for the Group companies. Therefore, Nadella continues to invest in initiatives such as the Employer Branding campaign, developed together with some partners in order to attract outgoing talents from technical institutes. According to Liviana Forza, these specific tasks are is not at all simple at the present time: “Due to continued growth volumes and requests, we have decided to strengthen our production plant in Concorezzo, in the province of Monza and Brianza, where we are making the new productions. All our innovations involve new processes and machinery and, consequently, are in need of competent figures able to design and to produce market novelties.

However, especially in this area the search for professionals is challenging and, for this reason, we have developed projects with the aim of strengthen our relationships with technical institutes. It is not about simply hiring further workforce, but also to train that existing: for this reason Nadella continues investing in training and knowledge sharing. We regularly organize internal webinars to share the Group's best practices and the best projects in the application field at an international level, which contribute to the creation of ever greater cohesion and competence "

Products at the center

“Another aspect on which there we are focused on the latter year is definitely development product, beating heart of our business. Innovation investments are reflected directly on our product range, as it showed for example with the new AXNR EVO, an evolution of our complete system which is ready to bring the Group to a more decisive market positioning when it comes to the supply of sub-mechanical systems. This is particular importance, because now the customer is looking for a partner able to offer complete solutions, and thus we are successfully orienting ourselves towards that direction especially in Europe and in China ”, explains Liviana Forza.

“We are also working on the further improvement of our telescopic guides, making some technological changes in order to favor both the interchangeability and the smoothness of this motion solution. Currently, the result is the recently announced new range of tempered telescopic guides. But it is not everything: we are in fact preparing additional components, such as the guide for the seventh axis that will allow us to get closer to world of handling robotics, the automation segment with evolution data more significant. Last June, during the Open House of the Nadella plant in Nufringen (Germany), we have shown a live preview of it our closest customers. Of course this new product was also validated in the laboratory tests of the Polytechnic of Milan, to which we requested an evaluation of its performance to certify a further performance confirmation ".

Bet on China

In the international chessboard of the mechanical sector, China plays a leading role. Due to that, the Nadella Group spent the year also for consolidate its presence on this strategic market. "In 2019 we decided to open an assembly plant close to Shanghai for our linear guide systems, which is the result of a very precise strategy", clarifies the CEO. “The purpose was in fact to produce the guides there too, as well as in Europe, in order to serve best the local Chinese market. We bet on the localization of capabilities, forming even at a distance our local technicians. Last June we hired a new General Manager in China, who is an expert in relationships with European companies and able to follow the market as well as to support us in the understanding how it works. The effectiveness of the strategy is proven by numbers: in fact, in China we are having an important growth of new systems in various industrial sectors, like the automotive one".

Along with investments on organization and innovation of products, this dowel is fundamental upon completion of the plan development developed by Nadella. A growth that, as explained by the CEO Liviana Forza, is already showing in numbers: “In 2021, the turnover overall of the Group has increased 25% compared to last year, and the order entry had an increase of more than 50%, with a total recovery compared to 2020. The goal is to achieve, at the end of 2021, a turnover of over 80 million euros, thus returning at pre-pandemic levels. In 2022, we aim to continue expanding our product range and system offer, focusing above all on our most distinctive feature: the ability to offer advanced and tailor-made motion solutions".

An overview of the Group summarized by Tecn'è