Yellow Papers / How does the Jamai company feel about the development of its Strategic Plan with ieTeam?

Jamai, an industrial company with more than 20 years of experience, decided to draw up its Strategic Plan with ieTeam. Why? Below, we show you the experience of its general manager, Agustín Arandia, in this process.  

First of all, tell us what GRUPO JAMAI does.

We are a company that offers global solutions for companies in various industrial sectors; starting with the analysis and selection of the most competent manufacturing process for each customer's needs, also covering the design and development of the engineering of the part for its correct industrialisation, going on to manufacture parts in casting, forging, injection, chip removal, including paint finishes, metallising and various surface protections. Maximum quality is ensured at all times, having inspected each part through destructive and non-destructive controls at each stage of the process, and finally, managing all the logistics and after-sales.

Among others, we work in the following sectors:

- Railway

- Wind energy

- Industrial vehicles

- Fluids

- Lifting and hoisting

- Engine

- Indoor

We are currently located in Spain, where in addition to our headquarters, we have foundry facilities, through one of the group's companies: Inamesa (Vitoria) and welding processes, finishing and testing laboratory (at the headquarters in Aduna). We also have sales offices in China, India, Brazil and Mexico.

We work hand in hand with companies in their respective sectors, such as CAF, Fagor and Jaso.

What was the main reason why you decided to draw up a Strategic Plan?

We used to draw up strategic plans internally, but it was at a general management level, and with very little participation from the team.

The idea of drawing up a Strategic Plan with an external consultancy was born out of a need for change in the decision-making policy, so it was necessary to reflect on this at all levels as a starting point.

We are currently experiencing an important generational change within the company, which opens a new era, in which people in the team have acquired and will have to acquire new roles and responsibilities, so we thought it would be interesting to open this reflection to the team.

What would you highlight about the project you have developed with ieTeam?

The breadth of areas covered by the project. Until now, the experience we had in this aspect was dealing with purely economic issues, so working on other aspects such as market diversification, commercial strategies, digital transformation, people management, distribution of responsibilities or process innovation, has made us see realities that we did not even have on our radar, nor did we think we would cover, and now they are already in the form of projects that we are excited about.

There is definitely much more to managing a company than the economic-financial aspects, which is why this type of project makes you evaluate all areas in a cross-cutting manner and offers you a new perspective.

Yours has been a participatory strategic plan, in which several key people in the company have been able to take part. How has this helped in defining the group's future challenges?

The fact of including more people in the reflection has brought to light issues that were not paid attention to before, since voices that were not there before have been included. Everyone has their own reality, and sharing it makes the project that is being built much stronger, reflects the reality of the team, and does not have the vision of only one or two people.

In addition, opening this forum to the team allows you to see people in a different context, which also helps you to detect competencies and capacities that you had not identified.

Now that the project has been completed, strategic challenges have emerged, such as diversification towards high value-added businesses or professionalisation of management.

The strategic challenges defined, as you say, are, on the one hand, diversification towards businesses that provide added value, whether by targeting new sectors, establishing ourselves in new markets such as Germany or France, or offering new services to our traditional customers, accompanying them in their growth. The most important change in this aspect is the detection of a need for a significant commercial effort that can drive this challenge, which is key for us, mainly to gain the security of having several chips in the game.

On the other hand, we want to ensure that the proposed growth is profitable, sustainable and integrated (of all the companies in the group), focusing on the Group's economic model, industrial strategy and the partners we want to rely on, whether they are suppliers, customers or strategic alliances.

Finally, with regard to the challenge of professionalising management, I believe that this is the challenge that will allow us to achieve everything else, since creating autonomous and transversal teams, facing the challenge of talent management, and ensuring that everything is done in a coordinated manner will be the key to being able to build everything else.

All of this while also working transversally on the challenge of Digital Transformation, which is one of our top priorities.

 

What difficulties have you identified along the way?

The greatest difficulty we have identified has come after the project was carried out. I mentioned earlier that the need to carry out this project lay in changing the way of working internally and adopting other dynamics. Thanks to the Strategic Plan, we have started to work in an integrated and transversal way, but this takes time, work and the involvement of the whole team.

At the end of the day, it has been many years working in a specific way, and implementing a new dynamic of decision making, internal communication or communication with the client, means a significant cultural change for Jamai, and for this, the capacity to manage change and adaptation of the team, both at management level as well as middle management and operators, is going to be one of the challenges to be faced in the coming years.

What would you highlight as the main achievement or key result identified?

Without a doubt, the greatest value of carrying out this process has been to integrate the entire team at a strategic level, and to include them in this conversation, as until now this had not been done. Before, you assumed that there was no need to communicate certain information to them, or to involve them in these issues, but we have seen that taking them into account in these reflections makes them feel part of it, not just in words, but on a day-to-day basis, when they bring you new ideas and initiatives, and you see that they are committed to the project.

In addition, I believe that the most direct impact has been on the training of the team to face the transition we are going through, providing them with initiative, empowerment and decision-making capacity.

Why would you encourage other companies to define their Strategic Plan with ieTeam?

I understand that all companies will have worked, or are working, on a Strategic Plan, as it is a necessary script for projecting the future and making decisions. In addition to this, this process of reflection together with the ieTeam team has allowed us (or forced us) to leave the day-to-day and focus on analysing the company's future strategy. Something that is impossible on a day-to-day basis.

It is also worth highlighting, as I said before, the fact that this process is worked on with key people from the team, who can be seen in another forum, which the day-to-day work does not allow. It enriches both the process and the result.