Who are you?
I’m Massimo, and I’m the sales director for the group in Italy. I have been with Customs Support for five months, and my background is in international sales surrounding IT and financing.
What does a commercial director do for Customs Support in Italy?
At the moment, two of my main objectives are to harmonise the office procedures and offerings across Italy and to build a sales network that can drive our services effectively.
The group has acquired several companies in Italy and they are still used to doing things their way, so my first major task is to assess how each office manages their customer relations, reporting, project planning, and sales processes.
Once we have this data, we can bring the best practices together and work in the same way.
So what is your typical working day?
There isn’t a typical working day when I am working with six different branches in Italy. We have a lot of feedback to collect across the offices, whether that’s from our people or our customers, and then a lot of sorting that information so that we can plan how to drive our value to the marketplace.
It is a lengthy process, but we will perform more optimally and deliver better results once we have been through it.
What do you like most about your role?
I love the sales process in that I am here to solve a problem and drive results, but what I like about my role here is that the company is evolving every day.
What excites you about being in the company at this stage of growth?
This was one of the main things that attracted me to work with Customs Support. They are a large organisation, but they are actively investing in growth and development.
I have worked with multinational companies before, but when they were more developed and set in their ways. When companies are at that stage, they sometimes are less willing to take on challenges or invest in newer things.
Here [at Customs Support], new-generation technology and people are being invested in and I believe that the decisions made by myself and the other senior managers will lead to real growth, not just maintenance. The company supports its people and the team here is great at working towards that shared vision.
What is the next stage of development for Italy?
The goal is to take all of the experience from past companies [acquisitions] and combine that with the group’s structure in the international market.
There is wisdom in the old family-run entrepreneurial setups that we have here in Italy, and I am looking forward to seeing how they adapt to the international support of the group. It will be a good mix and will put us in a good position to become the number one customs broker in Italy.
What do you like to do when you're not a work and how does that influence your work skills?
I like to feed my energy and have fun when I am not at work. I run, and I still play football – although in goal now as I’m a little older. I have also dabbled as a DJ, but I did this for the joy of creating the mixes myself more than anything else. You can hear one of my house mixes on Soundcloud.
I am married and have a one-year-old son. He is my main motivation. As a father, you want to work hard and stay healthy so that you can give them the best future and enjoy it with them.
What is the most important thing that a client should look for in a customs broker?
Reliability. In this market, things are required on time and accurately. If your partner isn’t reliable, you can miss ships or a vehicle, but ultimately you miss the trust of your customer and potential business. You need a partner who is reliable with their knowledge, experience, and processes.
You work with a Europe-wide network. If you were to visit an office location of Customs Support, which country would you like to go and see first and why?
I would like to visit one of the Nordic countries as they are very creative in how they approach things, particularly with digitalisation, and it makes them very successful. I would like to understand more about some of the ways they do things, and what we can learn from them.
