25 years at Armony:
an interview with Adelchi Bortolin
In the second chapter of Armony Equa, Our People, we explored the value of human capital, which is nurtured through three main approaches: inclusion, welfare and safeguarding talent.
And it is precisely the culture of talent that forms the main focus of this compelling interview with Adelchi Bortolin, our Administration and Finance Manager, who has been called on to address the changes and challenges of our times together with the company.
Adelchi Bortolin, an exceptionally long company career. How did your journey start out, what are your responsibilities at Armony today and what drove you to be part of this project for so many years?
I joined Armony on 1 September 1999, so a good 25 years ago now. Before that, I worked in the military public administration, which gave me a solid base in terms of complying with roles and procedures. Then I worked for 10 years for a furniture manufacturer that produced kitchens, holding all the various positions in the accounting department before becoming the Administration Manager. I am currently the Administration and Finance Manager at Armony, where my career has spanned a long period characterised by a great many changes within the company.
How has your work evolved over all these years and how do you think Armony and its corporate culture have evolved at the same time?
Armony is a constantly growing company with a strong vocation for internationalisation. In the early 2000s, it was inclined to develop business, especially on the Italian market, and was gradually entering foreign markets. This expansion mainly regarded France, Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as here and there in the rest of the world.
From an accounting perspective, this meant facing problems resulting from a financial management approach that specifically catered for those markets. During this period of company growth, however, there have also been negative periods. By this I mean the 2008 subprime crisis, which hit the world economy, and the COVID-19 epidemic, which forced us to halt production in 2020, and consequently manage the negotiations concerning arrears with suppliers, banks, lenders, etc.
However, both in the new business challenges and in times of crisis, I have always had the support and felt the trust of the company’s directors, even when the choices to be made were extremely difficult. And I think that this part of the reason why the company has pulled through difficult moments in a positive way, for everyone concerned.
How many people work in your department and how has it changed over the years?
Back in 1999, in the first and what was then the only premise in Mansuè, there were more or less 40 labourers and about 25 office workers. We now have a workforce of 160, and in 2019, the year before COVID-19 struck, we opened a plant in Caneva, a new factory equipped with hi-tech production lines, which we then had to shut down for a few months in 2020, as I mentioned earlier. Fortunately, however, we got back on our feet, because market demand for our products continued.
Armony products, namely Armony kitchens, are the result of the company’s special relationship with its surrounding area. How is this aspect felt, or at least you do you perceive it, in everyday work?
From an administrative perspective, all I can say is that the figures and the records show we have a solid relationship with our local suppliers, which belong to a world-class furniture cluster. This is a relationship that generates value, and this value is passed on to our customers in the finished product. These are synergies that not only make themselves felt in my department, but that I also encounter when talking to colleagues responsible for the procurement and technical areas.
Do you think that Armony can be defined a people-centric company, one that focuses on and stimulates people and promotes their individual potential and qualities?
What I can say is that the directors have always passed on a message that I believe to be crucial and that makes the difference to the quality of our employees’ work: giving each manager full freedom to choose the pathway best suited to the aspiration of the personnel they coordinate. An attitude that has been supported by investments in the human resources area. I believe this to be something solid that testifies to the top management’s propensity to allow the company’s human capital to express its full potential.
How important do you think human relations are in business?
Due to my personal imprinting, I have always placed great importance on interpersonal relationships and human relations, both with my co-workers and with the external organisations I work with, which can be credit institutions or the various consultants that have administrative dealings with the company. Relationships that I have always nurtured with a totally transparent approach, because I am firmly convinced that it is better to tackle a problem straight way than try to get around it. Although this approach may seem rather ‘rigid’, in the long term it has always paid off and has allowed me to build solid and meaningful relationships.
What would your advice be to a young person, and there are many of them today, who has just finished their studies and wants to start a career in this industry?
The advice I would give to youngsters is to get the most from their early experiences and to build up the richest baggage of expertise they can. To take advantage of every opportunity to learn new things, such as the training courses the company allows its employees to take. I would also tell them that, in this rapidly-evolving world, it is unlikely they will find their ideal job on their first experience, so they mustn’t give up, they must try to get the most from every single occupational experience before moving on to the next one.
With Armony Equa, the company is consolidating its virtuous pursuit of sustainability and welfare. What does this kind of process mean and how does it change your relationship with the organisations you work with every day?
In its productive operations, Armony has always been susceptible and committed to sustainability. However, in recent years, we have started focusing on sustainability in the administrative field too, both internally, with optimised paper and energy-saving procedures, and in dealings with our network of external partners, such as banks.
On an ESG front, we are already working with these partners to reach a point where we are able to draw up sustainability reports, which will become mandatory over the next few years, in order to disclose information on our environmental, social and economic impacts using standardised European criteria. Armony wants to make sure it is ready for this evolution. Sustainability will undeniably bring, if not an upheaval, certainly a change of mindset for all of us who work in the company, but it is a challenge that we are facing with a positive and responsible attitude.
As a matter of fact, rather than ‘challenge’ I would call it an ‘opportunity’ to do our part in the ecological transition that calls upon us all to play a leading role.
Lastly, what will be your fondest memory when you look back at your long and successful career with Armony?
At the risk of sounding repetitive, I will always remember the interpersonal relationships I have succeeded in building both inside and outside the company.
With the ARMONY EQUA project, we intend to make our customers and everyone who comes into contact with Armony Cucine aware of our commitment and journey to find our harmony, with the planet and with its inhabitants.
In our next article, we will be talking about the community around us and how we implement an ongoing exchange of value with it. Our surrounding area and the workmanship that characterises it provides us with talent, expertise and materials. We return this value in the form of initiatives, specific programmes and partnerships that involve not only the furniture industry, but the local community as a whole.