As Managing Director of SAAM Towage, Hernán Gómez faces a variety of challenges every day: SAAM Towage.

He took on the position in April 2020, a complex year for the entire world due to the Coronavirus pandemic, tasked with the job of steering SAAM Towage’s leading role in the global towage industry’s consolidation process. To accomplish this, the company has made progress on diverse fronts and initiatives, including the Tripanko project.

How does the Tripanko project impact this objective?

Tripanko is key to our strategy of growth and consolidation. We want to think of SAAM Towage as one single organization, rather than a group of operations in different countries. In order to achieve integration, it is essential to have common processes that also seek efficiency and a continual high level of service. Tripanko will help us in core areas of our business such as maintenance and purchasing (NS) and dispatch and invoicing (Helm).

Can you give us a concrete example?

Sure. Our business relies intensively on fixed assets, so properly managing assets and maintenance with a long-term outlook and good information makes all the difference. That way, you can extend the useful life of your assets and make a very big impact on profitability. And that is very closely linked to purchasing: more than 80% of our purchases are related to maintenance. Helm is the other half of the equation: fleet monitoring, dispatch, the provision of services and customer invoicing. Standardizing those processes and systems will help streamline both internal and customer-facing management, make us more competitive and let us grow in a more orderly and sustainable fashion.

In your opinion, what are the main challenges in implementing Tripanko?

There are several. This type of implementation is never easy and, in fact, the project team adjusted their planning because there were elements that we had not considered in the beginning and it was very important to include them. Perhaps the most complex part is the cultural shift involved in changing processes. It’s hard for everyone to do things differently than we are used to. However, we are convinced that this change is not only good for the company–in terms of operations and profitability–but also for the organization and employees. Without a doubt, Tripanko will mark our organization’s identity and improve integration and communication between different areas of the company. It will also instill knowledge that will be an asset for our people’s professional development and employability, while facilitating internal mobility between different SAAM Towage operations.