Industry Innovators: An interview with Alberto Rostagno – Senior Vice President Commercial and Sales at Dematic

Our Industry Innovators series interviews senior leaders across industrial technology industries, exploring the latest trends, upcoming technologies and pressing hot topics that are shaping the future.

We help business leaders in the warehouse automation and intralogistics markets grow their teams and Warehouse Automation Consultant James Disney recently had the privilege of speaking to Senior Vice President Commercial and Sales at Dematic, Alberto Rostagno.

Alberto discusses various aspects of the industry and shares his insights and experience. Watch the full interview here or read the full transcript below:

Today, I’ve got the pleasure of speaking with Alberto Rostagno, the Senior Vice President Commercial and Sales at Dematic. Alberto, can you give us a brief overview of yourself and your experience in automation?

Yes. Thanks, James. My name is Alberto Rostagno. I joined Dematic in 2021 as the customer service profit and loss, responsible for EMEA, so Europe and the Middle East, and I spent the first two years and a half in Dematic trying to create a European customer service organization starting from three separate teams that they work in Central Europe, South Europe and North Europe.

In August last year, I moved to be the responsible for the sales activity for projects, and this is what I’m currently doing. I arrived in the industry after 25, 26 years in the energy, oil and gas world. And for me, it has been so far a fascinating experience because I’m learning every day something different than you.

That’s great to hear. So where does your passion for the industry come from, or what made you want to be a part of intralogistics specifically?

The passion comes from complex project management. So at the end, I have always been working in projects business and I think that the understanding of the customer needs and translating in a project that suits their needs is something that always fascinated me. Understand what they have in terms of technical needs and then commercial needs, financial needs, their business model and transform it in a technical solution. And then ecommerce trouble, viable solutions, is something that really excites me.

Excellent. Excellent. And what changes have you seen so far in your experience within the intralogistics industry?

Unfortunately, I arrived in the industry during the roller coaster of this industry. I arrived when everyone was excited that this industry could have just an incredible growth, the future was perfect and there was nothing to stop it. Unfortunately, after two years, then there was a realization that capacity built was too much.

There was not enough capability in the market to make these projects work, and there was not enough business for all the warehouses to run. So we went through from an incredible excitement to a very deep depression and now I am really leading maybe the more steady state situation where this is a very good industry with solid fundamentals, but without these crazy growth age that they were facing, during the COVID post-COVID, type of period.

Now, Dematic understandably have a very large portfolio. And so given your multifaceted capabilities, where are you seeing the most demand at the moment in terms of solution?

Being responsible for Europe, this is an answer that there’s a lot of nuances because clearly every country, every group of countries have their own dynamics. If you take a look at the, let’s say, more Latin countries, so France, Spain and Italy, clearly the big projects are somehow on hold or in continuous development. Very few are really closed and they are moving forward.

There is a high reflection in how to move forward in this industry without some external subsidy support and to reply what was the very positive trend that they were facing at the end of 2018, 19 and 20 – If you take a look at the German part, so the dark area clearly they are suffering the automotive industry situation and all mechanical industry pull through that is generated by the automotive industry, so that is really not flying and UK still is stabilizing post-Brexit. If you take a look in terms of vertical, clearly food and beverage, groceries, they do not particularly stop because people still need to have food at home. Aparell and all the luxury element is very stagnant and manufacturing or durable is suffering as well.

So clearly the food industry that is very wide it goes from the farm in Italy to the real grocery. This is where still we see a growth and a continuous market.

And how do you think mobile robotics has changed this space?

It’s not that fast. It is changing, it’s still not something that is perfectly established as change. It clearly this gives us a wider opportunity to develop projects where there is not a huge number of goods to be moved. It has a much more flexible type of investment because all the infrastructure needed to run the more standard automation project is not needed there.

But the interest there is still developing, establishing most likely of the hundreds of players that they are coming from Far East or that are developing in Europe. Very few will remain. And I think that at this stage the industry would be considered as developed.

Do you think that will change in the next 5 to 10 years? What do you think are the key trends that are shaping the industry?

Robotics in general is the biggest driver. I see this very impactful for whatever are the peaking processes and peaking operations. Clearly, as soon as that will be, you know, companies capable to replicate the hands capability in a much more, let’s say sophisticated way that will make the change in this kind of part of the of the process. They aim to arrive to plans that will be fully automated is clearly the long term goal.

Really, they can be ran even maybe remotely and that could be another huge trend. And the third one clearly is how the software development, including the use of cloud, the use of artificial intelligence, will modify these things and the integration even more between the different layer of software between the WC as the WMS the WYES. So all these things, clearly will be the next the trend of the future and even the trends of today.

Now, Alberto, what are the biggest hurdles or challenges that you have faced in your career in getting to where you are?

Let me divide the answer in two phases. The last 4 years and before. So the last four years for me has been to reformat my brain, to change my habits, to change my paradigms. Because having worked 25 years in an industry, the first thing that I really try to avoid is, always use the typical phrases, “I used to do this.” “We were doing this.” “It is possible to adapt this because…” So really change the format of my mind and adapt to the industry instead of pretending to act the same way, has been the biggest hurdle. Because you always have the tendency to come back to your comfort zone. So the things that helped you in the past, are not always the things that will help in the future.

So that for me has been a real big change, not being an expert on the industry. So I had to learn everything in four years and I’m still learning every day. I always say I am not an expert, so I always try to learn every day from the great people that work at Dematic. In the previous part of my career, they hurdle has always been, that maybe I was not excelling in one particular skill while I was very good in understanding the general things happening in a company and put those together.

So not being a real functional expert or a real, let’s say, champion in any of the different roles. But clearly the role of profit and loss leader was the one where I had better performance, and well, when I had leadership position in a pure functional area, it was where I struggled more, in a very honest way.

Now it’s a highly competitive marketplace at the moment and Dematic is in a lot of competition with some of the other larger integrators. How do you think the Dematic solution specifically stands out against these top integrators?

I think from my previous responsibility within Dematic, if there is one thing that I can say and and I think it cannot be discussed at the level of reliability of the equipment of Dematic are by far better than most of the other competitors. So if you have tough operations where you have a very high level of throughput or high-intense type of operation, clearly the Dematic solution gives you a sort of insurance that during steady operations during your business, you will never be left in a difficult situation.

The second thing is the broader portfolio of products that we can have and the huge capability to integrate not just at the WCS level, but also the WMS level. So I think this is really where we are differentiating ourself versus competition.

Now you are in quite a senior leadership position in the business. What are some key qualities that you look for in hiring sales professionals?

Let’s divide the sales leaders or the people that have a leadership position in sales, versus the account manager and the pure salespeople. So for me, there are two characteristics that a great sales leader needs to have. First of all, they need to think like a business leader, not just as a sales leader. So really understand the implication of their role in a wider picture.

And the second think is really how they drive influence within the organization and with leadership. So, you know, sales at the end do not own the vast majority of the organization. Really the sales organization are the smallest one. But the capability to influence all the other functions with their leadership for me is fundamental for a good sales leader.

And if you instead talk about a sales manager, for me, to try to summarize to two characteristics – one is really like capability to translate the need of a customer in a business model for Dematic. And the second one is really to understand the signal from the customer – if a deal is the real deal, if you are well positioned, how the other competitors are acting.

So these for me are two important characteristics of a sales person in a project business that, you know, needs a lot of intelligence to be successful.

And I suppose that leads onto my next question. What is your management and leadership ideology, how have you found it managing such a large network of international employees?

First of all, I try to avoid micromanagement and I try to avoid entering the shoes of my direct reports. So I fully trust them and I fully support them until nothing in contrary happens. And for me, the role of leader is really putting those people in the best condition to execute at their full potential. The second thing I think that you can motivate everyone and there are simple methods to do it.

But I again trust that senior people is motivated by their own reasons, and I don’t want to create a uniform approach now that people is motivated. These people are more motivated for future career growth. People are motivated by money, we have to be honest, and people motivated by their role. And you cannot try to have just one team with one characteristic you need have a team with different characteristics, take what is important for them and try to push that.

But that is what I think again and I try to give good example. So if, if there is a need of a period of high intensity, I am the first one to be there. If there is a period where you need to be more in the analysis or trying to understand what is happening before acting, yes, I am the first one to try to do it. So I tried really the leading by example kind of attitude. That is another key trait for me.

Excellent. So trusting in your direct reports, motivate young people in the way that they most need to be motivated – treating everyone like individuals, and then obviously leading from the front as well. Now, in your eyes Alberto, what’s been your biggest achievement, or what are you most excited about on the horizon?

My biggest achievement in the last four years has been really give a sense of identity and a sense of pride to the customer service organization in Dematic. We became bigger than the project business and I think that I feel really proud to have been part of that team and to have led that. What I am excited for, is that having seen these the rollercoaster and having clear the fact that this industry has solid fundamentals for the future.

I think the future could be just better, much more stable, much more driven for sustainable growth, much more in line to a clever go-to-market strategy for each player instead of fighting every one for each project going in a price battle. I think that is what excites me more.

It’s great you have pride in the customer service in the aftermarket aspect.

I think that the customer service element is really the business card that every company has for a long term relationship with the customers. Without this working, it’s very complicated that you have continuous and repetitive business with your customer base.

We’ve seen more recently that businesses have collapsed due to a lack of after-market support. What I’ll ask you next is, is there anyone in the industry, either a person or a company that you can point to, that had the biggest influence or impact on your work?

I moved to this industry, thanks to my previous boss in my previous company, that became the CEO of Dematic during the golden age of automation, so between 2018 to 2023. He retired and I think in Dematic and before Dematic for me he has been a role model, not just as a manager but as a person, how he dealt with people.

How he always respected everyone how he was capable to give opportunities to all of us, I think has been a great example. And again, I’m still thankful that he gave me the opportunity to move to Dematic.

Yeah, I think it’s always important to have that kind of a role model for how you act in business. What advice would you give to someone who’s looking to move into the industry in 2024 or 2025?

The suggestion is to embrace the industry not as a short-term opportunistic move, but as a long-term dedication to an industry that has it’s own rule, you need to learn it. You need to be humble, to enter in this industry. But again, it is an industry with good fundamentals, with very interesting projects, technically, commercially, but at the end, you influence how the goods are moved in your own country and you’re not in the region, in Europe or in the world.

And that’s really something that impacts the life of everyone, every day. So that is the kind of suggestion – don’t take it as a short opportunistic thing, because most likely in the next two years it will not be just roses, but take it as a long term commitment to embrace a very interesting industry.