Quite a lot has already been told about Covid-19 crisis and emergency. Like all Italian companies, we at Carlo Sessa have had to cope with a situation never faced before. Firstly, we had to protect our own health as well as the one of our employees, however without putting the never-stopping workflow aside.

The first weeks were not that easy as far as organization is concerned: some staff have immediately started with smart-working, whereas the people responsible for sales, logistics, store and quality control have kept working in physical presence within the company.

Companies, business and Covid-19: interview with the Carlo Sessa staff

Luca Vignoli, Sales Manager; Purchase pharma-department, who has kept on working at office, argues:

“At first, is certainly was difficult. I declared myself ready to work at office every day, along with two coworkers and with the support of the Management we have worked out a safety protocol, allowing us to keep on working in the respect of all provided safety measures (gloves, masks hand sanitiziers, limited access to external staff, temperature check at the entrance, etc..). We have lived this period with so many physical and emotional problems; March, April up to mid May were the worst ones under this aspect.”

Roberto Cerutti, Quality Control Manager of the pharma-department has a similar opinion: “I have lived and am living with a healthy spirit of survival, trying to face the situation.”

Obviously, logistics wasn’t stopped either. Marco Cappuccio, Store/Logistics Manager has always been present, but had to adjust his way of working according to the emergency: “We had to change the order preparation, OC, DDT, TRANSPORTATION. Before Covid, everything was dealt quite differently, as I was directly interfaced with my Logistics partner. Now, everything is made by e-mail and there is a different timing for order preparation”.

Roberta Bosio (Bookkeping Manager) and Antonella Bergamini (Tea Sector and Internal Logistics) have both been working at the Company for years, whereas they’ve had now the possibility of remote working. They have lived this particular situation as an opportunity: “Less distraction and much concentration” so Antonella, but as Roberta says “no human relationship with partners is a negative aspect”.

Companies, business and Covid-19: interview with the Carlo Sessa Sales Staff.

On the contrary, the change rather “confused” the sales staff, since they were used to travel a lot and visit customers partners, suppliers as well as to take part to events and International exhibitions.

“I’ve replaced visits with skypecalls, emails and online meetings”, as Alessandro Bassanini, Sales Manager Health Food Division, claims, “I could have many other opportunities of self-emprovement, along with webinars (pandemic changes dynamics), a chance of confrontation with educators, etc.. What I missed the most was instead the physical distance with customers, the days around Italy, representing something necessary to my working and physical experience, i.e. exchanging opinions, smiles and daily life with fellows at office”.

Carmelo Mavilia, Sales Manager of the Cosmetic Sector, remarks a change in his sector. “In these last few months, many customers have started producing sanitizers, some others have suffered delays in the production due to Covid and someone else has closed down for some time. Online stores were successful in sales but this doesn’t directly relate to raw materials.

Companies, business and Covid-19: interview with the Carlo Sessa Management

The whole internal and external reorganization of processes was supported and developed by the Management, facing a restructuring never seen before. Nowadays we have recovered a “nearly” normal life and we are considering the possibility of going on with a partial home-office in the future, too. “We are working on it”, so Valentina Sessa, Board Member.

“I’ve had more time to think and manage everything in a more effective and concentrated way. We had some operational difficulties at the very beginning, when everything was still quite uncertain. Today we are working good and do not have big concerns about the future. This time was useful once again to understand how important is the online presence and how many are the opportunities offered by the web. It is difficult to make any predictions, exhibitions and events cannot be as they were before the Covid-era, for sure”.

Guido Sessa, Finance Managing Director doesn’t either take a position for the future: “It depends a lot on how at a National and International level we shall cope with Covid-19 both from the medical (it’s not over, yet!) and the economical (to be defined) point of view. What I dare say, I’m pretty proud of what we’ve done all together. We were lucky to belong to essential sectors and to be able to rely on good suppliers and customers, so that we didn’t have critical impacts on the company or even risk our workplaces. Some interesting opportunities are emerging, therefore we are taking some new important projects into account”.

All big changes break new ground and we at Carlo Sessa are thinking positive and are ready to face these new challenges.